From left: panel moderator Carol Coultas

Working Waterfront

Coastal tourism businesses brace for worker shortage

As summer arrives, there’s worry in the tourism industry—not about seeing enough customers, but about having enough staff. At a May 31 breakfast forum hosted by the Portland Press Herald, coastal business owners and managers described the challenges they face this year, which range from a local workforce unable to… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Below decks with a schooner chef

You can hear the laughter before you board the schooner, and the mouth-watering scents of bacon sizzling in butter and right-from-the-oven blueberry muffins nearly make you dizzy as you descend into chef Anna Miller’s domain—the galley of the schooner Ladona (pronounced la-doe-na). The five-foot-tall Miller is all action: stirring butter… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Flying just for fun

Because I go back and forth between Matinicus and Rockland a lot, and because our island doesn’t have a daily ferry or mail boat, and because the pilots who fly for Penobscot Island Air are friends, I spend probably too much time hanging around underfoot in the air service office… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Addiction tidal wave crashing over our coast

The Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, is working to understand the opioid epidemic on the coast of Maine, and to learn more about the issue, we recently hosted a presentation by Dr. Ira Mandel, founder of the Knox County Recovery Coalition. One comment from a staffer summed up… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Help on the way from island caretakers

As May began with limited sunshine and two weeks of showers in the forecast, I said to Bruce, “Remember that one year when we had 23 days of rain in May?” He reminded me it was the year we built our house. “We were so lucky to get the whole… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Matches, the half-life of cake, and other kitchen observations

Where are the kitchen matches of yesteryear? I’m not looking for something that existed 50 or 100 years ago—just maybe ten or so, the wonderful red-tipped, strike-anywhere Diamond matches that have been replaced with the atrocity named Green Light. I loathe these new matches. They come 300 to a box,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Fresh recruits take on first-responder charge

On an island with a more-or-less fixed population of fewer that 400 people, burn-out is an all-too-common phenomenon. After so many years on a board or in a volunteer position, enthusiasm wanes and performance slips. The flip side is the narrowing perspective that can come from one person occupying a… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Hawaiians find work and new life in Stonington

When Ryan Woolsey and Kealii Mano moved from the year-round tropical warmth of Hawaii to Stonington, where they’d experience their first cold winter and snow, they had no regrets. They did have to shop for heavier clothes. “I had to figure out what this thing called ‘long johns’ was,” Woolsey… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Confronting a simple truth, a word at a time

I’ve been struggling with a simple truth visited on me recently, something that came much sooner than anticipated. It’s been suggested that writing about it might help me cope. I’ll try it one word at a time. The first word is “I’m,” short for “I am,” and “I am” is,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Vinalhaven college student served in French refugee camp

Resettling refugees is one of the biggest hot-button issues of our time. Here and in other countries, many fear an influx of refugees, citing heightened risk of terrorism and overpopulation. Vinalhaven's Izza Drury, 22, sees the issue differently. After taking a Brown University class on capitalism, colonialism, and the systems… SEE MORE