Working Waterfront

Unexpected awe in life’s big moments

By the time you read this, the book I co-authored, Your Postpartum Body, will be out in the world. For ten years I’ve been throwing manuscripts at the wall of literary agents to see what might stick and have often richly imagined the moment when a book with my name… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A librarian weaves a surprisingly tangled web

A book club would have a lot of fun with this, as it can be understood multiple ways. SEE MORE

Frankie Odom, “Spawning,” ca. 2009, ink print embossment on paper, 11 x 14½ in. COLLECTION OF THE FAMILY OF FRANKIE ODOM//COURTESY MONHEGAN MUSEUM OF ART AND HISTORY

Working Waterfront

Righting a wrong—Monhegan’s women artists get their due

Over the years, Women Artists of Monhegan Island, or WAMI, held exhibitions in a variety of venues, on and off Monhegan. SEE MORE

Rackstraw Downes at work at the mouth of the Passagassawaukeag River in Belfast. PHOTO: PENOBSCOT MARINE MUSEUM/PEGGY McKENNA

Working Waterfront

A photographer who captured artists

Peggy McKenna was one of the artists who was drawn to this part of the state in the 1970s. She settled in Montville along with other artists and “back to the landers.” SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The complicated case of Melvin Fuller

In February 2022, a statue of Melville Fuller, the Augusta native who served as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1888-1910, was quietly removed from its spot on the grounds of the Kennebec County Courthouse where it had stood for nearly nine years. SEE MORE

A sign warns visitors away from the shore in Roque Bluffs. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Do ‘fishing, fowling, and navigation’ ring a ‘Bell’?

But what if “fishing, fowling, and navigation” was never intended to be so restrictive? What if the long-abandoned Colonial Ordinance was only ever intended to preserve the public’s right to use the intertidal land in a way that balances the upland owners’ interests in accessing the sea with those same interests shared by the public? SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

For our towns, when are the ‘good old days’?

Do communities have their “good old days?” Do they peak? And if so, how do we measure the qualities that contribute to that status? SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Learning from one town’s pioneering spirit

Down the Pemaquid Peninsula and bordering Muscongus Bay sits the small coastal town of Bremen. According to the town’s website, Bremen was “founded in 1828 by pioneers and fishermen.” I can’t fully picture what those early pioneers encountered along the coast or what they imagined their futures to be. I… SEE MORE

Landmesser at the easel in his Stockton Springs studio. Photo courtesy the artist.

Working Waterfront

On public access: William Landmesser’s ‘The Harvester’

At the time he painted “The Harvester” in 2012, William Landmesser of Stockton Springs remembers that concern about diminishing access to shorefront in Maine was growing. “The boom in waterfront real estate meant potentially much less access by both commercial fishermen and the recreating public,” he recalled. He welcomed legislation… SEE MORE

The Portland Steam Packet Company’s coastal passenger steamers Forest City, operating for the 1882 season. PHOTO: MAINE MARITIME MUSEUM

Working Waterfront

Coastal steamers were gateway to Maine woods

The crossing of the Piscataqua River Bridge on I-95 or the aerial descent over Portland Harbor to the jetport signify arrival in Maine for most present-day visitors to Vacationland. Before the development of automobiles, highway systems, and commercial airlines, coastal steamers were the primary mode of travel for visitors from… SEE MORE