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fabulous mess of poppies, sweet peas, hollyhocks, asters, and clematis that was immortalized
in her 1894 book An Island Garden, is still there—or rather was re-created in 1977 by Dr.
John Kingsbury, the founder and first director of the marine laboratory. Some of her original
plants are still there, but many are raised in greenhouses on the UNH campus. Visits are lim-
ited to Wednesdays and reservations are required.
The rest of the island, other than the lab facilities and the migration banding station
(which uses volunteers nicknamed “Band-Aids”), remains in a pristine state, far enough off-
shore to escape the major effects of coastal pollution and light-years away from the normal
distraction of mainland life. There are no cars, no movieplexes, and nothing to distract you
from the island's 3 miles of rocky shoreline—unless you count the live underwater lobster
webcam.
Cornell biology professor Kingsbury founded Shoals Marine Laboratory in 1973, partly
in frustration at the lack of hands-on research opportunities for his budding students. Before
World War II, when the military seized Appledore Island to use as an observation post, UNH
had operated a marine zoology lab there. Somehow Kingsbury managed to cut through red
tape and got his university and UNH to join forces. Today, SML is a self-sufficient commu-
nity that generates its own power, maintains its own fresh-, salt-, and wastewater systems,
and runs this campus that attracts students from all over the world.
WHILE YOU'RE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
All nine of the Isles of Shoals are privately owned. The only hotel is the Oceanic, a
historic cluster of buildings built along a wooden walkway on Star Island, and only
attendees of summer conferences can stay there. For more than a century, the Star
Island Corporation, which also owns 90 percent of Appledore (it leases the island to
Cornell and UNH), has been hosting a series of weeklong conferences at the Ocean-
ic. Each week, the conferees challenge the Penguins (the nickname for the young
college kids who work at the Oceanic) to a rousing softball game. Not only does the
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