Victor Diaz is the new chaplain for Chebeague Island’s church.

Working Waterfront

Chebeague chooses new chaplain

“Victor is able to speak to all generations,” she says. “I feel like he stands in the middle and can speak to our traditional, older population as well as attract others who are younger, like millennials.” SEE MORE

Sean and Andi Creeley. PHOTO: COURTESY SEAN CREELEY

Working Waterfront

New owners for Penobscot Island Air

A business providing a vital link to Maine’s offshore islands has new owners. Sean and Andi Creeley, who are based in Portsmouth, N.H., purchased Penobscot Island Air in November from Terry Waters. In a telephone interview, Sean Creeley said he expects little to change in the operation of the business,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The horror, the horror…

Over the years I’ve made the most of Halloween. It came naturally because haunts and hauntings were a part of the lives of my three younger brothers and me. I and then the others, as they put in their respective appearances, bounced around the island, from one rent to another… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Wood, fire, and rocks

Cooking food made it possible for ancient human bodies to divert energy from digesting food to evolving larger brains, according to biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham, who wrote Catching Fire, a book to warm a cook’s heart. For millennia, pre-historic humankind cooked food before they made pottery, before metal of any… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A room of one’s own

Whatever the subject matter of my column is, the overarching theme is always life on North Haven. As Bill and I enter our 19th year on this little unbridged slice of heaven (most of the time), I’ve had occasion to think about the number one, bottom line condition that makes… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

When Vinalhaven had (lots of) fish

When the Island Had Fish: The Remarkable Story of a Maine Fishing Community By Janna Malamud Smith (DownEast Books, 2023) I’ve been talking about When the Island Had Fish: The Remarkable Story of a Maine Fishing Community on Vinalhaven with everyone I know. Even at a recent funeral. The story… SEE MORE

Caitlin and Ethan Spaulding and their son Forrest pose on the shore of their Islesboro farm. PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Crab to bird—invasive species becomes chicken feed

Two years ago, Ethan Spaulding, 30, his wife Caitlin, 26, and their son Forrest, 6, left the rich soils of Indiana to start a farm on a rocky island off the Maine coast. They knew logic wasn’t on their side, but they believe their God is. “We knew nobody out… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Port Clyde’s loss is seared in pain

We can watch live satellite images of a typhoon on the other side of the planet. We can record thousands of photographs in a device not much bigger than a deck of playing cards. We can inject a genetic replica of a virus to boost immunity. But something as elemental… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Maine islands are the frontier

For those of you who track island life, you’ll likely know there are 15 year-round, unbridged islands along the Maine coast. Distinguished by their differences more than their commonalities, these islands span the coast from Cliff Island, the smallest of the Casco Bay islands, to Matinicus, the most distant island… SEE MORE

The approach to the Fox Islands Thorofare. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Mariners call for navigational aid maintenance

Lighthouses and buoys aren’t the only navigational aids on which mariners rely for safe transit. Structures known as day shapes or beacons, often built on ledges, also warn boaters away from danger, and some mariners have complained that as they deteriorate, the Coast Guard is failing to maintain them. Rep.… SEE MORE