Birds, says field biologist Richard MacDonald of Bar Harbor, have been “a unifying theme” in his life. At age ten MacDonald was banding ducks and in college he carried binoculars wherever he went. And for the past several decades he has led birding expeditions, local and way away (Antarctica), while running the Natural History Center on Mount Desert Island.

Born in Bangor in 1953, David Hopkins grew up on North Haven Island. When he was 14 and his brother, painter Eric Hopkins, was 16, they asked their parents if…

A high-end housing development is being planned for a 1,000-acre peninsula on Howard Lake in Robbinston. Merriwood Sustainable Community is described on its website as “just beyond the edge of…

I suppose this is a little island. I mean, look at Greenland. On the other hand, Vinalhaven is the same size as Manhattan and it is the largest island in…

When Andrei Pogany, his wife Deborah Gorman, and their two young daughters, Klara and Amalia came from Los Angeles to stay on Islesford last September, they planned to be here…

For millennia, humankind dwelling in the parts of the globe with four distinct seasons—during which at least one of them nothing grows—never hankered for salad in February, or asparagus in…

It’s very close to the one-year anniversary of “quarantimes” as I write this column. On March 13, 2020, our students had their last day of in-person school for the year,…

Standing onshore, we perceive the ocean as locality, the curve of the beach, the limit of the harbor, and as universality, the infinite inclusion beyond a distant horizon. We can…

Shredding Paper: The Rise and Fall of Maine’s Mighty Paper Industry By Michael G. Hillard Understanding Maine’s once-gigantic paper industry and what happened to it is a matter of perspective.…

Maine’s Congressional delegation has reintroduced the “York River Wild and Scenic River Act,” legislation to initiate the final step in the process to add the river to the National Park…