Island Journal

Sears Island’s Long Industrial Courtship

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,… SEE MORE

Island Journal

How Far Can a Fish Run?

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. SEE MORE

Island Journal

What We Saw Touring the Gulf of Maine Shore

In 2002, Natalie Springuel and Richard MacDonald, among others, embarked on a paddling expedition along the shores of the Gulf of Maine. What they learned reveals how dynamic and threatened is this “semi-enclosed sea.” The Gulf of Maine Expedition was a sea kayaking journey organized to raise awareness and caring about the ecological and cultural legacy of this vast international watershed and to promote low-impact coastal recreational practices, safety, and stewardship principles. SEE MORE

Island Journal

Fifty Years of Cleaner Water

The site of the Continental Mill in Lewiston on the Androscoggin River as seen from Auburn, the western bank. Textile mills like the ones in Lewiston as well as paper mills upstream contributed significantly to the Androscoggin’s degradation in the 1950s and 60s. PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN Fifty years ago, Maine… SEE MORE

Island Journal

The ‘Undeclared War’ on the Reviled Cormorant

One summer morning in about 1963, I was fooling around in my 14-foot flat-bottomed punt near the beach on Mackerel Cove. Probably I was wrestling as usual with the oversized 15-horse Johnson outboard that was attached with clamps, twine, and hope to the punt’s frail transom, I can’t remember exactly.… SEE MORE

Island Journal

The Unique Environment of Island Forests

photos by Jack Sullivan Imagine being at sea for weeks, months, or years, seeing only blue, gray, and the foaming white of cresting waves. Imagine smelling only salt, minerals, fish, and then, one day, catching the faintest scent of something different, like honey mixed with cinnamon and turpentine. On the… SEE MORE

Island Journal

The Misunderstood Shark

“Bastid took m’ hook!” Carts, a wiry guy with a cockeyed green cap and gaps in his smile, looked down at me from his precarious perch on the gunnel of the boat. I was about nine years old, and taken aback by his anger about the hook. We were on… SEE MORE

Island Journal

Penobscot Bay—Churning Waters, Changing Tide

It’s the largest estuary on Maine’s 3,500-mile-long coast, lying at the mouth of the storied river and watershed that bear its name, which in turn was taken from the native people who even today advocate for its ecological health. More than 400 years ago, Penobscot Bay drew European fishing boats… SEE MORE

Island Journal

Changing Fisheries on Narragansett Bay

Quahoggers rake in their catch while fishing in Narragansett Bay near Warwick, R.I. Photo: David Wells / Alamy Stock There’s a small-state joke in northern Rhode Island that goes like this: If you’re headed to South County, you better pack a lunch for the road. Of course, South County is… SEE MORE

Island Journal

All eyes on the Chesapeake

The Chesapeake Bay’s past is the stuff of legend: Pocahontas and Capt. John Smith (well, actually John Rolfe), the rockets’ red glare and the anthem it inspired, the Monitor and the Merrimack, oyster pirates and the “Oyster Navy.” The future, though, is shaping up to be the stuff of hard… SEE MORE