Working Waterfront

Native history of North Haven an eye-opener

By Courtney Naliboff This fall marks the first time Maine’s October three-day-weekend will be held in honor of indigenous people in the state, rather than that guy who accidentally landed in the Caribbean and instigated the first of many Western hemisphere genocides. The change on the calendar is part of… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Fishing, college go hand-in-work-glove for this teen

By Tom Groening Danielle Weaver blows up stereotypes about slacker teens. The young woman has been lobstering since she was 13, works several shifts weekly at the busy Rock City coffee shop in Rockland, and, at 19, has already completed enough courses at the University of Maine at Augusta’s Rockland… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

UMaine study looks at Gulf of Maine temperature trends

Gulf of Maine temperature trends and variability during the past 11,000 years will be the focus of a five-year study led by a University of Maine paleo-oceanographer to enhance long-term environmental prediction and planning. Katherine Allen, a UMaine assistant professor in the School of Earth and Climate Sciences, and on… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Good science: Ecosystem-based fisheries management

By Tom Groening Fisheries management needs to be more localized and more closely tied to the people who work in the fishing industry. Those values are driving organizations like the Stonington-based Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries (MCCF), and this more sophisticated, nuanced approach to regulation was a theme at its… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Island life still holds capacity for surprise

Reflections is written by Island Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands and in coastal communities through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. By Maria Keeler Seated in my office in early June, I am surrounded by layers of evidence that I both work… SEE MORE

Jeff Gammelin points out the qualities of the granite.

Working Waterfront

Rocking the granite business

By Laurie Schreiber The sprawling shops at Freshwater Stone—22,000 square feet on 20 acres in Orland—are filled with the sound of industrial machinery, including wire saws and multiple-axis bridge saws, cutting into massive blocks of granite weighing tens of thousands of pounds. Digitally operated, the machinery produces slabs and complex… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

COA’s new building will use 80 percent less energy

From left, College of the Atlantic President Darron Collins, New York City architect Susan Rodriguez, Andrew Davis, who is the Shelby Cullom Davis Charitable Fund lead advisor, and Timothy Lock, a management partner with Opal, the architecture division of GO Logic in Belfast. PHOTO: LAURIE SCHREIBER By… SEE MORE

Jacquelyn Gill stands near the Indigirka River

Working Waterfront

UMaine scientist pursues ‘Lost Beasts of the Ice Age’

Jacquelyn Gill stood entranced inside a permafrost cave in Siberia. Woolly mammoth tusks protruded through glistening walls. A lion cub, dead for 30,000 or more years, appeared as if it was napping. “In those 30 minutes (inside the cave), I had the opportunity to get closer to the landscape I’ve… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Following the whale into an array of lessons

By Courtney Naliboff As an island teacher, it is often my duty and pleasure, and that of my colleagues, to take students off-island overnight. We do it for basketball games, we do it for rowing races, we do it for theater festivals. As wonderful as the island is, and as… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

National models for broadband impart lessons

By Kendra Jo Grindle In Clatskanie, a small rural town in northwestern Oregon, local organizers are piloting a new way to connect—“mesh” networks. Medina County, Ohio is implementing an open access fiber model to bring multiple, competitive internet service providers (ISPs) to residents county-wide. Multiple electric co-ops in Tennessee are… SEE MORE