High school graduation on North Haven in 2014. The grads wore the colors that corresponded to the colors of their lobster buoys.

Working Waterfront

Reversing island ‘brain drain’ falls to locals

As a high school teacher, I spend some time each year talking with students about their next steps. At North Haven Community School, we have a healthy mix in each graduating class of students attending four-year colleges, community colleges or trade schools, entering military service, or choosing to stay on… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The power of mitzvah revealed, again

My daughter Penrose and I were sitting at our kitchen island, covered in finger paint, when I heard scratching sounds coming from our front yard. I left her with her latest masterpiece, “Baby Owl,” and peeked out the front door to see our neighbor (well, he lives a few miles… SEE MORE

North Haven students competed in the statewide one-act play contest.

Working Waterfront

Curtain call: Why we compete in play contest

March has a lot of signifiers. For some, it heralds the start of baseball season. For others, college basketball’s March Madness is the focus. March is “Music in Our Schools” month, and March is when town meetings convene. For me, March has always been about the Maine Principals’ Association One-Act… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

It’s all part of the deal

One weekend in January, my husband went away for an Island Institute conference. I planned a fun girls night dinner with a friend and my daughter, with calzones and homemade cookies and ice cream on the agenda. Midway through calzone making, my daughter, who had been running around moments before,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Embracing Halloween brings out the best in islanders

Drugstores are already sporting Christmas goods as I write this—or so I hear—but I’m still reeling from North Haven Halloween. There’s something about a holiday that gives us islanders an excuse to dress up that really brings the masses, and this year was perhaps the apex of the North Haven… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Camping as career prep

For nearly 20 years, North Haven Community School's high school students have ventured into the woods for a week each year, usually in the fall. They canoe, hike or occasionally bike, most often breaking and making camp each day in a new spot. The trip, our fall expedition or fall… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

My cup runneth over—island summer abundance’s many forms

I have mixed feelings about summer. For some on North Haven, as in any community whose economy centers around fishing and tourism, summer is a time of 12-hour or longer work days, of hustling to seize every extra opportunity for income before the quiet of the cold seasons. I love… SEE MORE

Courtney Naliboff as Annie Oakley in the North Haven production of Annie Get Your Gun.

Working Waterfront

Teaching is doing, and teachers can do what they teach

There is a particularly odious saying that gets bandied about from time to time: "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." Rather than get my hackles up, I let it goad me into action. I teach music, theater and English. I studied music and theater as an undergrad at… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

I’m Annie, but I’ve got no gun

By Courtney Naliboff As I write this, I've just started rehearsals for the Waterman Community Center's summer production of Annie Get Your Gun. I'm Annie. Along with the requisite singing, dancing and acting, the show requires a certain comfort and familiarity with guns. Although I grew up in rural Maine,… SEE MORE

Approaching the Fox Islands Thoroughfare.

Working Waterfront

Summer on the island, when work fever takes hold

By Courtney Naliboff When I was a kid, out in the woods of central Maine, summers were a real vacation. My sisters and I swam and canoed, got ice cream at Gifford's, tried to dam up the stream in the backyard, and picked peas and green beans out of the… SEE MORE