Working Waterfront

Waiting for the warmth prompts grateful thoughts

As people start to reappear in the Cranberry Isles, looking forward to a fresh summer season, no one seems to be asking, “How was your spring?” Most everyone in the Northeast has experienced a colder, wetter month of May than usual. When people arrive to see tulips barely starting to… SEE MORE

A sailboat approaches Portland's waterfront.

Working Waterfront

Island students learn by serving other Mainers

For some island kids, overnight trips to the mainland are no big deal. For others, a night or two in a strange place, especially with teacher chaperones and not parents, is a truly daunting prospect. For that reason, we try to regularly build overnight off-island experiences into the North Haven… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Islander teamwork rescues feathered family

As near as anyone has been able to tell so far, there were ever only two water-powered granite polishing mills in the world (one may have been in Springfield, Mass.), and only one powered by tidal water. The latter was on Vinalhaven and it was powered by big iron turbines… SEE MORE

An aerial photo shows the North Haven Community School with the Camden hills on the horizon.

Working Waterfront

North Haven school will try magnet program next year

North Haven Community School, Maine’s smallest K-12 public school with an average of 60 students, is seeking mainland students to participate in the pilot year of its new magnet program. Magnet schools are permitted by Maine law and allow publicly funded schools to accept students from outside their service area.… SEE MORE

Swan's Island students on the deck of the State of Maine with their boat

Working Waterfront

Swan’s Island students drift from Maine to Europe

The advantages of attending a small, island school are many. But often, educators must work to combat the insularity and isolation of those schools. For the Swan’s Island School, a ticket off the island to the larger world came through Educational Passages, a long-established program that helps students learn about… SEE MORE

From left: panel moderator Carol Coultas

Working Waterfront

Coastal tourism businesses brace for worker shortage

As summer arrives, there’s worry in the tourism industry—not about seeing enough customers, but about having enough staff. At a May 31 breakfast forum hosted by the Portland Press Herald, coastal business owners and managers described the challenges they face this year, which range from a local workforce unable to… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Flying just for fun

Because I go back and forth between Matinicus and Rockland a lot, and because our island doesn’t have a daily ferry or mail boat, and because the pilots who fly for Penobscot Island Air are friends, I spend probably too much time hanging around underfoot in the air service office… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Help on the way from island caretakers

As May began with limited sunshine and two weeks of showers in the forecast, I said to Bruce, “Remember that one year when we had 23 days of rain in May?” He reminded me it was the year we built our house. “We were so lucky to get the whole… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Matches, the half-life of cake, and other kitchen observations

Where are the kitchen matches of yesteryear? I’m not looking for something that existed 50 or 100 years ago—just maybe ten or so, the wonderful red-tipped, strike-anywhere Diamond matches that have been replaced with the atrocity named Green Light. I loathe these new matches. They come 300 to a box,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Fresh recruits take on first-responder charge

On an island with a more-or-less fixed population of fewer that 400 people, burn-out is an all-too-common phenomenon. After so many years on a board or in a volunteer position, enthusiasm wanes and performance slips. The flip side is the narrowing perspective that can come from one person occupying a… SEE MORE