A wooden trap decays on the shore in Corea.

Working Waterfront

​A new, plastic threat to ocean health

By Charles A. Kniffen Twenty-five years of kayaking the Maine coast from Brown Cow ledge in Casco Bay to trailing minke whales off West Quoddy Light; one-quarter of a century picking up storm-tossed lobster pot buoys, ragged drapes of seine, wild tangles of beached trap-line, big, rubber mooring buoys, et.… SEE MORE
Stonington light

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
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