Maine Seacoast Mission’s Sunbeam docked in Northeast Harbor with the Planet Pan steel drum band.

Working Waterfront

Sunbeam heads south

[caption id="attachment_36825" align="alignright" width="600"] Maine Seacoast Mission’s Sunbeam anchored in Cape Split Harbor.[/caption] At the end of July, Maine Seacoast Mission’s flagship vessel, the 74-foot Sunbeam, will host two open houses in the Falmouth-Portland and Boothbay Harbor regions. Both events are open to the public. Visitors can tour the boat… SEE MORE

Stephen Etnier’s “Inside Haskell’s” (1969), oil on canvas.

Working Waterfront

Stephen and David Etnier: A legacy of place

In his autobiography Overworked Guardian Angel, published posthumously in 2009, the painter Stephen Etnier (1903-1984) paid homage to the stretch of the Maine coast around South Harpswell where he lived and which he haunted for a good part of his life. This “series of coves and inlets with fingers of… SEE MORE

A photo shot in December 1973 shows a fishing boat and Coast Guard vessel in peril at the mouth of Casco Bay. PHOTO: NATIONAL FISHERMAN COLLECTION, PENOBSCOT MARINE MUSEUM

Working Waterfront

When the helper gets in trouble

There is no shortage of drama in the National Fisherman photograph shown here, taken in December 1973. The dark figure of a man looms in the foreground surveying a scene of maritime mayhem. It’s foggy and snowing, and one can almost feel the elements. A rope leads the viewer’s eye… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Class clashes and conspiracy logic

Land of Cockaigne By Jeffrey Lewis, Haus Publishing Ltd. (2022) The central thing you need to know about the protagonist family in Jeffrey Lewis’s novel Land of Cockaigne is that they are from away. Walter and Catherine “Charley” Rath arrived in Sneeds Harbor, located somewhere along the rim of Mount… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

An insider’s artist view of Casco Bay

Hundreds of Roberta Ricker’s colorful paintings depicting coastal and island life hang in homes in Maine and beyond. The paintings are a kind of artistic documentary of... SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Fictional drama added to shameful reality

This Other Eden By Paul Harding W.W. Norton & Co., 2023 Kate McBrien needs not even ten words to describe her reaction to This Other Eden. One will do: “Offensive.” Maine’s state archivist has found getting through Paul Harding’s newest coastal novel something of a challenge. “It perpetuates all the… SEE MORE

Noel "Paul" Stookey performing at the studios of WERU-FM.

Working Waterfront

On the record with… Noel Stookey of Blue Hill

His given name is Noel, but most over the age of 60 know him as Paul Stookey, a member of the folk music trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, stalwarts of the 1960s, known for covering such songs as “Blowin’ in the Wind” by a then-unknown Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Out of my lane—pinch-hitting as art teacher

As I settle into middle age, I find I can enjoy a sense of easy competency in most of the things I do. After 18 years of teaching and directing plays, I no longer fret over every detail, but can plan more generally and pivot and problem-solve as needed. I… SEE MORE

William Irvine, “The Resting Fishermen,” 2020, oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. COURTESY: COURTHOUSE GALLERY FINE ART

Working Waterfront

William Irvine’s sleeping fishermen

“Although the painting is called ‘The Resting Fishermen,’” painter William Irvine explains via email, “they are actually asleep.” A trio of barefoot simply-clad men, eyes closed, lean against each other, their backs against a small shed set on a dock strewn with lobster traps, buoys, oars, nets, and rope, with… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Have you seen the Scuttlebutt?

The phrase “buyer beware” seems inappropriate for someone settling in a pretty Maine waterfront community. But maybe “buyer aware” makes some sense. After all, if that town has a working waterfront, a newcomer’s expectations may not match reality. Fishermen’s pickups driving by at 4 a.m. in summer. Diesel boat engines… SEE MORE