It ought to go without saying, but without public access to the water, most of us would be landlubbers. Maintaining public access to our coastal shores is, though, a delicate balancing act between preserving landowners’ individual rights and providing the masses with a way of reaching the water. The community of Belfast is reviving a system of corridors to the water that date to Colonial times known as “rangeways” to guarantee that the public remains in touch with the ocean and rivers that surround them.
This video, produced by Josh Povec for the Belfast-based Waterfall Arts organization and funded in part by the Maine Arts Commission, includes some gorgeous scenes of Belfast as it explains the historical basis of the rangeways. The second half of the video, though, is just as beautiful as it chronicles what it takes to split the massive granite slab that marks one rangeway. Make sure to keep an especially close eye just before the seven-minute mark!
Source: https://www.vimeo.com/27880797
