It’s been an old-fashioned winter so far. Outside it’s all snow, cold. My phone is full of videos from Minneapolis that look like they could just as well be from Portland. Snowbanks line the roads, plumes of breath blend with clouds of tear gas. The zipper on my winter coat breaks, so I order a new coat. I see a…

Three towns perched on the shore of Boston Harbor can now devise rules for shellfish harvesting, something no municipality near the harbor has been able to do for more than…

Field Notes is a feature highlighting the work of staff at Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. Name: Ken Stevenson Title: Community Development Officer Focus: I connect island and marine-economy dependent communities…

A new tidal power project is being proposed off Eastport, but whether the developer has the technical expertise and financial backing to proceed with the proposal is not clear. Along…

A crew guided a York County barge equipped with a giant sea vacuum across the waters of Wells Harbor in late February. One contractor nudged the so-called dredge in a…

When my parents purchased the home that I grew up in nearly 60 years ago, the $12,000 price tag was almost out of their reach. They managed to pull together a down payment, and that home has remained our family’s center…

The good news is that Maine has more varied and sophisticated ways to measure the lobster population than ever before. The bad news is that data shows declines in larval,…

According to preliminary data from the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR), the state’s commercial seafood harvesters earned $619 million in 2025, which was the 14th consecutive year commercial fishery earnings…

Like the schools of menhaden that roil the summer waters off the coast of Maine, a proposed law that would open that lucrative fishery to more participants has been raising…

Born in Bar Harbor, Paul Trowbridge grew up in Maine in the summers. He had, he writes, “a real affinity for boats and the docks that came with them.” His…