OUTER GREEN ISLAND and JUNK OF PORK
Casco Bay
Charts: 13290, 13288
Chart Kit: 59, 17
Casco Bay overview chart





JUNK OF PORK and Outer Green Island are the southern terminus of a series of ledges and islands extending northeast toward Jewell Island. Junk of Pork is a tall rock formation that was once part of Outer Green. It has an unbalanced appearance, as if the next storm will topple it into the sea. From the deck of a rolling ship making landfall after a long passage, it might fit the hallucination of a junk of pork sticking out of the sea. Perhaps that was its price long ago. Or perhaps somebody named it that because they just couldn’t stand one more Hog Island.
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Larger Outer Green is a bluffy, flat-topped island that sometimes appears to float on a mirage on the horizon like a mesa out West. This is a different frontier, an outer rampart of Casco Bay, with stiff breezes, crashing surf, and reeling gulls.
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Both of these islands are owned by the State of Maine, but neither is easy to visit by small boat. They are exposed to wind and swells with no good places to go ashore. Their sides are sheer, and their tops belong to the birds. The few mariners that have visited these treacherous islands haven’t done so by choice.
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By sea. Outer Green and Junk of Pork lie 2 1/2 or 3 miles across unprotected bluewater from either Whitehead Passage, Ram Island, Hussey Sound, or Jewell Island. If you plan to make this trip, be well-prepared and pick your weather carefully.
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A wooden navigation beacon that once marked Outer Green’s highest point has long since disappeared, but the island would be hard to miss. High bluffs form its bold coast. Scattered rocks pepper the surrounding deep water, as shown on the chart, often attracting bluefish and stripers. Green Island Passage, to the north, is well marked (see Green Island Reef).
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Ashore. Landing on Outer Green is not recommended. These high bluffs have long been breeding grounds for seabirds. In the summer months, this island is used by colonial seabirds for nesting, and the National Audubon Society began tern restoration project began in 2002 to try to lure back pairs of terns to reestablish a tern colony. Junk of Pork is the only place along the Maine coast where storm petrels (commonly known as Mother Cary’s Chickens) come ashore to nest. Please do not land during nesting season, if at all.More info on the Tern Restoration Project.
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Outer Green played a role in the history of Jewell Island. When the settlers, holed-up in a garrison there, ventured to Outer Green to harvest corn they planted, Jewell was attacked by Indians (see Jewell Island, p. 103). Modern historians, however, doubt that corn would have been planted on Outer Green. More likely, the settlers would have planted on Jewell itself, or returned to their own fields, or planted closer to Jewell, on Inner Green, perhaps.
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In a winter storm on January 12, 1891, the three-masted schooner Ada Baker blew out her sails and was wrecked on the reefs on the east side of Outer Green. Her foremast toppled onto Junk of Pork and her crew of six managed to scramble to safety.
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The U.S. Revenue Cutter Woodbury had been waiting out the gale in Rockland Harbor, but when the storm eased up, she steamed out on her rounds of aiding mariners in distress. In the early afternoon, she sighted a signal from Junk of Pork and discovered the crewmen. The breakers were still about 30-feet high, pummeling the rocks, and the Woodbury could not approach. She stood offshore, hoping that the sea would abate enough to drift a line to the rock to pull the men to safety. But night fell. The Woodbury steamed to Portland and commandeered dories from a fishing vessel and recruited reinforcements from the Cape Elizabeth Lifesaving Station. They returned at dawn. The wind had backed to the west, and all six men were rescued.

One of the last visitors to this island—though from the tales, he has visited many others—was a hermit who lived here alone for years except for several dogs. One winter a severe winter storm hit the coast, and in its wake, fishermen went to the island to check on the welfare of the hermit. All they found were some torn clothes and the skeleton of a dog, providing a feast for speculation about whether the man ate the dogs, or the dogs ate the man.


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From The Maine Coast Guide for Small Boats: Casco Bay




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