021. Andre the Seal

We venture north to the beautiful shores of Midcoast Maine and visit Andre the Seal in Rockport

Transcript

Hello and welcome to another episode of the New England on a Pedestal podcast. I am your host, Doug Farquharson.  If you have returned after listening to previous episodes, thanks for sticking with us! We purposefully design each episode of our podcast to be a stand-alone chapter in the story of New England as told through its many and varied statues and monuments. And we hope that once you have heard one of our podcasts, you’ll be inspired to take a listen to our other episodes. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to us through your favorite podcast platform and consider leaving a review for us. It will help us reach more listeners and expand our audience. Thank you!

Back in October of 2023, my wife and I found ourselves once again along Maine’s beautiful coastline and decided to visit Rockport. I knew of a true story from my childhood that took place in part here and went looking for a statue dedicated to the main character in that incredible tale. We go “into the field” for the first part of this episode.

<Live recording in the field: Sounds of people talking, birds, and harbor noises in background.>  Hey Pedestal Peeps, it’s Doug in the field again today on a beautiful October afternoon. We are in Rockport, Maine, right by Rockport Harbor and the boat launch. Standing next to what remains of the Rockport lime kilns. It was an industry back in the nineteenth century where lime was brought here by train, fed into major sized kilns and then heated up and eventually shipped out in and uh by schooner from this harbor and was sent all around the east coast as part of the construction trade. It was um it was used in building and um in construction. This is now a historical site and these are the last uh basically the last remaining evidence of Rockport’s industrial past. As I walk past the kiln and across a small parking lot with some people here, I head out into uh haha not into but towards a small protected cove which is the harbor and currently with the sunset it is just gorgeous. Flat water. Birds out on the docks. And there is a fleet of lobster boats at anchor out here. Just a stunningly beautiful October afternoon. You can hear the wind whistle as I walk. Walking past a um bell that was cast in 1890 in Boston, Massachusetts. And it is, it was bast by the Blake Bell Company and it is part of the US Lighthouse Establishment in 1890. And these bells were used in lighthouses all up and down the Maine coast to warn of the rocky, rocky coast.

As we continue up here, we come to the reason for the visit to this park. And that would be none other than the statue of Andre the Seal. If you grew up in anywhere in basically in New England, but mostly either Boston or along the coast of Maine, you probably heard stories of Andre the Seal. This sculpture is by Jane Wasley, Wasey W-A-S-E-Y, and was made in 1978. It is up on top of a small pedestal. It is carved out of a big slab of granite. Andre probably sits five feet long and rises up about 18 to 24 inches above the base here. Beautiful rendition of a harbor seal. And there’s a small plaque in this little garden here. Uh, and it was actually…it was actually uh dedicated while Andre was still alive. And it says “Andre was born on Robinson’s Rock in Penobscot Bay on May 16th, 1961. Abandoned at birth, he was found’ befriended, raised, and trained by Harry Goodridge of Rockport. Andre is an Honorary Harbormaster of Rockport Harbor and is a celebrity of more than local renown. His antics have delighted people far and wide. Andre is a harbor seal,” …it has it’s latin name for it. I’m not even going to attempt to pronounce it ”…the only species that occurs regularly in New England waters. This small park is maintained by the Rockport Garden Club for the pleasure of the public.” Beautiful little park surrounded with bushes, some small trees, a nice little white fence. All kinds of people come by here and uh visit it. We’ll get into the whole story of Andre and how and why he delighted so many people up and down the New England coast. <End of live recording in the field.>

As mentioned earlier, Andre was a harbor seal born in the early 1960s and abandoned by his mother in Penobscot Bay in Maine. The local harbormaster, Harry Goodridge, a man who was known to take in stray and abandoned animals of all kinds found him and began to nurse him back to health. Harry wore several hats and worked as a tree surgeon and took jobs as a scuba diver. He let him stay in his home where Andre got used to being around people. Harry would bring him to work down by the docks during the days and eventually taught him some tricks such as shaking hands with his flipper or covering his eyes in mock shame. He’d fetch a ball tossed in the water. Soon tourists started stopping by to catch his antics. The first winter, and winters can be quite harsh along the Maine coast, Andre disappeared for about five months and Harry just assumed he’d gone back into the wild. However, his favorite seal reappeared and continued with his antics the next summer. Not everyone was thrilled to have Andre around all the time as he did get into some mischief around fisherman’s boats and docks. Eventually, Harry thought that maybe having Andre winter at the New England Aquarium would be a good idea and he made arrangements for him to be taken in. I actually remember seeing him at the aquarium on some of my many visits there as a kid growing up in Boston. When Harry released Andre back into the cold Atlantic waters off of the Massachusetts coastline, he assumed that would be the last he’d see of Andre as harbor seals are not migratory animals. To his great surprise many weeks later there was Andre back in Rockport’s waters up to his old tricks and habits. This went on for years and years and Andre became a celebrity of sorts. TV programs, newscasts, magazines, newspapers all did stories on him. Even a movie was made about him. Andre even was the ringbearer for Harry’s daughter’s wedding. When Andre was about 25 years old he was challenged by a younger, larger bull male harbor seal over territory and a battle ensued. Andre was badly injured and swam off to find a quiet, peaceful place to spend his last days. Harry recovered his body several days later and gave him a proper burial. Andre is considered to have been one of the oldest harbor seals to still be in the wild. Others have lived longer, but they mostly were ones in captivity in aquariums and zoos. Finally visiting the statue was a lot of fun for me. A couple years before I had been listening to a local podcast and they told about the legend of Andre the Seal. It brought back a lot of childhood memories for me.

If you’re ever visiting mid-coast Maine, be sure to take aside trip and visit the statue of Andre the Seal. It’s a beautiful area full of great shopping, restaurants, breweries, and entertainment. 

As we mentioned before, the concept behind New England on a Pedestal is rather simple. Travel around our six-state area, find some interesting statues, and discuss them. We have a growing database of statues, monuments, and sculptures that we will be covering over time, but we certainly do not know all of them. That is where you can assist us. Shoot us an email at newenglandonapedestal@farqie.com and tell us about a favorite or unique or odd statue you know. If you have additional information or maybe a correction about something we have already shared, please send it our way and perhaps, we will add an addendum to a later episode.

We would love to hear from you. Let us know what you think. What we are doing right? What we can do better? Let us know of a statue with a story near and dear to you. We can be reached via email at newenglandonapedestal@farqie.com. That’s New England on a Pedestal all one word at F A R Q I E dot com.  Go to Facebook and like the New England on a Pedestal page. Follow us on Instagram. 

It takes a lot of effort and some help from others to put this podcast together. I want to thank Bekka Jason, Sam and Jake for all their help and talents. But mostly I want to thank you the listener!

Join us next episode when we venture to another New England town and dig into some local history there. Until next time, be safe, be well, be kind and keep discovering. Thanks for listening!