Working Waterfront

Fake it ’til you make it

Reflections is a monthly column written by Island Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands and in remote coastal communities through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. Ben Algeo works with the electric utilities on Monhegan and Matinicus as they work toward energy efficiency. … SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Small, island-town values play well in big world

Benjamin Stevens of Islesford (Little Cranberry Island) graduated this month from Maine Maritime Academy in Castine. Every year, people from Maine’s islands buy all sorts of things. We buy clothes and shoes, tools and supplies, fuel and electricity, and groceries. Every island resident knows how challenging it is to get their… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Saving community underpinnings means recognizing them

A friend of mine once wrote that fishing villages came in to existence once they began to disappear. Once seaside villages were lost to other forms of development, nostalgia over their loss emerged, giving rise to the term “fishing villages” in the early 19th century. Most of the time, it… SEE MORE

Peter Willcox in the wheelhouse of a Greenpeace ship.

Working Waterfront

The dangerous work of bringing a green peace

Greenpeace Captain Macmillan, 2016 Big whales, bigger weather, young men at sea in rickety boats as underdogs in quixotic quests. It’s the stuff of good fiction. It’s also the story of Peter Willcox, who has traveled more than 400,000 miles at the helm of Greenpeace ships, through tropical storms and… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Feasting with the summer folk an island tradition

Just beneath the surface in most men there lurks a real grub. My wife offered this wry observation after I described to her the behavior of the men in attendance at the annual stag lobster feed, hosted for over 50 years now by the Vinalhaven Lions Club. Long referred to… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

May’s mayhem includes jewelry making, study and travel

Last November and December I made plans to be away from Little Cranberry Island during the first two weekends in May. It all sounded so great at the time, and actually, it still is, but right now I am mired in all I have left to do before I leave.… SEE MORE

Grindle Point Lighthouse with the Camden Hills to the west.

Working Waterfront

When Chebeague came to Islesboro

We all started out in our respective island kitchens on the morning of May 2, assembling lunches—sandwiches, salads, goodies to go—eight women from Chebeague and about a dozen on Islesboro, when the Chebeague Methodist Church Ladies Aid came for a visit to Islesboro’s Sewing Circle. Initiated by Jane Frizzel, leader… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Swan’s Island’s ‘water girls’

Lesley and Leah Ranquist of Swan’s Island, sisters in their early 20s, were first introduced to fishing when they were mere kindergarteners. Now they are among the 4 percent of women currently holding commercial fishing licenses in Maine. Lesley and Leah’s story isn’t just noteworthy because they’re young women making… SEE MORE

High school graduation on North Haven in 2014. The grads wore the colors that corresponded to the colors of their lobster buoys.

Working Waterfront

Reversing island ‘brain drain’ falls to locals

As a high school teacher, I spend some time each year talking with students about their next steps. At North Haven Community School, we have a healthy mix in each graduating class of students attending four-year colleges, community colleges or trade schools, entering military service, or choosing to stay on… SEE MORE

Tracy Ames outside the home at 187 Main Street she and her family will now call home

Working Waterfront

North Haven housing, eldercare groups gearing up

With two houses in the hands of owners, three rental units, an eldercare facility in the works and more projects on the way, North Haven Sustainable Housing is working hard to keep islanders from having to do what’s known on the island as the “housing shuffle.” “There’s an increasing crisis… SEE MORE