Working Waterfront

Island education: more than picturesque schools

Growing up in a small town in Western Maine, I’ve known the feeling of community my whole life, where Hannaford grocery aisles are meeting places and hot dogs are shared at Friday night football games. But I came to know community in a different way when I moved to an… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Dinner in the time of COVID

By Sandy Oliver My parents lived through the Depression and World War II and I have thanked God and the universe that in my lifetime I have never had to endure the privations they knew during those times. As you can imagine, though, while I grew up, our household oozed… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Spring comes, regardless of the state of humans

By Courtney Naliboff Remember last month’s column, when I was so excited about my staycation? And then exactly a month later we all found ourselves on an indefinite staycation? Except during this staycation I’m teaching a full remote-course load while helping my kindergartener with her remote learning and also attempting… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Mythic story-poems of spirit and survival

Review by Carl Little In a documentary about his life and work, award-winning Native-American writer N. Scott Momaday stated, “There is no such thing as poetry in Indian traditions.” Interviewing him in March, NPR reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro asked him to explain. “It’s a storytelling tradition,” Momaday said, “so you have… SEE MORE

An illustration of a cod schooner at sea in the mid 1800s.

Working Waterfront

Maine: A pattern of renewal after hardship

By Jack Sullivan I was looking forward to doing something fun to celebrate my home state’s 200th anniversary of statehood. I wanted to have a few friends over and make a toast to the 23rd state of this great nation—maybe even pour one out for Joshua Chamberlain. Unfortunately, March 15… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Personal stories about sewage and pollution

By Albert Presgraves I started sailing as a youngster with my family in the 1960s. At that time, the only sewage disposal system in common use on boats was a marine toilet with a built-in pump that pulled in seawater and discharged the waste and water mix overboard. It seemed… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Let’s take a trip around some other waterfronts

By Tom Groening When I arrived at the Island Institute seven years ago, the newspaper featured a column that reported on working waterfront access issues around the U.S. The few times I wrote the column, my approach was to bop around the web, reading news stories about development and the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Keep doing art… every one of us

Reflections is written by Island Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands and in coastal communities through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. By Mark Macey Originally, this column was going to be about Dear Elizabeth, a play I directed for Stage East, here… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Our island communities value our seasonal residents, but we worry

By Roger Berle and Donna Wiegle As co-chairs of the Maine Islands Coalition (MIC), we feel the need to collaboratively present our perspective on how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting our island communities. And that is this: the pandemic has already landed on our islands, and we now wonder what… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Tough times ahead, but businesses bank on resiliency

By Meghan Grabill Recent reports have suggested that Maine’s economy is highly vulnerable to the impacts of the coronavirus. On the surface, data indicators can point to many different outcomes in an approachable and easy-to-understand way. But this simplicity leaves no room for nuances like resiliency. Many of Maine’s characteristics… SEE MORE