India, Oct. 7 -- A single dollar transformed the legal destiny of an island measuring 150 acres in Canada's Bay of Fundy. The Bowdoin Biological Station's 1936 Annual Report records that J. Sterling Rockefeller and his wife, Paula, transferred Kent's Island to the president and trustees of Bowdoin College on January 30, 1936.

The price was straightforward; the terms, however, were complicated. The deed required Bowdoin College to use Kent Island for scientific purposes, maintain a bird sanctuary there, and employ a watchman from May 15 to September 1 each year. It described the island as approximately 150 acres, located between three and four miles south of the southern coast of Grand Manan.

Conducting research there was not easy. In 19...