Working Waterfront

Islander teamwork rescues feathered family

As near as anyone has been able to tell so far, there were ever only two water-powered granite polishing mills in the world (one may have been in Springfield, Mass.), and only one powered by tidal water. The latter was on Vinalhaven and it was powered by big iron turbines… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Children’s guide book offers fresh vision of Acadia

Ten Days in Acadia: A Kids’ Hiking Guide to Mount Desert Island By Hope Rowan/Art by Jada Fitch Published by Islandport Press, 2017 Twelve-year-old Hattie and her family take a 10-day vacation to Acadia National Park, where they enjoy hiking the trails, eating lunch on the mountaintops, swimming in the… SEE MORE

Swan's Island students on the deck of the State of Maine with their boat

Working Waterfront

Swan’s Island students drift from Maine to Europe

The advantages of attending a small, island school are many. But often, educators must work to combat the insularity and isolation of those schools. For the Swan’s Island School, a ticket off the island to the larger world came through Educational Passages, a long-established program that helps students learn about… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The strange story of the North Pond hermit

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel; Knopf, 2017 For 27 years, Christopher Knight was the “North Pond Hermit.” There had been no grand plan for… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Harpswell facility critical to saving seal pups, other marine mammals

Ever since she was a young girl, Lynda Doughty has wanted to work with stranded marine mammals. Today, Doughty is executive director of Marine Mammals of Maine, a federally authorized marine mammal response organization that responds when seals, dolphins, porpoises, and whales are stranded or injured on the coast from Rockland south to… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Thoughts at my son’s gravesite

This column first appeared in the May 18 edition of the Deer Isle-Stonington Island Ad-Vantages newspaper, and is reprinted with permission. By Roger Greene Son, you know I will always love you and cherish the beautiful times of your life we had together. But these memories become an anguish when… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Memoir is a rumination on doing good work

A Winter Apprentice, by John Holt Willey; Polar Bear & Co., Solon, Maine, 2016; 280 pages, trade paperback, $14.95. In the summer of 1977 John Willey returned home to Maine with his wife, Barbara, who had never been that far east. His last permanent address had been San Francisco, where… SEE MORE

Joe McBrine poses with some of his work.

Working Waterfront

Joe McBrine, the wood-carving warden

Ten years ago, Joe McBrine was visiting a sportsmen’s show in Orono. As someone who’s always liked to draw, paint, and make things, he enjoyed viewing the carved birds and duck decoys many woodcarvers had on display. “But a guy had some fish, and I’d never seen fish done before.… SEE MORE

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