This image shows a dead whale in Vinalhaven’s Carver’s Harbor in 1918. PHOTO: MAINE MARITIME MUSEUM

Working Waterfront

What created Maine’s brief whaling industry

Menhaden, also referred to as pogies or mossbunkers, are currently one of several species of bait fish used in the lobster industry. Historically, these fish were harvested for entirely different purposes: leather production and agriculture. By the mid-19th century, numerous oil processing plants were established in Maine to refine menhaden… SEE MORE

Fishermen return to the dock in Belfast after catching menhaden, also known as pogies. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Small fish, big role

In 2021, Maine’s commercial harvesters landed 22.1 million pounds valued at $9.5 million (Maine Department of Marine Resources data). SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Loving beets… or not

One of the best modern ways I’ve discovered for serving beets is to boil them, cut them into thick slices, and then drench them in butter into which you crumble lots of blue cheese. SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Sweat, tears, the sea (and rain)

The name of my column, Salt Water Cure, comes from an Isak Dinesen (real name, Karen Blixen) quote: “The cure for anything is saltwater—sweat, tears, or the sea.” I am stuck in a bit of an eddy of medical tests and waiting. Hopefully it will all be fine, but so… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Passamaquoddy Tribe secures $4.3 million

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development has announced a $4.3 million grant to the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township in Princeton. The tribe plans to build an aquaculture facility to farm eels as an alternative to wild harvesting. The award was one of eight across the nation made… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Letter to the editor: ‘Protect the intertidal’

Protect the intertidal To the editor: In an opinion piece in The Working Waterfront July issue, Richard Qualey argues that the Maine intertidal zone between high and low tide should be universally accessible to the public. The current state of the law (and since 1647) is that the intertidal is… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Looking backward, moving ahead

I’m just back from an hour’s row on a day that I think may be the first of summer. Clearly I’m hedging here, having experienced the spring, which started and stopped too many times to count. But it’s June 1, the sky’s clear and the sun’s out, the wind’s not… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Local groups funded on Penobscot clean-up

The court-appointed trustee directing work to remediate mercury in the Penobscot River estuary has announced 13 Beneficial Environmental Projects (BEPs) that will receive funding to begin delivering tangible benefits to affected communities and ecosystems. These projects will begin to fulfill a 2022 settlement in which a federal judge approved a… SEE MORE

Barry Goodell examines a piece of wood that was attacked by shipworms in 2022. PHOTO: JODY JELLISON

Working Waterfront

Study uncovers history shipworm damage

For thousands of years, shipworms—a family of mollusks found in oceans—sank wooden vessels, ravaged wharfs, and shipwrecked sailors. They even devastated the Spanish Armada in the 16th century. Exactly how they have been able to wreak such havoc has remained a mystery, until now. A new study published in the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Winter storms highlight value of Sunrise Trail

DOT bid the work May 8 and awarded it six days later to Hanscom Construction of Marshfield for $438,975. Using the finesse required to navigate massive dump trucks safely along a waterside rail bed, and despite tidal delays, Hanscom completed the work more than two weeks ahead of schedule, on June 7. SEE MORE