Working Waterfront

Secrets of a sunset chaser

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. After living on Deer Isle for a year, I have a lot of sunset photos, and they… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Remembering a star of the glory days of newspapers

We’ve dropped the editorial in this month’s issue in favor of a personal column remembering a life well-lived, and a colleague whose example continues to shine bright. One of the benefits we enjoy on the Maine coast is that prominent and accomplished people visit or retire here, and often, we… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Maine coastal towns expecting, preparing for rising seas

By Susie Arnold, Ph. D. and Heather Deese, Ph. D. Sea level along the Maine coast has been rising at a fairly regular rate for the last 5,000 years or so. In the 20th century, sea level rose at about 1 inch per decade. Looking forward, we are expecting much… SEE MORE

Sitting on Great Cranberry Island's back shore

Working Waterfront

Savoring summer evokes childhood memories

On one of the last days of June, I met up with my friend and neighbor, Cindy Thomas, at the Sand Beach on Islesford. We get together all year long for a brief monthly dip from this beach, but on this particular day we were gathering for a more seasonal… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Connecting our communities more critical than ever

This column first appeared in the 2017 Island Journal, which is now available for purchase at TheArchipelago.net. Maine touts its allure for visitors and prospective transplants by asserting that we provide qualities summed up as “the way life should be.” The phrase suggests purity, simplicity, a pace more in tune… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

That beautiful sky might not be the easiest to fly through

By Eva Murray A couple of weeks ago, as an early-evening thunderstorm approached from the west, the sky over Penobscot Bay got everybody’s attention. A palette of sunset colors contrasted with discrete layers of bright white and nearly-black clouds, and the fast-moving front, with its peculiar sharp edge, barreled overhead… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The kitchen in summer

There is always some darn pile of vegetables or other in the kitchen in summer. Of course, that is the whole point of a garden, to grow vegetables for immediate and delayed consumption, either by the household or neighbors and friends. Wouldn’t it be handy if the piles accumulated after… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Calm reflection on Hurricane Island

Between the end of the school year and the needle drop on summer, I found myself on a very fast boat headed to Hurricane Island. The boat was piloted by a guy I’ve known, through various cosmic-level coincidences, since he was 8-years old, and who’s now the facilities manager for… SEE MORE

Students were eager to enter the reopened Longfellow School on Great Cranberry Island last September.

Working Waterfront

Small island schools better with TLC

Think back to 2008: summer Olympics in Beijing; signs of the Great Recession start to show; Barack Obama is elected president; Celtics beat the Lakers in the NBA finals. On Maine’s outer islands, teachers work tirelessly to maintain their one-room schools. Tirelessly and separately. Each school has a teacher and… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Why not restore stripers to Gulf of Maine?

Michael J. LittleI read with interest the Fathoming column in the June issue of The Working Waterfront (“Signs of spring in our rivers and bays”) about the resurgence of fish migrations in the rivers and bays of the coast of Maine. I think it is very exciting that these populations… SEE MORE