A barber trims hair aboard a vessel out of Thomaston

Working Waterfront

Statewide photo album includes Swan’s Island, Monhegan

By Laurie Schreiber On Swan's Island, Mary L. (Mamie) Torrey was an inquisitive and determined soul. Born in 1876, her mother died when she was 9. Unable to attend more than three years of school, she was homeschooled by her father, a mariner who lost a leg in an accident… 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

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

Majestic eagle caught in awkward moment

Editor's note: This month's Observer is a reprise of an earlier published column. I'm not a bird watcher but I did notice, last week, an Eastern Phoebe light on a weatherstick outside my window. The stick was tiny and delicate but the Phoebe was even more so and the stick's… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Asserting ourselves locally is still an option

The traditional March town meeting in Maine, an institution that has launched many a laudatory newspaper editorial praising it as the last bastion of pure democracy, ain't what it used to be. And that's too bad. In recent decades, management of schools, law enforcement, solid waste and other government functions… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Facebook, the island version

At the top of Kent's Hill, the one-way road leading into North Haven's downtown, is the community bulletin board. Hand-written notices of transfer station hours, with annotations like "No April Fool's Joke!" and "Dump Closed—Guess Why" are posted there, along with the high school basketball schedule, welcome home notices for… SEE MORE

Lucas Milardo works with Frenchboro's two students.

Working Waterfront

Learning about island history from children

Luke Milardo is an Island Fellow, a participant in a two-year service program operated by AmeriCorps and the Island Institute, doing community development work on islands and remote coastal communities. He is serving on Frenchboro (Long Island) off Mount Desert Island. This fall, the Frenchboro School studied island history and… 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