Jeff Frank speaks at the Maine Fishermen's Forum. PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN

Working Waterfront

Jeff Frank and the ‘Future of Fishing’

Name: Jeff Frank Title: Senior community development officer in Island Institute’s Center for Marine Economy Focus: I lead the business support work for the Future of Fishing program. This initiative is designed to help Maine’s fishing families and coastal communities navigate the economic uncertainty facing the lobster industry. My work… SEE MORE

The Portland Marine Hospital at Martin’s Point, photographed in 1900.

Working Waterfront

Our social insurance has maritime origins

Social welfare programs are subject to frequent criticism on the national and local levels and are usually associated with numerous 1930s policies enacted to respond to social hardships highlighted by the Great Depression. In actuality, the first government-managed social insurance program dates all the way back to the 18th century… SEE MORE

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The magic of municipal planning

I remind myself that I’m lucky to have a wealth of information available to me. I can find planning board minutes from 2017 on the town of St. George website. I can instantly generate a map of car accidents in town over the past 20 years... SEE MORE

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How nature steps up when waves get rough

There are thousands of examples from around the world, but what practitioners have found works best to show landowners the benefits of nature-based solutions is social proof—a project in your neighbor’s yard. SEE MORE

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Those with eyes to see

Imagine emerging from a modest cataract (left eye) removal procedure and discovering, for the first time in 81 years, that you could see, from that eye only, admittedly, but still—you could really see. You’d known, for most of those 81 years, that there were trees of course, and often branches,… SEE MORE

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A letter from an island in winter

Dear friend—How was your winter? It wasn’t too bad staying here on the island, but February was kind of rough. Days and days of temperatures below 20 degrees and a lot of wind. Ferries seemed to be canceled one or two days every week. That was hard on everyone; both… SEE MORE

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Seasonal eating as an extreme sport

As an experiment one year, I vowed not to buy, cook, or eat any out-of-season vegetables. No eggplant in December. No asparagus in January. No broccoli in March. Sort of eating by pre-Civil War era standards. (You’d be surprised how quickly fresh produce found its way north after the hostilities… SEE MORE

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What sports should be

Over my two decades at North Haven Community School, I've developed a fondness for basketball. Not televised basketball (although I, too, was swept up in the women's NCAA excitement last year) or any basketball where I haven't known the players since birth, or at least kindergarten. Just the North Haven… SEE MORE

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Another look at the midwife’s story

She asserts that “roughly 75 percent of what happens on these pages closely follows the historical record.” But she emphatically reminds us the book is “inspired by real events as opposed to being based on them.” SEE MORE

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Mystery hidden in island fog

Suspicions fall on Jon, who has an uneasy relationship with his father, not to mention a serious drinking problem. SEE MORE