Working Waterfront

Gene ‘editing’ on mice tested in war on ticks

The number of people and pets with Lyme disease increase yearly. Maine is among the top 15 states with the highest rates of the disease. Coastal and southern communities have been hit hardest, and some have taken drastic measures to reduce ticks and their diseases, including culling deer. But culling… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Considering the birds is a balm for troubled mind

One of the things I love about October and November in the Cranberry Isles is the increase in bird stories. It is migrating season and most people out here keep an eye on the birds with many a good story to tell. This fall, especially, my mind has craved the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Thinking conservatively about kitchen energy

It boils down to this: whose energy are you going to use, your own or the energy you buy from the power or gas company? A few weeks ago, we had a half-day conference on Islesboro devoted to energy issues—how to conserve it, how to find alternative sources. While I… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

America’s lost and found perspective on Vietnam

By Ethan Andrews The recently released Ken Burns and Lyn Novick Vietnam PBS series adds to the deep catalog from these American masters of the exhaustive-topic documentary and trick-bag of revealing pans and reverse zooms. The latter—a set of camera techniques that animate a still photo or gradually reveal its… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Harbor Gawker says goodbye

PHOTO ESSAY BY COURTNEY MOONEY The Harbor Gawker has been a fixture in Vinalhaven’s village center, just a stone’s throw from the harbor, since 1975. That was the year owners Lonnie and Kathy Morton were married. Later, the couple later bought the business from Lonnie's parents, John and Barbara Morton, who… SEE MORE

Vinalhaven music teacher Bill Trevaskis works with other island teachers at the Island Institute's Island Teachers Conference in Belfast.

Working Waterfront

Island teachers share cross-curricular methods at conference

When you’re teaching in a small island school, the term “cross-curricular” is not a concept; it’s a day-to-day reality. Bill Trevaskis, the sole music teacher for students in the pre-K to 12th grade Vinalhaven School, explained how he worked with his colleagues to a group of teachers at the Island… SEE MORE

Students disembark from the ferry on Islesboro.

Working Waterfront

Wishing for life-changing memories for our youth

A good friend recently introduced me to the work of writer Annie Dillard. She is now an even better friend. In one of Dillard’s short stories, she writes some of the most beautiful reflections on memory I’ve encountered. One passage in particular stuck with me. Writing as a woman in… SEE MORE

Students are recognized at an Eastern Maine Skippers program event in Ellsworth.

Working Waterfront

Education out of the classroom, onto the water

We Americans are generous about offering our children educational opportunity. In some European countries, high school graduates are “sorted” toward different post-graduate options based on test results. Those options dictate very different fates, which seems cruel, especially if one’s child is a late bloomer or has suffered through some trauma… SEE MORE

The 2017-2018 Island Fellow class; Ken Gross is at far left.

Working Waterfront

How to see Millinocket as an island

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. Millinocket is not an island. Henry David Thoreau, who visited here three times in the 1840s and… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

‘Bungalow in a Box’ offers energy efficiency, ease of construction

Patricia Festino has built a number of houses in the course of her 77 years. The Chebeague Island resident knows the ins and outs of working with architects and carpenters, and the ups and downs of construction and design. Having worked hands-on on her homes, she also knows how a… SEE MORE