Island Journal

Making It Here: The Island Lobster Marketer

Without the work that connects lobster with customers around the country and world, Maine’s iconic seafood would be a local, seasonal snack. And without that effort, the iconic lobsterman—who in 2016 shared in $533 million in sales—would be a quaint and anachronistic figure, perhaps reduced to part-time work. Thanks to… SEE MORE

man looking directly at camera sitting in dimly lit room

Island Journal

Making It Here: The Island Hotelier

One day this past summer one of my guests, visiting with his wife and enjoying a waterfront berth here at the Tidewater Motel on Vinalhaven, answered my customary query by responding that this had been the best day of his life and thanked me profusely for providing it. Imagine! He’d… SEE MORE

Island Journal

Making It Here: The Island Artist

Kaitlyn Duggan sees her life on Little Cranberry Island, also known as Islesford, as a seamless proposition. In exchange for the challenges of living and running a business on an island, she receives from that place an energetic zest that plows through all aspects of her life—potter, spouse, mom, and… SEE MORE

Island Journal

Making It Here: The Island Retailer

On a late autumn, hard-charging Thursday, Brian Krafjack starts the morning on the computer, spreadsheets open for inventory and bookkeeping, social media posts about freight arrivals and specials du jour. He and his wife Kathy own The Island Market & Supply on Swan’s Island. Like many island retail operations, TIMS—as… SEE MORE

Island Journal

Vinalhaven’s Investment

For an island community that’s a 75-minute ferry ride away from the mainland, Vinalhaven has been fortunate to have had two very successful long-term town managers, says Emily Lane, a current member of the island town’s board of selectmen. Sue Lessard served from 1993 to 2000, and then Marjorie Stratton… SEE MORE

Island Journal

A Tale to Tell

He’s known around the peninsula below Bath as Captain Bullhead. The stubborn will the nickname implies may have saved his life. Now 75, Eugene Atwood survived three serious threats to his life, served up by the sea and from trying to wrest a living from it. The last, about 12… SEE MORE

Profiles

man working on building bottom of wooden boat

Island Journal

The Highliner’s Choice

For a fisherman—on the water daily, subject to the vagaries of weather—a boat is the thin membrane between life and death. Aesthetics in a fishing boat aren’t the most important consideration. A rugged, well-built structure that’s “seakindly” and will get a fisherman out and back safely and comfortably is. A… SEE MORE

Island Journal

The Island Mechanic

The median age of Maine islanders is far above the national average. As for the median age of most Maine island cars, well . . . it’s a good thing the odometers on many of them stopped working long ago. Take Chebeague Island, for instance, home to a fleet of… SEE MORE

Profiles

Island Journal

The Art of Perpetual Motion

He sets off at a lope, elbows carving wide circles, with a gait that hints at decades of making room in crowded fields of runners. His shoulders are rippled with lean muscle, brown. Over the first few yards, he loosens, straightening, getting imperceptibly faster. Passing the graveyard, he points out… SEE MORE

Island Journal

Diver Ed

In considering the life of Ed Monat—the Bar Harbor–based marine educator often referred to as Diver Ed—I began to think of Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s assertion, “How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.” In the course of Monat’s life as a lobsterman, underwater nature trail… SEE MORE