Working Waterfront

Historic Pilgrim’s Inn, a Deer Isle landmark, finds new owners

Walking into the Pilgrim’s Inn, the slight undulation of the 14-inch-wide floorboards immediately gives away the fact that this is a historic building. Then there are other wonderful features. Large fireplaces and chimneys are made of handmade bricks and have beehive ovens set in the back and pot-hanging trammels over… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The art of serving your community

The first time I visited Ashley Bryan’s home on Little Cranberry Island, also known as Islesford, I knew I’d met an extraordinarily special person. I still feel that way every time Ashley and I meet. When asked to describe it at the time, I said it was like walking into… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The ticks don’t care

In the 1980s and 1990s when I was teaching at Unity College, the outdoor recreation professors drilled a memorable sentence into every generation of student: “The woods don’t care.” It meant that along with being remarkably beautiful, the forest is remarkably dangerous. The oaks and cathedral-like firs do no more… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Weather, The Great War and a homeward bound schooner

Let’s start with the weather. It’s April, that often cruelest of months, as this is being written. In Maine, April is a flirt, flashing a warm, beckoning smile one day, and spitting snow the next. This winter followed the pattern of last year’s, easier on the snow and cold—though in… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Islands on the mind and a beer in hand

Maine and the country have seen amazing growth in the craft brewing business. This evolution began over 25 years ago, and there are now over 80 breweries in Maine. People appreciate a better tasting product and are willing to seek it out. The brewing community is a passionate group that sees… SEE MORE

A map of Fort George at the failed Popham colony (property of the archive at Simancas

Working Waterfront

Mysteries of Maine’s first European colony

By Phil Showell It was one of those crazy thoughts people get in the dead of winter. It’s January of 1608. You’re a Popham colonist, teeth chattering, huddled against the cold in a half-built Fort St. George. Up drives a snow-splattered Jeep Cherokee with a license plate proclaiming “Maine–Vacationland.” Well,… SEE MORE

Sellam El Ouahabi teaching circus skills.

Working Waterfront

Circus School coming to Vinalhaven, Bar Harbor

A circus arts school recently formed in Biddeford will bring classes to the coast this summer. The Sellam Circus School, founded by Sellam El Ouahabi and Amity Stoddard, will offer its first-ever summer circus arts day camp on Vinalhaven Island in July and in Bar Harbor in August, part of… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

On the record with: Steve Lyons of the Maine Office of Tourism

Steve Lyons has been with the Maine Office of Tourism since 1998, working under three directors. With the departure of Carolann Ouellette, he is now the acting director of the small office—which has just seven employees—tucked within the Department of Economic and Community Development. But there’s nothing small about the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Herring history at stake in Lubec

Some things just can’t be replaced, such as the historic brining shed—an integral element in Lubec’s once booming smoked herring business. The now empty and fragile structure was used as part of the process at McCurdy’s Smokehouse, which is the last standing herring smokehouse in the country. Rachel Rubeor, president… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Native wisdom measuring Maine, verse by verse

Booker’s Point by Megan Grumbling. Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press “Come to a fork, you gotta take/it, they say” When I was growing up on Long Island, New York, my parents hired a local man, Fred Grimshaw, to look after our property. He knew how to do everything—trim hedges,… SEE MORE