kate mccardel

In July of 2025, at the very end of kelp and seaweed season, I drove up to the far North coast of Maine. There, Larch Hanson was busy drying and packaging his harvest.

We woke up before the sun, pulled on wet suits and went out in his small boat to a little rocky island some distance off the shore. I harvested Irish moss while he pulled digitata from the deep. We spent the days processing and packaging the seaweed, learning about the different varieties and their uses.

He's built practically everything himself over the course of a lifetime— the house, the gardens and fruit trees, the boats.