Polar eyes
Keeper of the keys
College students are masters of the nomadic cycle—year after year we move in, move out and repeat. For roughly 230 Bowdoin students, Cumberland Self Storage is a crucial part of this cycle. During moments of intense transition, they lug their belongings in and out of its doors. It’s a zone of beginnings and ends, anticipation and reflection, sweat and butterflies. And manager Steve Howe has seen it all.
Located in the Fort Andross Mill complex, Cumberland Self Storage has been operating since 1988. It has three floors of storage lockers of varying sizes and a freight elevator—a remnant of the textile mill it used to house.
Walking around the maze of locked compartments, it’s difficult not to speculate about what is inside them. I walk past the locker I split between friends two summers ago and wonder what it holds now.
The place contains more than just mattresses and old furniture. “Once a guy came in here, looked me square in the eye and said, ‘Do you have anything against stuffed heads?’ Turns out he had stuffed moose, deer, bear. His wife gave him an ultimatum: either they go, or she goes.”
“Back when they created this place, they knew how to build things right and make them last.” Steve is building his own home today, taking inspiration from his workplace. “I never take it for granted.”
I ask him what it’s like coming to work here every day, walking alone through the mazes, closing up after dark. “The building creaks and groans and settles. I stop and I listen, and if I continue hearing noises, I look a little deeper.”
Howe has called Maine home since he moved here in 1976. To clear his mind, he takes to the woods to hunt, hike and fish. “I don’t waste any part of the animal,” he explained. “You take a life, you darn well better respect it.”
The building offers some of the best views in Brunswick, sweeping over the Androscoggin and the mill. The space is highly sought after, but Cumberland isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. “I’ve grown storage so much that putting in apartments just would not be profitable.”
I tell him about my fascination with the space. “You’re not alone,” he says. Tenants come up sometimes to exercise on rainy days. Sometimes people come in off the street and Howe has to shoo them out.
“Every time I look around here, I always see something new.”
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