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April 18
Defying authority in a Maine mill town
Memoir recalls battles against poison, abuse
And Poison Fell From the Sky: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Survival in Maine’s Cancer Valley By Marie Therese Martin (Islandport Press, 2022) The poison in Marie Therese Martin’s And Poison Fell From the Sky: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Survival in Maine’s Cancer Valley is the toxins emitted by the paper mill she grew up near in…
April 18
Another good year for Maine tourism
State reports $8.6 billion in spending
Maine’s tourism economy rarely seems to enjoy a normal year. Factors such as fluctuating gas prices and airline fares, terrorist attacks, and pandemics play their part in either inflating or…
April 18
Free community college gets good marks
Program achieving workforce, educational goals
Emma Brezovsky, 18, a senior at Bucksport High School, wants to become a teacher. To achieve that goal, she knows she needs a bachelor’s degree. “My original plan was just…
April 18
Listening for right whales
Acoustic monitoring may improve understanding
You might think keeping track of a 100,000 pound animal would be easy. But when its home has no boundaries and its prey moves with changing ocean circulation within the…
April 18
Kim Hamilton named Island Institute president
Island, nonprofit background cited as strengths
The Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, named Kim Hamilton as its president, effective April 1. Hamilton has served as the organization’s interim chief programs officer since September, overseeing…
April 11
Boothbay’s ‘hidden treasure’ is water temperature data
Almost 120 years of readings are informing climatologists
Maine’s Department of Marine Resources has maintained a hidden treasure in Boothbay Harbor for nearly 120 years—a daily measurement of sea surface temperatures, which provides an uncommonly long record of…
April 11
Making our ‘civic deserts’ more fertile
Nonprofit JustME for JustUS engaging rural youth
Like most of Generation Z, many of my early life milestones were bookmarked by incredible socio-political events. I graduated high school in 2016, the same year as a shocking U.S.…
April 11
When admitting you’re wrong is the right move
A captain’s candid confessions reveal the vagaries of ocean
Reading the Glass: A Captain’s View of Weather, Water, and Life on Ships By Elliot Rappaport, Dutton/Penguin Random House (2023) A few of us get to know everything: doctors, editors,…
April 11
The shameful history of a ‘notorious’ slave ship captain
Maine’s Frederick Drinkwater flouted ban on slave trade
[caption id="attachment_35121" align="alignnone" width="700"] A newspaper report on a slave ship arriving in Kittery.[/caption] Maine has a proud history of seafaring captains who braved the open ocean in pursuit of…
April 5
Lobster shells may protect potato crop
UMaine researchers studying pathogen protections
Scientists at the University of Maine are studying lobster shells as a possible aid to microbial communities to ward off soilborne potato pathogens. The novel shell-to-spud combination may connect two…
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.
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