Search Results for: matinicus

Solution Example

Outer Islands Teaching & Learning Collaborative

Isolated schools are vital, innovative, collaborative centers of teaching and learning that prepare students to thrive in the 21st century. The Outer Islands Teaching & Learning Collaborative, or TLC, is a 12-year-old, teacher-created and teacher-led group that provides a virtual community for the smallest island schools where students and teachers can access a rich and… Read more » SEE MORE
Swan's Island fire department and residents

Island Journal

Responding First, Fifteen Miles Out

Eva Murray moved to Matinicus in 1987 to take a position as the school teacher. Matinicus then was similar to Matinicus now: a small island fishing town, 15 miles out to sea, resplendent in natural beauty and with a powerful sense of community, yet lacking many basic services. Medical care was nonexistent. When Murray arrived, there was “no one to go to if you got hurt, or got a burn – no one had any training and certainly no one had any obligation” to help. SEE MORE
Newfoundland landscape with water and mountains

Island Journal

The Collector of Islands

To get to the Lofoten Islands in Norway, you must take the ferry. But to get to the ferry you must journey by train. The train from Oslo takes 20 hours, traveling through Trondheim and the mountains to the tiny coastal settlement of Bodo. In Bodo I board the Hurtegruten, a coastal ferry that travels… Read more » SEE MORE
N.C. Wyeth painting of Black Rock, Monhegan Island, Maine

Island Journal

Maine Islands: Paintings From the Farnsworth Collection

The Farnsworth Art Museum’s collection of approximately 15,000 works focuses on American art from the 18th century to the present, with a special emphasis on artists who have lived or worked in Maine.  Since the mid-nineteenth century, the state has been both host and inspiration to many of America’s most noted painters. Drawn here by… Read more » SEE MORE
US coast guard woman working controls

Island Journal

‘Halfway to Where Somebody’s in Trouble’

It is practically a cliché to call Matinicus Island isolated, but it is. The closest mainland city (and U.S. Coast Guard station) is in Rockland at about 23 miles distant. In the heart of winter, the state ferry may make one trip from Rockland to the island each month. Bad weather here has a more serious definition than it does in the rest of the state. Islanders use cell phones, but no one relies on them. “Here on the island, if you’re not standing in just the right spot or facing the right direction,” says Clayton Philbrook, “you can usually text in a lot of places, but as far as having a voice conversation, it doesn’t work.” SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Strained relations with the ferry service

On a late spring morning in 1920, the steamboat Governor Bodwell was docked at Tillson’s Wharf in Rockland and preparing to depart for Vinalhaven. Shoveling coal below decks was my grandfather, Edwin Maddox. His eleventh great grandparents, William and Mary Brewster, had arrived on the Mayflower 300 years earlier. Unbeknownst to him, he was close to meeting the… Read more » SEE MORE
man with fuel tanks

Island Journal

Cornering the Island Fuel Market

When Pete Pellerin moved to Chebeague Island in 2009, he expected some basic necessities to cost more. But he wasn’t prepared for the expense of propane to power his stove and heat his home. And even though he was juggling five jobs, he wasn’t sure how he would afford it. “I was blown away that… Read more » SEE MORE
old photo of a man in a canoe

Island Journal

The Alluring and Enduring Maine Coast

The Alluring and Enduring Maine Coast Historic images from the Penobscot Marine Museum By Lisa Mossel Vietze The Penobscot Marine Museum’s photographic collection is vast — overwhelmingly vast . . . . . . Lucky for me, I had the privilege of working with Kevin Johnson, the museum’s photo archivist, who guided me in the… Read more » SEE MORE
story sky and sea as seen from a fishing boat

Island Journal

Joel Woods: Fisherman & Photographer

Joel Woods Fisherman // Photographer My goal is not to make photography a career. Very simply put, I am a fisherman, a working man who has learned to use a camera to capture the world as he sees it. I have spent most of my life bobbing around the North Atlantic on massive steel boats,… Read more » SEE MORE