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.
Please join us to support this important nonprofit journalism.
- Community
- People
- Opinion
- Environment
- Marine
- Inter-island News
- Business
- Columns
- Arts
- Education
- Book Review
- Climate Change
- Cranberry Report
- Journal of an Island Kitchen
- Salt Water Cure
- Op Ed
- Reflections
- Observer
- Fathoming
- Field Notes
- Rockbound
- Essay
- Energy
- Editorial
- Letters to the Editor
- In Plain Sight
- Wrack Line
- From The Sea Up
- Dispatches from World Ocean Observatory
June 2
MDI region’s history now gathered and shared
History Trust collaborative preserves and digitizes collections
Historical societies, libraries, and museums of the Mount Desert Island region have long been assembling evidence of local history in records and artifacts. Through the History Trust, these organizations are now working together to digitize, preserve, and share the results. The idea for the History Trust began to take shape nearly a decade ago when a group of island historical…
June 2
Running the regulation gauntlet
Island fishing economies face new hurdles
My husband, Bruce, launched his lobster boat at the end of March and was setting traps by the first week of April. He spent the winter painting buoys, repairing old…
May 25
A survey of recent Maine settlement
'Sideshots' plots some of the state’s cultural divides
Sideshots: Stories from a Land Surveyor’s Traverse through the District of Maine By John T. Mann, illustrated by Earle Mitchell (2020) Review by Dana Wilde In the 1970s, Maine was…
May 25
New lobster size rules considered
Federal commission looking at larger minimums
It never rains but it pours. That’s the way New England lobstermen already grappling with the May 1 deadline to comply with new rules aimed at protecting right whales must…
May 25
On the record with... Nicolle Littrell of DoryWoman Rowing
Business offers year-round rowing on Belfast Harbor
With the pandemic, many of us moved our jobs to our homes, and within that space we may choose a room that is comfortable and maybe comforting, too. Nicolle Littrell…
May 18
Maine's not-so-clean history on race
KKK to Native genocide part of our heritage
Early in his presentation, Todd Little-Sebold shows a photo of a Ku Klux Klan gathering in 1926 that drew about 30,000. Mississippi? Georgia? Nope. Portland, Maine. The photo often prompts…
May 18
Music to be melancholy by
Oldies show stirs memories of awkward teen years
Whenever I can listen and do whatever else I’m doing simultaneously, I tune in to At the Hop on WERU-FM (89.9) on Saturday afternoons. Host Rick Foster’s regard for the…
May 18
Even schooners relied on tugs
Capt. Bill Abbott collection featured in event
The photo accompanying this month’s column shows the Ross Towing Co. tug Walter Ross with a four-master in tow down the Penobscot River, seen from the Stockton Springs shore, off…
May 18
Unpacking lobstering’s windfall year
Dollar value set record, but questions remain
The closest I have come to regretting giving up my lobster license was this past summer. My father's still an active fisherman, and as we had a beer and looked…
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.
SIGN UP FOR OUR
E-WEEKLY
Get the latest articles from the Working Waterfront delivered to your inbox every week.
SIGN UP NOWTHE WORKING WATERFRONT
LATEST ISSUE
A nonprofit publication of the Island Institute which has been published for over 20 years.
LEARN MORE