Category: Columns

A tree-lined street.

Working Waterfront

In praise of tree-lined streets

There is no shortage of appropriate responses to climate change and global pollution—walking instead of driving, insulating your house, trading your leaf blower in for a rake. You can doubtless think of many more yourself. But planting a shade tree along your street, preferably in your own front yard or,… SEE MORE
The view from Little Deer Isle. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Recognizing an island’s landmarks

Reflections is written by Island Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands and in coastal communities through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. As an Iowa native, I didn’t know there were islands off the coast of Maine before applying to be an… SEE MORE
Observer

Working Waterfront

Confessions of a compulsive counter

I was largely adrift in high school. I paid little sustained attention with one intriguing exception. My English teacher was a singularly intimidating and frightful old woman named Gwendlyn Green. One of her eyes wandered endlessly afield of whatever the other, her good and functioning eye, was focused on. She… SEE MORE
The Hesper and Luther Little, circa 1945, near Wiscasset’s town landing. PHOTO: COURTESY MAINE MARITIME MUSEUM

Working Waterfront

Maine’s lost fixtures: The Wiscasset schooners

For more than 60 years, the four-mast schooners Hesper and Luther Little lay abandoned in the Sheepscot River. Better known as the “Wiscasset Schooners,” they served as an iconic landmark to millions of passersby travelling on Maine’s coastal Route 1. The sight of these schooners charmed the masses, stirring visions… SEE MORE