The Working Waterfront newspaper reports on the people and forces that shape Maine’s coastal and island communities. As publisher, Island Institute’s premise is that the cultural, environmental, and community assets here are rare and valuable, and are worth fighting for.
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A summer scene on North Haven.
September 28

Summer friends change island’s rhythm

Chance encounters in the street enlivens summer scene
The swift, ephemeral nature of summer on an island is felt in many ways. The sudden frenzy of activity as caretakers open houses and mow fields, lobster boats leaving their moorings for 12 hours a day, six days a week, and lines forming outside Calderwood Hall just before they open for pizza at 5 p.m. The urgency with which picnics…
Courtney Naliboff
Sisters Betsy and Jill Philbrook fish from their boat off Swan's Island. Betsy first fished with her grandmother
September 28

Swan’s Island honors women who fished

Photos, interviews on display at island lighthouse
PHOTO COURTESY SWAN'S ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY Betsy Philbrook, in 1988, rigs her first trap. Betsy Philbrook’s grandmother, Melita Staples, was up for anything except cooking and housecleaning. “She used to…
Laurie Schreiber
September 27

Breakfast variety multiplies with visitors

Hosting gardening volunteers brings international flavors
Do you eat the same thing for breakfast every day, day after day? Some people eat no breakfast at all, or get by on a piece of toast and a…
Sandy Oliver
An aerial view of House Island in Casco Bay.
September 27

Estuary Beat: A focus on monitoring

How blue is Casco Bay? Friends of Casco Bay is recruiting volunteers to help monitor water quality by observing the color of the water. The color of estuaries and bays…
Catherine Schmitt
Seas break over the main road on Islesboro in the area known as the Narrows.
September 27

Innovative infrastructure in face of sea-level rise

Examples found in Maine, California, and Europe
By Susie Arnold, Kate Tagai, and Allison Carmen Rising ocean levels and increasing storm frequency and intensity are already having an impact along the Maine coast. How we choose to adapt and…
Test Journo
A drone view of the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
September 27

North Haven comes together for its elderly

Funding lined up through multiple sources, other non-profits
  WILLIAM TREVASKIS Hannah Pingree, right, speaks during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Southern Harbor House. Kathi Lovell, board member of Southern Harbor Eldercare Services is at center, and the facility's…
Courtney Naliboff
Channing Boswell at the dock off Thompson Wharf in Belfast
September 27

Rolling on the river aboard electric-powered whale boat

Former commercial mariner offers scenic rides from Belfast
Whether it’s aboard a restored schooner or a retrofit lobster boat, there are plenty of opportunities for visitors and locals to enjoy the sublime experience of being on the saltwater…
Tom Groening
September 27

The ‘priestess of nature’ who took on the ‘elixirs of death’

Rachel Carson’s works on the environment gathered in new book
By Tom Walsh                                  If you don’t know much—or even anything at all—about Rachel Carson, here’s your chance. The Library of America recruited the help of editor Sandra Steingraber in recently…
Test Journo
September 26

'Into the Raging Sea' details human failings that cursed El Faro

Captain’s personal plight may have clouded judgement, book suggests
Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking ofEl Faro  By Rachel Slade (HarperCollins, 2018) Reviewed by Tina Cohen In October 2015, the El Faro, a 790-foot American…
Tina Cohen
September 26

A plethora of peaches

Yes, they can be grown here, and they taste of late summer in January
The peach deluge is over for this year. For two weeks from the end of August into the second week of September a flood of peaches and a surge of…
Sandy Oliver

Island Postcards

EPISODE 10: Keep the Light Shining

Two ambitious young women swam around the entire Island of Isle au Haut during the summer of 2019 to raise money for crucial renovations to the lighthouse.

WATCH ALL ISLAND POSTCARDS

 

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