A schooner sails past the tanks in South Portland on a late May Saturday.

Working Waterfront

Is a Portland cell tower killing fish?

Complied by Tom Groening Are the radio waves from a cell tower killing fish? As odd as that question sounds, it's being taken seriously by the Portland school system, the Portland Press-Herald reports. The cell tower in question is on the roof of Deering High School, and a biology teacher… SEE MORE

Vinalhaven school students and staff start to congregate outside around the trash collage and spend some time considering all the trash they collected.

Working Waterfront

Vinalhaven’s trash collage teaches lessons on litter

By Kris Osgood Small island schools often struggle to match what bigger mainland schools do: fielding sports teams, filling out bands, casting plays. But small island schools offer opportunities that might be out of the question for mainland schools. Last May, the Vinalhaven School participated in one such undertaking. "Why… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Tourism promotion should understand Downeast’s needs

By Michael Morse In 2004, my wife and I bought an 1887 brick building in downtown Eastport. We knew that it would take a lot of work to turn it into the gallery that we envisioned. Many of the buildings in town were empty and some were boarded up.… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Swan’s Island, Frenchboro face choice between coop and Emera

SWAN'S ISLAND — A straw poll in July could determine the future of the island's ratepayer-owned electric cooperative. The approximately 450 ratepayers in the Swan's Island Electric Cooperative will choose between maintaining an island-based grid, which allows a certain amount of local control in responding to outages and bill collection,… SEE MORE

Jon Bolduc votes at Islesboro's annual town meeting on Saturday

Working Waterfront

Islesboro approves step toward building broadband

An earlier version of this story included a wrong first name. ISLESBORO — At their annual town meeting on Saturday, May 30, residents overwhelmingly approved raising and spending $206,830 to begin the process of building a town-owned broadband Internet network. The money will cover the first steps of the project,… SEE MORE

A cruise ship as seen from Cadillac Mountain.

Working Waterfront

Expect record-breaking number of cruise ships in Bar Harbor

The cruise ship business must have been hit by the Great Recession, as were other sectors of the tourism economy. So the news, reported by the Mount Desert Islander, that the schedule for cruise ship visits to Bar Harbor for this spring, summer and fall shows "the town on track… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Those Cranberry connections, far and wide

Bruce Fernald recently traveled to the Napa Valley to attend the 17th Annual Worlds of Flavor International Conference and Festival at the Culinary Institute of America. He participated in a seminar with Sam Hayward and Cara Stadler, two Maine chefs, who were cooking lobster in various forms. Bruce was there… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A perfectly planned memorial

Judy Coffin perfectly, and cheerfully, planned her memorial service and the reception that followed it. All that we her grieving neighbors, friends and family had to do was follow instructions. As she entered hospice, she announced to her husband Jack, "We are going to be happy," and she set the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Island museum celebrates Islesford’s lobster fishing heritage

ISLESFORD—When Leeman Gilley Ham, a lifelong lobster fisherman and well-loved resident of Islesford, died in 2012 at age 99, the island's entire fleet held a flotilla procession in his memory. Katrina Winfield-Howard, a summer resident, recently recalled how moved she was to hear about the ceremony. Adam Olearcek, Ham's great-grandson,… SEE MORE

An 1837 entry in Woodruff's journal describes North Islanders as "intelligent

Working Waterfront

When Mormon missionaries came to North Haven

Kathy Luke has a map of the Fox Islands on the wall of her Utah home, a souvenir of her visit to North Haven in September. "We decided to go back to where the Luce family lived and the reason that is so important is because not only did they… SEE MORE