RICHMOND — Three years after a popular ferry was discontinued, those hoping to access Swan Island’s popular campgrounds, historical sites and hiking trails now have a new entryway: a private ferry service.

The public ferry that for six decades carried passengers across the Kennebec River from Richmond to the 4-mile-long island has not operated since mid-2022. And the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, the agency that owns the island and operated the ferry previously, has expressed concerns about restoring the service.

The island still hosts a popular free campground, hiking trails and other recreation infrastructure that nearby residents and school groups often enjoyed before the public ferry was discontinued in 2022. But historic sites on the island have begun to suffer from a lack of upkeep, largely due to the island’s inaccessibility.

Until this month, the public could access Swan Island only with a personal boat or kayak — a potentially challenging 900-foot journey for boaters unfamiliar with the currents of one of Maine’s largest rivers.

Gary Smith, a licensed boat captain who also runs scenic tours in the Bath area, began the new Swan Island Ferry in mid-July, while a bill to create a working group for restoring the ferry sat on Gov. Janet Mills’ desk.

That bill, LD 976, became law June 22 without Mills’ signature.

Smith said IF&W staff reached out to him directly during deliberations on LD 976 this spring to see if he would be interested in running a ferry. He’d previously taken passengers from his other business, River Run Tours, on chartered trips around Swan Island, but he hadn’t ever been on the island until about a year ago.

Smith wasn’t sure at first. He said he has a special attachment to Swan Island and its natural and historic beauty, but that he wasn’t comfortable initially with the safety of the Swan Island campground dock.

But once the IF&W agreed to add an extension to the dock and designate it as a 10-minute boarding and offloading zone, Smith agreed.

“It’s nice to know I’m in a position where I can offer something to make it more accessible to people that are hesitant to go over there — unless there was a means, like a ferry service,” Smith said. “That’s why I got involved, and I’m glad to do it.”

With his current license and certifications, Smith can take six passengers at a time from Richmond to Swan Island. Those trips run about every half-hour on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and cost $20 per person, booked through his website.

The ferry isn’t profitable yet, Smith said. Regardless, he sees his service as a kind of interim ferry while a more permanent solution is hashed out by the working group created by state lawmakers. That group includes representatives from IF&W, Richmond town officials and Swan Island access advocates.

But if he is able to establish a long-term service, Smith said he wants to hire a Maine Maritime Academy student or recent graduate to operate the ferry. It would be a good opportunity for an up-and-coming captain, he said, and would open up more days and times for ferry service.

IF&W spokesman Mark Latti said Smith’s Swan Island Ferry is exactly the kind of solution the department hoped for.

The IF&W wants to focus on its wildlife management responsibility, he said, rather than on providing public transportation. Of the more than 200 other islands administered by the IF&W as wildlife management areas, only two have transportation access, both of which are provided by private services.

Swan Island is a crucial stopover for migratory birds every year, Latti said, and the island was crucial in the recovery of Maine’s bald eagle population. Wildlife management tasks on the island include bald eagle counts, waterfowl disease sampling, invasive plant control and bio-acoustic surveying for bats.

This spring, department staff estimated bringing the ferry back up to standards would cost $263,893, including staffing and upgrades to the boat and docks — in addition to a $150,000 cost to improve overnight housing conditions for staff working on the island. The department has long argued those resources would be better spent on wildlife management.

“We felt that a combination of self-access and private transportation options would meet the needs for public transportation to the island, and would ultimately be more efficient and cost-effective than the department operating a ferry service,” Latti said in an email. “This approach allows the department to focus our limited resources on maintaining the island’s infrastructure (including the campground, pier, trail network etc.) and conducting wildlife habitat improvements.”

Jeremy McDaniel, a longtime advocate for public access to Swan Island and the president of the Friends of Swan Island, welcomes the new ferry service, but he’s wary of private enterprises becoming the long-term solution.

“When the IF&W is providing their testimony, this is exactly what they wanted,” McDaniel said. “They wanted the private sector to be able to provide the public transportation. So, to them, it’s problem solved.

“When we start this working group, there are going to be some tougher questions to answer because, is this sustainable long term, and is the goal for IF&W to really get people out to Swan Island, and is this the best, most sustainable way to do it? I don’t know. I have concerns about that.”

Not only is a private service costly, it can be limiting, he said. Smith can transport only six people to and from Swan Island at a time — a fraction of the 55 people the public ferry transported at once, for $8 per person.

While Latti said IF&W does not provide transportation to any other island wildlife management area in the state, McDaniel said Swan Island is a special case. Its history and recreation opportunities warrant funding for public transportation, he said.

Swan Island was originally settled by Abenaki peoples thousands of years ago, and researchers have found evidence of human activity on the island from at least 9,000 years ago. After colonization decimated Indigenous populations who lived in what is now Maine, white settlers, including Revolutionary War leaders and retired sea captains, built homesteads on the island and founded the town of Perkins.

However, pollution in the Kennebec River and the financial hardship of the Great Depression eventually caused residents to abandon the island. The town of Perkins ceased to exist, but its remnants remain to this day — and McDaniel wants people to be able to easily see them.

During deliberations on LD 976, bill sponsor Rep. Sally Cluchey, a Democrat who represents Richmond, said she believed it could even be a violation of federal law for the department not to provide access. Land purchased under the federal Pittman-Robertson Act — like Swan Island was in the 1940s — must remain publicly accessible.

“It’s great to have a private partnership where we can do this type of access, but I strongly and firmly believe that it is the department’s responsibility to assist in providing transportation for the public to Swan Island,” McDaniel said.