- So I'll let you in on a little secret about economic development.

(bright music) Don't become territorial because you don't know what's gonna work for you.

It may be an idea that you missed.

- But if people just sit around and bellyache and say, "Ah, no no no, this place is going to (bleep)" If you get that kind of an attitude, that's what's going to happen.

- I want to be here to help bring Jonesport back to what it was before.

- [Matt] It's an interesting situation for the state of Maine.

- [Deb] There's a lot of stories to be told.

(gentle music) - Madison is more blue collar.

It's a working town.

It has suffered from some economic downturn, but it is a place of opportunity.

So even though Madison Paper and the paper mill had been there since the early 1900s, and that mill continued to be very efficient, the workers there were very proud of the product that they put out.

Probably about 30 years in, somewhere around 2009, 2010, everybody kind of got a little uneasy because newspaper readership is going down.

The mill now comes to the town, Madison Paper comes to the town and says, "Look, our product is not worth anything near where it used to be.

We need you to reduce our valuation."

And overnight, the town loses $130 million worth of valuation.

The mill continued to do well for another couple of years, but then they sent out notice in early 2016 that they were gonna shut it down.

(gentle music) - After we lost Madison Paper Company, it was a real struggle for townspeople.

Whether it was because of the taxes went up because the mill closed and we didn't have the revenue from the mill.

We lost 200 jobs.

So there was a few years of real hardship there.

- It's beautiful around here.

There's beautiful coastline and all that, but it's a hardworking community.

We have grown up isolated.

We've grown up to therefore be resourceful in how to survive.

I'm Harry Fish Jr. And I'm a lifetime resident of Jonesport.

I'm currently the chairman of the Select Board and I'm also on the Harbor Committee and I think I've been on that more than 25 years.

Jonesport was a really very thriving community.

It had five working sardine factories.

Many families in town either worked in the factories, or like my great-grandfather, Henry Beal was of the bigger herring fishermen around here.

And so Jonesport is a fishing village.

All of that, of course, as you know, has died away because of basically overfishing.

They're lucky now if they could catch enough herring to supply the lobster fishermen.

- The endless supply of herring got diminishedm and it wasn't sustainable.

As a result of that and some other economic factors, these factories and we had scores of them over the course of time, but there were five big ones in town.

They all closed.

And really the lobster fishing industry has kept us propped up, but it hasn't been enough.

We continue to lose population.

When I graduated from high school 35 years ago, there was 150 kids in the high school, and now there's 55.

(dramatic music) - My daughter lives in Boston, she's a lawyer.

My son lives in Augusta.

He sells telephones.

My other son is still in college, so they just weren't doing the fishing thing.

I wish one of them had, but that's not what they chose to do.

I would like to see other businesses come to town to give kids more opportunity than just lobstering because inevitably some people, some kids aren't gonna want to go lobstering and then they're gonna leave because there's nothing else.

- We need economic change for sure.

We need some different opportunities for families to keep our families here.

With all the regulations that are being putting on it, you can't be certain that fishing is going to be a viable future for your family and your children.

(gentle music) (plane whirring) - We live in a very magical place.

The Katahdin Region was born out of paper, but long before that paper, the natural beauty was here.

I was born and brought up here, went to school here.

My grandparents came at the turn of the century to help build the mill.

It was a great spot on the river.

There was beautiful access to water and forest.

So they had this great place to build a mill, but they didn't have any people, so they had to import workers from all over the world.

So Millinocket really was a melting pot.

- You couldn't find a parking spot downtown here years ago, the housing business after World War II, the whole thing just exploded down in this other end of town.

You can look over the history here and this town in the '20s, '30s, even during depression, think about it.

They were in the newsprint paper business.

They shipped newsprint every day, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Paper, New York Times.

So you could see why it was very-- - [Speaker] Never had a recession.

- [Deb] That's what dad said.

Millinocket never had a recession.

- Never had a recession, nope, never did.

- Great Northern at the time was known worldwide for the best quality paper, and it was the largest employer for hundreds of miles.

It built the schools, built the hospital, it built its own infrastructure.

So it really set up the community for the perfect storm when it closed.

- For 100 years, these two mills created a quality of life and fueled an economy that was really second to none in the state of Maine.

Nobody could believe that this powerhouse, Great Northern Paper, and its future iterations wasn't gonna continue.

When it went bankrupt, people were dumbfounded.

- Yeah, it's dramatic.

Growing up in the '80s, this was a busy little town, so it was a mill town and the mill closed.

Everybody knows the story, the mill closed, and yeah, a lot of people left, had a big exodus.

- After that initial shock of the mill, the schools were suffering from lack of finances, the hospital was struggling, businesses were closing.

And then we began to see a region going from one of the highest per capita incomes to now one of the lowest in the state, which is just really hard to grasp.

And a lot of the young people started to out migrate because they didn't see any hope in the region.

(bell ringing) - We knew the way that the facility was essentially sold off in pieces that to make paper again was really, really gonna be a long shot and we didn't think anybody was gonna come in and invest $200 million again.

- And then we had these two wonderful innovative guys from Maine that came and looked at the mill and wanted to do something phenomenal with it.

- And they start laying out this plan, what they think they could do with this facility.

And they literally could do the animations where you take out the paper machine and then you plug in their equipment and it literally fit.

- We are the first dry process wood fiber insulation plant in North America.

What I saw when I came here was just a complete innovation, a new way of using wood fiber in such a unique way, and is something that the northeast drastically needs.

If you think about the vast resources that we have in Maine and we're already using wood chips in the pulp and paper making process, we use that same raw material, made of the same plants that the paper mills get chips from and we make a loose fill product that you can blow into an attic or you can dense fill into a stud cavity.

- I think wood fiber insulation's interesting because it requires these raw materials that we have in abundance in Maine.

It requires infrastructure for manufacturing that we have in abundance in Maine that is underutilized.

It requires knowhow, skills, and hard work ethics, which we have abundance in Maine in our people.

It's about bringing new ideas, new concepts to an industry that has an extremely proud, incredibly deep history in Maine.

- [Deb] To bring life back to the mill and to the town is really phenomenal what they're doing.

(gentle music) - As we have starting to branch out and say, okay, what else can we think about getting here for industry that will create jobs and create value, Kingfish walked through the door.

They came into town and said, "Hey, we want to expand in the United States."

And we found a plot of land, which is what we call Dungarvin up here to the bay 90 some acres, and it's right on the ocean to do land-based aquaculture, land-based fish farming where the fish are actually grown in tanks in a building.

- When I found out that Kingfish was coming and we had an opportunity to host a business that's consistent with our history, I was very excited about that.

Not just for Jonesport, but for my own family and future generations.

- So the parent company, Kingfish Zealand already has a farm in the Netherlands.

It's been operating for seven years.

And the idea is to replicate what we built in the Netherlands and build that here in Jonesport.

It was definitely received with a healthy dose of skepticism because especially there's not a lot of people that even really know what aquaculture is.

And so we engaged the community very early on.

We had numerous meetings just to get people familiar with the kind of terminology that we use, get familiar with the equipment that we'll use on site, and so that they have a good understanding so they can make their own judgment about whether they actually want to allow us to kind of come into their town and build a facility.

(boat horn blowing) - We had these outside sources ascend upon the town and really spread a false narrative about Kingfish.

Some people used the environment and the impact on the environment that this would have, but at the same time, they didn't look at all the benefits to the environment that this had.

We vetted all this stuff out.

We just wouldn't let some polluter come into town and start a business.

And we've looked at their technology, we've looked at what they've done in the Netherlands, and many people in the community have done the same.

And as a result, an informed decision was made.

(bright music) - We put together a small group of people, like a think tank in the region.

We called it Katahdin Revitalization.

And part of that process was gathering the three towns together.

At the time we talked about the three communities, Millinocket, East Millinocket, and Medway.

It was an incredible amount of volunteer time after work and on weekends.

But having the speaker series really brought people together in a different light.

What do we want the world to know the Katahdin region for?

Do we want it to be known as the town that paper made?

Yeah, maybe 100 years ago.

Now what do we want it to be?

- Katahdin is truly spectacular.

The Class five whitewater of the west branch of the Penobscot, the world class salmon and trout fisheries that exist in this area, they all make great attractions.

These areas weren't amenity-rich.

They had incredible natural resource amenities which historically had been largely utilized in a sort of consumptive, extractive way, and not fully embraced from a recreation or tourism standpoint.

- I love the outdoors.

I always have, just always grew up around it.

My family owned a campground, Wilderness Edge here in Millinocket.

And so I always grew up in nature, and then I took outdoor ed for two years.

We do kayaking and then we did some hiking last class.

We'll do mountain biking and cross country skiing.

The kids love it.

It's just awesome to get out there, take a break from the classroom.

I am hoping to go to veterinary school.

If I'm going into large animals, I really need to find someplace that has a need for it.

And we have a couple farms here, but not as much business as I'd need probably.

But I'm hoping to stay in Maine.

- You get the world experience when you leave and come back.

I think for myself, it's one of the best things I did.

I lived in Europe for a little while, like I said, moved to like 11 different states, but my family and my friends are all here.

So coming back, I really find that it's really benefited myself, my education, my current learning, and now it's changed since when we were younger.

We grew up with the mill here and my grandfather worked in the mill, generations worked in the mill.

And now we're seeing a different kind of development, new families coming in.

We need a place for people to go for childcare.

- If we're gonna turn the community around and be able to embrace new workforce, new technologies coming here, we need places for people to live, we need childcare, we need healthcare, we need education.

- What's exciting about TimberHP is dozens of people that worked at Madison Paper and loved working at Madison Paper have come back and they've been hired along with the new people that are coming out of the trades and coming out of school that are able to get in there.

So there's a real pulse of excitement that's going on with the hiring that's going on there.

- Tim, he worked with some local developers and they're putting in low to mid income housing that's hopefully get started within a month to two months.

- Now we have the attention of funders, so the focus now should be and is transportation, housing.

How do you build out that infrastructure to meet the growing demands?

- Madison is undergoing a rebirth as Skowhegan is, it's cliche, but there is a renaissance in the area that's certainly happening.

- Ready?

One, two, three.

- Three, two, one.

- Maine Housing is part of funding from the Governor's office.

Came up with a rural rental program and put $20 million aside for affordable rural rental.

And in about two weeks, we're gonna start building a five plus million dollar facility, 18 units, literally affordable housing for people that need it.

- There's just so much more traffic and life from what I see, and when you look at the parking lot full of people coming here every day into the center of town using the local businesses, eating out, getting tools and supplies, it's a great thing to see.

- There's a real connection between the timber folks and the schools and the vocational programs.

And they're doing tours and having students come through that mill all the time so they can get an idea.

This is what you can expect if you'd like a job here.

That's the long-term goal.

To have jobs that attract young families that move to your area, that take up some of your housing,, that help populate your schools.

I mean that's how this all rolls out to the benefit of the whole community.

- We recognized how important this was to our town, and that was exemplified in a town meeting that we had where the opposition had proposed a moratorium on these types of developments and it was the largest and most well-attended town meeting I've ever seen in all my years here.

- So there was a two to one vote in support of Kingfish.

(gentle music) - We are at CCAR right now, which is the Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research, which is owned by U Maine and they essentially do a lot of research and development here.

The systems that we have here, they're much smaller scale, they're somewhat more simplified than they are in our facility in Jonesport.

This is a yellowtail kingfish.

This is the offspring from some of the brew salt that we currently have at CCAR, and there's a good chance that this guy will be making his fertilized eggs for the facility in Jonesport.

It's a really nice fish.

This is probably about three to four kilos right now and that's our range.

This is definitely success right here.

We had a nice thing about what we have going here at CCAR is we can start to employ people pretty early on before the building's built in Jonesport and kind of use this as a bit of a training ground.

So they have a good solid base of understanding before we jump into the large building in Jonesport.

- Kingfish brings something that is more traditional, something that we're all familiar with, either our parents or our grandparents.

Probably worked in a fish factory if you're from Jonesport.

It's modern, it's the future of aquaculture, and we're really proud to be hosting something like that.

- They're going to start out hiring 50 or 60 people, but within five years, they'll probably be up to 200 employees.

All the young people coming, let's say the people that are in high school right now, if this goes according the plan, by the time they graduate, the plant will be up and running.

- We're at Jonesport-Beals High School in the outdoor greenhouse space.

Before I got here, the teacher before me as well as the CTE Center worked to get this greenhouse with a grant.

Now we're funding a new larger greenhouse with another grant.

I believe it is the only, if not one of the only programs in the state available to high school students, specifically aquaculture and aquaponics.

It's a very diverse program.

Not only am I teaching them about tilapia, but they're also learning about healthy eating and different plants that they can grow.

They're learning about a ton of different career opportunities.

It's not just growing fish.

This just gives them a taste of what they possibly could do with their lives.

- Well lobstering has gotten a lot better, more money in it, not as hard as what I saw my father go through, but in order for the town to grow, you've got to have more opportunities.

Whether it be restaurants, whether it be Kingfish, fish plants, stuff like that.

Like it used to be around here.

Like it used to be all the sardine factories.

And I'd like to see it get back toward that, keep it a fishing community, but have more opportunities.

- I was born and raised right here in Jonesport.

Went off to college and loved home and missed home and came back to go fishing, and to work with my dad.

Married a girl that I had met in high school, had two beautiful daughters.

It's just a cool place to live.

It's relaxed, nice people, safe, just love the area.

- They've got to look for ways of small businesses to medium sized businesses that isn't going to make a major change to the town to get more economic activity taking place because that's the only solution, is to get your real estate value up and get more taxes coming in so that you can afford to pay for the stuff that you need.

(gentle music) - I wanna major in psychology and have a concentration in substance use and rehabilitation services.

People just don't get the help they need.

I wanna start bringing more to the community because I don't want Jonesport to kind of fall off the edge.

There was a lot of stuff here before, and I think I want to be here to help bring Jonesport back.

- You drive through town 10 years from now, it won't look a whole lot different.

There's still gonna be a hardworking fishing industry, and that attitude is still here.

- The Katahdin Area Higher Education Center, which is a part of the community college, Deb Rountree and her team have worked tirelessly to try to open people's eyes to the the other work opportunities that are in the area.

(bright music) - The center was started in 1986 as a training place to retrain people that had lost their jobs.

So over the years, we probably have trained about 6,000 of those paper mill workers.

Some of the greatest fulfillment of my career has been seeing people that made paper now have become nurses, medical radiographers, teachers, social workers, counselors, open their own business.

The entrepreneurial spirit was never really welcomed in this community because there was the mill.

- Millinocket has created a gear library that actually provides the equipment that you need to enjoy the outdoors.

- I am from Millinocket.

I moved away shortly after high school.

I decided to move out to Wyoming, working in Yellowstone National Park, and I decided to come back, which is super cool because everyone's always dying to get out of town once they graduate.

So once they get out and kind of get that experience, I think it's better for them to come back then.

That way they know that they're ready to stay and maybe start exploring careers here.

So yeah, we rent gear all year long.

We are also very involved in youth programming.

We have programs that we run over at Stearns High School.

We're actually teaching our very first pilot year of bike mechanic and trail maintenance over there.

So they're actually getting credit to learn these skills to come back and hopefully full circle and get jobs in the region.

(bright music) - I do a community service project here with my eighth graders and they've done some incredible work helping out on issues like building a community center and homeless veterans.

So it's just been really great to see students get involved.

And I think it's because all these other organizations are kind of paving the way for student progress.

- 15 years ago when we talked about tourism growth or expansion, there were people that said, "No, we don't want it."

Now we have a community that's like, "How can we help?

What can we do to help facilitate this?"

- The tourism piece is great.

It's brought so many great things to the area, like the new bike trails, but at the same time, we can't solely rely on that.

So bringing in industries on the mill site here in Millinocket and in East Millinocket is also key.

- We wanna be in a region where we're inviting people to come for business, for manufacturing, for a small home-based business to be able to work from home.

We also can provide hotel infrastructure, more restaurants.

- We've run a restaurant for 23 years called the River Driver's Restaurant, and it's become difficult to run that restaurant to meet the demand that we have for it.

And so a year ago we decided to open another restaurant, a pizzeria with a brewery in it just a mile away.

We've grown the overall pool of people dining with us substantially this summer through that brewery and pizzeria, and this town could use more.

- I still think that you're gonna have kids go away when they graduate and they're gonna see other places, which is a good thing.

And then they're gonna realize what they are missing from back home and they will come back.

We're seeing that I think more and more as time goes on, and I think I'm an example of that.

It's not a bad thing to go and see other places and then bring those new ideas and those new visions back to your hometown.

- Maine, which has been on this chronic steady population decline, one or 2% every year.

All of a sudden turned up and there's no sign that it's gonna back off.

I still believe that this region has no idea how valuable it is to the rest of the world, and that we run the risk of getting in front of a snowball that's getting so much bigger so fast that it runs us over.

I'm less concerned about that because there's so much landscape here that's already covered with conservation easements or conservation ownership that's gonna force development into the right places.

We're not changing the spectacular natural landscape.

We're sort of repackaging it in a way that fits for both the people that live here and the people that visit here.

- Millinocket is not done and over with.

The Katahdin region is one of the best places in the state of Maine.

We had so much given to us growing up in this region, and it's our responsibility to give it back and to make it better than it was.

So people need to come together for the benefit of the region.

- The mill paid for everything.

And so when it all started to fall apart, we all realized we've gotta be a little bit more accepting of people from the outside.

- There's a lot of stereotypes about going to small towns in Maine, how everyone's so unwelcoming.

But I've been here for two years and I feel like I actually have a community.

- I'm gonna group Madison and Skowhegan together.

We're adjacent towns.

We're both on the Kennebec River and we have the same philosophies that we're gonna help each other out.

- You can't be worrying about yourself.

You gotta be concerned what will make things better for everyone in town.

- People that are getting engaged in what we're doing have a sense of opportunity and optimism about what the future holds.

- It takes a village.

You know, that saying, it takes a village.

Even if we're not all related, we're all family here.

(bright music) - It's a really big deal when a mill comes back to life and breathes life back into the community.

That's why I wanted to be somebody that's putting their efforts into making the mill come back to life.

- Now what an incredible story from where we were before to where it is now.

(bright music continues)