First published in 1984, Island Journal, Island Institute’s annual print and digital publication, tells stories of life in Maine’s island and coastal communities, the character and livelihoods of the people who call the state of Maine their home, the history of how we got here, and the interactions between humans and nature.

Man tosses lobster back into ocean
  • 2024

Where the Harbor Bears Your Name

The legacy of Frenchboro’s Lunt family
Joseph William Lunt wakes up before the sun in a house that sits on a harbor that shares his name. Aboard his lobster boat Heritage, Lunt does what his ancestors have been doing for over two centuries—he harvests the bounty of Downeast Maine waters. His wife Teenie Lunt also fishes out of Lunt Harbor in her own lobster boat, named…
  • 2024

Everybody Has Got a 'Bajupa' Story

Wooden smack boat serves island communities for decades
Arthur “Art” Hupper was one of the hardest workers on the St. George Peninsula. According to his son David, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, a day of work for Art was just that—nearly 24 hours of labor. He would buy lobsters on remote Maine islands like Monhegan and Matinicus and then sell the catch to out-of-state seafood buyers, all on the same day. It was a livelihood that relied not only on a strong work ethic, but also on Bajupa, a specially crafted lobster transport boat known as a “smack” boat.
BY Jack Sullivan
  • 2024

Double Vision — The Art of Eric Hopkins

People who know islands know how to see them
It was already late afternoon when Eric Hopkins picked us up in his boat at Gotts Island for the trip to his studio on North Haven. Eric knows how to look at islands. And we were on our way to look with him. There, represented in oils, we would see oceans and islands viewed from the air, from the sea, and from great distance. The angles were strange and marvelous. Islands we thought we knew were transformed.
BY Christina Marsden Gillis
Man in woods
  • 2024

Suhail Bisharat – A Natural Diplomat on Chebeague

Jordanian-born art champion connects with everyone
The power is out on half of Chebeague Island. Most toilets aren’t flushing and a few roads have downed trees across them, but the high winds haven’t stopped the boats from running. At the ferry landing, Suhail Bisharat stands with his hands behind his back, smartly dressed and smiling warmly. He greets Clint Jones—a mechanic from Cumberland who regularly comes over to work on island cars—and they make a plan for him to swing by later and figure out why the Bisharats’ Audi is leaking coolant. They lean in close to hear what each other is saying, the wind blowing their white hair in tangles.
BY Scott Sell
  • 2024

North Haven’s Hub by the Water

Waterman’s Community Center is more than a building
It’s an iconic rural image—a group of old-timers gathered around a general store’s woodstove, drinking coffee and swapping lies. For the island community of North Haven, that gathering spot was…
BY Tom Groening
  • 2024

Island Institute’s Fellows Program Marks 25 Years

After their service, Fellows have become leaders in Maine
The first Island Institute Fellows were placed in communities 25 years ago in 1999, with the program aiming to provide more hands and minds for island, and then mainland towns to tackle the endless challenges to their viability. Beyond meeting that important goal, the program also trained successive generations of community leaders who continue to serve Maine and beyond. But the true power of the program is in the relationships that are built. Fellows become a part of the community. They bring casseroles to potluck suppers, they volunteer to coach ultimate frisbee teams, they pick strawberries for the library shortcake fundraisers, and play fiddle at public events. They reach for shovels and candles when winter storms hit, and they celebrate new babies and grieve losses alongside their neighbors.
BY Kate Tagai
  • 2024

Way Downeast, These Towns Face Waves of Change

Jonesport-Beals retain old coastal values, while navigating fish farms and climate change
People who live in Jonesport and on Beals Island love to talk about their towns’ histories, not unusual for those residents who can trace their roots to 18th century settlers. They speak about how each town came into its own. Everyone remembers the history-making high school basketball team. And one wall of the Heritage Center in Beals is devoted to “Tall Barney,” a resident believed to have been seven-feet tall when most locals were generally diminutive. But the steady state of affairs that has governed these two remote towns for over a century is in turmoil today.
BY Jacqueline Weaver
  • 2024

Sears Island’s Long Industrial Courtship

At the top of Penobscot Bay, island again figures into energy plans
It’s 3:58 p.m. on Dec. 21, and the sun is about to set over Sears Island, the forested, causeway-connected spot in upper Penobscot Bay where we’ve come to observe the Winter Solstice. It’s cold out there—20-something degrees and windy—and we’re parked with others along the road leading to the island, watching the sun dip over Mack Point to the west. The event we’re here for isn’t really the sunset but something called “Solstice by the Sea,” imagined and engineered by Friends of Sears Island, a conservation-minded group dedicated to protecting Sears Island in its current undeveloped state.
BY David D. Platt
  • 2023

How Far Can a Fish Run?

Sea-run fish and the fight for upstream access
It’s not rocket science. “Take a freshwater fish, put it in salt water, and you’ve killed it. Take a marine fish, put it in fresh water, and you’ve killed it.” So says Justin Stevens, a sea-run fish specialist at Maine Sea Grant while describing the wonder of sea-run—or diadromous—fish. Like most organisms, fish require a strict regulation of salt within the body to function, so if a fish’s habitat is either too salty or not salty enough, it dies. Diadromous fish, however, challenge this conventional wisdom in that they thrive in both salt and fresh water.
BY Jack Sullivan
  • 2023

Fisheries From 1973 to 2023 — How We Got Here

Former Marine Resources commissioner, fisheries editor reflects on changes
I have been looking back at what fishing was like in 1973, the year I founded Commercial Fisheries News. The differences are stunning, even to someone like me who reported on those changes, sold ads for the new gear, was part of creating the new lobster laws in the 1990s, and tried to connect fishermen so that they could contribute to better science and better rules.
BY Robin Alden

About Island Journal

Life in Maine’s Island and Coastal Communities

Island Journal was first published in 1984 by Island Institute founder Philip Conkling, a writer, and co-founder Peter Ralston, a photojournalist. An early and key supporter, the late Betsy Wyeth, urged the two to produce a publication that stood out from the field of nonprofit reports and newsletters. More than 40 years later, Island Journal continues to meet that standard, gathering stories, photographs, and art that illuminate the rich culture of life on Maine islands and in its coastal communities.

The annual publication features the stories of those who live and work on the coast and islands, and reflects our history, the lessons learned, and continually looks toward our shared future. Today, many Mainers and Island Institute supporters keep a bookshelf in their home for their Island Journal archives, which collectively, contain the larger story of the beautiful, rugged, independent, and precious way of life in our island and coastal communities.

“It is, at the very least, bad manners to care about any aspect of an island and its phenomena, without caring also about its people—past, present, and future.” – George Putz, editor Island Journal (1984-1991)

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