My parents lost their home in the Bar Harbor fire. My mom had polio and my dad was working a few miles away. He ran, on foot, back to the house to find her and get her out. My aunt who lived on the shore of Sorrento, watched the Island burn from her house.

My father, a WWII vet, sharpened saws for the crews cleaning up the damage after this fire. Dad had grown up in the lumber camps inland (Wellington), even though his biological father was from Cape Rosier and his mother from Islesboro. An older man taught my father who would have been 21 at the time how to sharpen saws and that was my father's job. At the time of the fire, my father, his mother and his younger siblings were living on Norway Drive in a small cabin, my father bought when he convinced her to leave her abusive second husband, and they were spared. Dad always talked about this fire. And whenever we would drive from our home in Montana to visit my grandma on Norway Drive, Dad would complain about how old Bar Harbor had been corrupted by the tourists. When I go back to my hometown of Bozeman, MT, I hear my father's voice complaining about how outsiders have corrupted the town and the community we loved. Bar Harbour. Bozeman, Montana. When outside money moves in and takes over...paradise lost...

Good job on the reporting. Thanks to all and to my classmates, Debbie Dyer.