Category: Opinion

Rockweed on the shore at low tide. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Rockweed harvesting is sustainable

Contrary to a recent article in this newspaper (“Illegal rockweed harvesting threatens environment,” November issue), rockweed harvesting is an environmentally sustainable practice that is crucial to the future of Maine’s working waterfront. The article took a surprisingly sour view of the industry, overstating the number of bad actors and instances… SEE MORE
Rock Bound

Working Waterfront

Columbus, Squanto, and our original sin

This, the December/January issue of The Working Waterfront, prints between a couple of holidays that are sort of related—Indigenous Peoples Day and Thanksgiving. The history embedded in these dates is worth reflection, especially as our understanding of it has evolved in recent years. The 500th anniversary of Columbus arriving in… SEE MORE
Cover detail.

Working Waterfront

Kozak’s Acadia

[caption id="attachment_38924" align="alignnone" width="650"] One of the many boat trip tours led by ANP ranger-naturalist Maurice Sullivan in the 1930s. Some of them featured singalongs. PHOTO: COURTESY ACADIA NATIONAL PARK[/caption] Images of America: Acadia National Park By Anne Kozak with Josh Winer and Sam Putnam, Arcadia Publishing (2023) The story… SEE MORE
Rock Bound

Working Waterfront

Columbus, Squanto, and our original sin

This, the December/January issue of The Working Waterfront, prints between a couple of holidays that are sort of related—Indigenous Peoples Day and Thanksgiving. The history embedded in these dates is worth reflection, especially as our understanding of it has evolved in recent years. The 500th anniversary of Columbus arriving in… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A ‘common’ mistake, island schools

A common mistake To the editor: While I always enjoy reading The Working Waterfront and Tom Groening’s Rock Bound column, the one in the October issue has an error that I couldn’t let pass. The praise of Belfast Summer Nights is certainly justified; however the name of the “flat expanse… SEE MORE
Journal of an Island Kitchen

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