female firefighter posed in front of fire truck

Island Journal

Keeping the Home Fires… Out

Photos by Jesse Groening The stormy November morning crossing to Islesford (Little Cranberry Island) was rough, even by islander standards. And later, when the weather knocked out power on the island, the vital role Katelyn Damon plays in the community and surrounding islands became clear. “She’s pretty much the reason… SEE MORE

Communities

old marble headstones, white house in distance

Island Journal

The Secret Soul of an Island Shoe

PHotos By Peter Ralston Its sole gouged with holes, the leather top cracked and ripped, the shoe, a woman’s, had been hidden in the west wall of an upstairs bedroom in our Gotts Island house. Nestled behind the plaster, it had endured Maine winters when the winds howled out of… SEE MORE

Swan's Island fire department and residents

Island Journal

Responding First, Fifteen Miles Out

Eva Murray moved to Matinicus in 1987 to take a position as the school teacher. Matinicus then was similar to Matinicus now: a small island fishing town, 15 miles out to sea, resplendent in natural beauty and with a powerful sense of community, yet lacking many basic services. Medical care was nonexistent. When Murray arrived, there was “no one to go to if you got hurt, or got a burn – no one had any training and certainly no one had any obligation” to help. SEE MORE

Communities

Harpswell fishermen sitting around woodstove at Watson's General Store

Island Journal

Harpswell, ‘A Town of Superlatives’

There’s a long-running joke in Harpswell that it’s really three towns in one. The town has the longest coastline of any in Maine—216 miles of long, jagged edge that form the shape of three fingers, and serve as a home to communities with their own, distinct identities. A handful of arterial roads run a connection from the mainland to the tips of each—Harpswell Neck, Orr’s and Bailey Islands, and Cundy’s Harbor—peninsulas that often are so narrow that the ocean is visible for much of the length of the drive out to sea. Small roads, many of them made of dirt, jut off from the main ones. With nowhere else to go, they head toward the water, providing access to the coves and cloistered harbors that have for centuries supported the town’s historic fishing industry. SEE MORE

Communities

Island Journal

Men, Books, Food, and Drink

In 2008, Vinalhaven native and lifelong fisherman Steve Rosen was chatting with Ellen Chandler, a seasonal resident of many years, who told him of her book discussion group in Garrison, N.Y. and how interesting and enjoyable it was. The group was called WOWEE (Women of the World Eating Everything). Ellen’s enthusiasm was infectious and Steve, an avid reader—and capable gourmand—had been toying with the idea of forming such a group himself and this was the impetus he needed. WOWEE’s modus operandi was to choose a book and meet to discuss it once a month and, importantly, to make that meeting a pot luck whose entrées had some relevance to what was being read. SEE MORE

Communities

A view down Bucksport's Main Street, with the paper mill's smokestacks in view.

Island Journal

Bucksport: Life After the Mill

Maine has endured a litany of paper mill closures in recent years. These have been devastating to the communities that leaned heavily on the jobs and tax base these mills provided. But only one town moving into the state’s post-paper era can leverage its rich coastal assets. When Bucksport’s Verso paper mill closed in 2014, eliminating 500 jobs, the community was already at work embracing a future that includes new uses of its waterfront, while leaning on an outside nonprofit to help the community find its new heart and soul. SEE MORE

Island Journal

Grabbing the Digital Future

Malcolm Fernald’s internet service has been just fast enough to maintain a web site for his family business, the Islesford Artists Gallery. But if a potential customer wants to get a closer look at a painting or two online, he’s out of luck. “Trying to upload high-quality images to email to a person would either take forever or not happen at all,” says Fernald, 34, a lobsterman who is chairman of the board of selectmen for the town of Cranberry Isles. For Fernald, even beyond boosting business, an internet upgrade is critical to sustaining the way of life that has always felt like a refuge for him, and to maintaining his family’s ties to Islesford that have endured for generations. He’s banking on fast, reliable internet service to open up new social and economic opportunities for the town and reduce its reliance on fishing and tourism. SEE MORE

Island Journal

‘Halfway to Where Somebody’s in Trouble’

It is practically a cliché to call Matinicus Island isolated, but it is. The closest mainland city (and U.S. Coast Guard station) is in Rockland at about 23 miles distant. In the heart of winter, the state ferry may make one trip from Rockland to the island each month. Bad weather here has a more serious definition than it does in the rest of the state. Islanders use cell phones, but no one relies on them. “Here on the island, if you’re not standing in just the right spot or facing the right direction,” says Clayton Philbrook, “you can usually text in a lot of places, but as far as having a voice conversation, it doesn’t work.” SEE MORE

Communities

old color photo of dock with cable spools

Island Journal

The DIY Approach That Linked Isle au Haut to the Grid

Parker Waite moved to Isle au Haut in 1976 “to get off the grid.” Though the phrase may have had as much figurative as literal meaning for him then, today he sees the irony in what occupied much of his time in the years that followed. Waite was the nuts-and-bolts guy who established the electric cable linking the island with the electric grid. These days, the island is moving toward achieving a measure of independence from that cable, but it’s still operating, having exceeded its life expectancy by a couple of decades. Before the cable, the island relied on four diesel-fueled generators. The success of that underwater cable is very much tied to the work Waite, now 73, did before the mainland switch could be thrown in 1983. SEE MORE

Communities

Island Journal

Smiles, Hugs, and Hospitality

A confession: I never learned to hula hoop. Not enough to keep it from hitting the floor, anyway. It’s a late November afternoon and quiet on Islesford—also known as Little Cranberry, one of the five that make up the town of Cranberry Isles—and I’m about to get my first official hula hooping lesson from Anna Fernald. There are two things you need to hula hoop successfully, Anna says. A good beat and lots of space. After putting on her slippers, she pulls chairs to the edge of the living room and puts on a Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris album of duets. She cranks the volume so you can hear it in any room in the house. “OK,” she says, picking up one of her three colorfully striped hoops. “You’re counting on your body to hold it up, but you want to have the hoop cling to you and do the work.” SEE MORE