Working Waterfront

Home, again, to Matinicus

Not surprisingly, traps and boats and fishing have been a big part of Scott’s life, though that life took him far from the Gulf of Maine. SEE MORE

Matinicus Volunteer Community Recycling Program

Matinicus Island had a junk car problem as well as a trash problem: old cars were rusting where owners left them in the woods and on the roadsides. Trash washed up on beaches, and the two biggest recent island structure fires were caused by out-of-control trash fires. In 2002, Eva Murray decided Matinicus needed a… Read more » SEE MORE

Community Infrastructure

Actor Martin Clunes of the TV show Doc Martin is flanked by Mikki Ames

Working Waterfront

Meeting Martin on Matinicus

By Shirley Barlow My friend Mikki owns a house on Matinicus Island. She and her late husband, a merchant marine seaman and lobster fisherman, spent most of their lives on the island where they raised their son and daughter. Matinicus is a working island and for years has had the image that lobstermen were akin… Read more » SEE MORE

Bajupa at Journey's End boatyard in Rockland.

Working Waterfront

The story of Bajupa is the story of lobstering and Matinicus

This story first appeared in Landings,the monthly publication of the Maine Lobstermen’s Community Alliance, and appears here with permission. By Melissa Waterman It’s rare to find a boat that nearly every fisherman would term “pretty,” but in the case of Bajupa, that phrase rings true. Built in 1946 by Robert Rich, proprietor of Bass Harbor Boat… Read more » SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Readers respond to Stonington, Matinicus photos

We asked for reader with information about old photographs we published in the May and June issues of The Working Waterfront, and you did not disappoint. First, the Matinicus photo, which depicted a woman playing an accordion-like instrument. Across the sepia-tone image, the date was hand-written. Several readers correctly pointed out that it was the… Read more » SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Our complicated ties to puffins

Atlas of Kinship: Stories of Connection between Seabirds, People & Place By Alice Hotopp, illustrations by Coco Faber (2026, Littoral Books) Ecologist Alice Hotopp’s book, Atlas of Kinship, has one explicit, overriding theme: Everything in nature is connected. The particular connections in question involve the seabirds that make their homes on the coast of… Read more » SEE MORE

Book Review

Working Waterfront

The tall task of throwing away lobster rope

Lobstermen call it pot warp: the rope that runs from the buoy on the water’s surface down to the trap on the ocean floor. A single lobsterman may use miles of it. Until the mid-20th century, pot warp was made of natural fiber—Manila, cotton, hemp—that wore out, broke down and eventually was burned or left… Read more » SEE MORE

News

Microgrids 101

4/28/2026 - Microgrids are having a moment in rural communities—and for good reason. Island Institute’s resilient energy team breaks down what microgrids are and how they fit in coastal Maine’s unique and often challenging energy landscape. SEE MORE

Blog

Working Waterfront

A Maine island stressed by climate threats

Matinicus Isle Plantation, located 20 miles out in the Gulf of Maine, is the furthest offshore year-round settlement on the East Coast of the U.S. In recent years, threats linked to climate change—sea level rise, accelerating erosion, and intensifying winter storms—have begun to push the community’s limits. I visited Matinicus last October as the island’s… Read more » SEE MORE