Stories from Ashore: Ginger Andrews on Coastal Resilience and Preservation
October 2021 art installation “Rising Above” projected on Ginger Andrews’ scallop shanty on Old North Wharf.
At Envision Resilience, we support the exploration of science-based, design-led adaptations and we seek to amplify the anecdotal accounts of climate change in our community. In this series, Stories from Ashore, we will share stories of local Nantucketers and their experience with climate change, introduce you to people in our community who are imagining a future with increased water on their properties and discuss pathways forward. What will be your response to climate change?
By Anna Popnikolova
A fifth-generation Nantucketer, Ginger Andrews is a well-known name around the island when it comes to preservation and climate efforts. She grew up in a family very involved in the community and the environment—historical and landscape preservation has essentially always been in Andrews’ blood. As the daughter of Clinton Andrews, fisherman and naturalist, and Edith Andrews, an ornithologist and winner of the Audubon award, Andrews grew up developing a love of nature and the preservation of old things. “Either you’re comfortable with old things,” she explained, “or you’re not.” And Andrews, even from a young age, was very comfortable with them.
When Andrews’ father passed away in 1994, his share of the Pacific Club was passed on to her. Her experiences being the only shareholder on Nantucket Island taught her valuable skills—for preservation, and for the restoration of old buildings. The majority of the building repairs fell under Andrews’ responsibility, and through her time working with the Pacific Club, she gained an impressive restorational skill set, which was put to great use when her next project arose: restoring the North Wharf Scallop Shanty. After inheriting the building; following the death of her uncle George Andrews, a fisherman, she set about recovering the building. But neither her uncle, the building, nor the massive amounts of work that needed to be done, made the task easy for her. “It was a daunting project. The first thing that happened, after he died, I opened the door into the scallop shanty, and mind you, I used to open scallops there for him,” she recalled. “I just put my two feet on the floor and the pile went up from there.” Recovering the scallop shanty to working order was not a delicate feat. “I knew when I opened the door that I would be a different person when I finished the project than I was when I started.” And, after recovering the building to its prior working condition, the value of the restored building became priceless: the North Wharf scallop shanty, once belonging to her late uncle, now her property to care for and operate, was and continues to be Nantucket’s last real memory of the working waterfront.
Ginger Andrews, photo courtesy of Artists Association of Nantucket.As sea levels rise and Nantucket’s coasts feel the effects of climate change, the shanty’s resilience is tested with every major storm hitting Nantucket.” The No-Name Storm brought two feet of water onto the shanty floor, whereas in the big hurricane in the 30’s, there was only two inches of water in the shanty.” Andrews explained, showing the way the weather’s effects are only becoming stronger with each storm. One storm had some particularly damaging effects on the scallop shanty; namely, the No-Name storm.
“There was a large iron buoy that the barge was attached to when they were rebuilding it… that broke loose in the storm.” Andrews stated, “In the course of that storm, for three days, that buoy which had broken loose from out at Great Point in the sound, traveled into the harbor and got caught between that building and the building next to it… the wall was gone, but the frame was still there.”
After the storm, Andrews once again set about recovering the shanty to working condition following the storm, and the effects of sea level rise are felt much more strongly by her shanty than other areas on island; a front-row seat to the action. Old buildings, Andrews explained, are typically built to remain standing for as long as possible, and the shanty proves its resiliency, by simply remaining standing. And, as long as it stands, she intends to keep it, not only in working condition, but up-and-running.
Andrews finds great importance in keeping the building not only restored and functioning, but “working” as a scallop shanty, the way it was intended and formerly used. “To me, you can’t just preserve the building as a dead artifact. It’s a working building, you have to continue to work.”
The shanty remains in use on Old North Wharf, and Andrews has even bigger plans for the future of her building: her dream of the Museum of the Working Waterfront. She expressed her uncertainty in whether she may actually achieve her dream of the museum, but plans to continue keeping the building standing, maintained, and working. There, however, arises a new issue. How can a scallop shanty continue to operate; opening scallops and working along the waterfront the way it used to be, when the very future of Nantucket’s scallops is threatened? “I’m not sure if it’s going to be viable as a scallop shanty if there are no scallops.” Andrews noted, sharing memories of a time when Nantucketers took many features of the island—like the abundance of scallops, and the healthy eelgrass, for granted. As the island changes, many things that Andrews grew up with turned into memories, and she remarked that, “Scallops may turn out to be one more memory.”
“The problem is that if you pay an engineer, you’re going to get an engineering solution. And I don’t think you can engineer your way out of coastal erosion.”
In October of 2021, as part of the Envision Resilience Nantucket Challenge, ReMain Nantucket revealed a pop-up art installation using projection-mapping entitled “Rising Above”. The installation was projected across the water and onto the backside of a Old North Wharf building—none other than Ginger Andrews’ scallop shanty. The light projection, which was five minutes long, was intended as a public visualization of Nantucket’s waterfront, and how it will change with the tides as sea levels rise and Nantucket adapts to uncertain climate conditions. “Rising Above” will run again this June, as part of the 2022 Nantucket Film Festival’s Green Carpet Initiative.
“I’ve watched it [the natural world] change over time, and I’ve seen things disappear that used to be taken for granted,” said Andrews. “Change is constant.”
Andrews is watching the island change even now, some for better, and more often, for worse. She expressed her dismay towards the urbanization of Nantucket island, with constant construction and destruction of the natural landscape, specifically in relation to the eelgrass and scallop issues that Nantucket is facing. “It’s a whole ecosystem that’s being threatened by the incredible wave of thoughtless development.” The way that the community is trying to reverse or accommodate the effects of said “thoughtless development”, Andrews thinks, is with solutions which often fall short. During her time on the Harbor and Shellfish Advisory Board, she advocated for creative, innovative solutions to Nantucket’s coastal problems; and all that, to Andrews, starts with a physicist.
“I’ve said to them several times, and they laugh at me as if I were making a joke, but I’m truly serious that they don’t need an engineer, they need a physicist,” she said of her view that the issues of Nantucket’s coastal erosion can only be understood by someone who understands movement—and can only be helped when the problems are first understood. “The problem is that if you pay an engineer, you’re going to get an engineering solution. And I don’t think you can engineer your way out of coastal erosion.”
“To me, that’s resilience. It’s knowing what you can save, what you can’t save, and getting out of the way when there’s something going down.”
Andrews has been involved in preservation, conservation and resiliency efforts on Nantucket for decades, and continues to be today, working with various organizations on island as she studies nature, helps to preserve some of Nantucket’s natural treasures, and spreads awareness about our climate condition. Andrews’ view of resilience, and what the concept means when it comes to climate change, is simple: save what you can save, leave the rest, and get out of the way. Her opinion is drawn from a story about her great grandfather, who was a blacksmith, and lived through the great fire of 1846; “When somebody mentions coastal resiliency to me I always give the anecdote of my great grandfather the blacksmith, who could see that the great fire was bearing down on his shop. His building was going to be destroyed, there was no question about it. So, he took all his tools up in bags and dumped them off the end of the dock. At low tide the next day, after the fire had burned itself out, he went down and hauled all his tools up. And he was back in business: he didn’t have a building, he didn’t have a roof, but he could still function. He could build shoe horses and fix wagons. To me, that’s resilience. It’s knowing what you can save, what you can’t save, and getting out of the way when there’s something going down.”
She emphasized the idea that resilience efforts are not going to be able to save every piece of Nantucket’s coast, and that she believes the process will be more unpredictable than anything else. After all her work on Nantucket, her efforts with the scallop shanty, her work with Maria Mitchell and climate organizations on island, as well as her tremendous influence on the island as a community member, Andrews continues to follow climate efforts on Nantucket, in hopes that the future may be salvageable. She believes in looking at our island’s foundations before we figure out what steps need to be taken next; digging up and looking at Nantucket’s roots — what makes up our island. The future may be uncertain, but the past can always be looked to for advice, wisdom, and inspiration, when old buildings and the natural landscape are preserved.
Andrews says, “It’s what’s underlying that will determine how long we get to be here on this lovely little hunk of sand.”
Anna Popnikolova is a Nantucket native and sophomore at Nantucket High School. She is assistant Editor-In-Chief of Veritas, the NHS school newspaper, has been writing her entire life, and takes a great interest in the environment and conservation efforts on Nantucket. As a member of the Nantucket Youth Climate Committee, she hopes to continue her involvement with environmental awareness and resilience.
