Working Waterfront

Living with others

Around mid-day on Friday, Aug. 15, 1986, while excavating on the shore of Carver’s Pond, a gravestone—in one piece and undamaged—was unearthed from a very unlikely spot, only a few feet from the shore, certainly far from the nearest cemetery. The stone was cleaned up and carefully set aside. It… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

And the secret ingredient is…

I would like to humbly apologize to anyone who read my last column about oatcakes and who had baking failures because they followed a recipe in which I neglected to put oats in the list of ingredients. Two cups of oats! Two cups of oats! I so carefully edited my… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Equity can be workforce solution

“The neighborhood is changing” was the refrain from Lawrence Alexander, an equity educator who spoke at the Island Institute's Workforce Pathways Conference in October. The refrain suggests that if Maine is to thrive, it will be because we embrace change on almost every level, including changing who lives and works… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Our readers write: Bias, memories, and oatcakes

Bias is on left, too To the editor: I read with interest the Rock Bound column on “Citizen Hearst” in the November issue of The Working Waterfront. I follow the news media quite closely, especially as pertains to political reporting. I was disappointed, but not surprised to see the negative… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A good deed was the best medicine

It’s no secret that these are trying times. It’s a metaphorical rough ferry ride, with the news cycle and pandemic sending us up into an optimistic high, only to bring us crashing down into yet another trough. In a recent column, I wrote about the small gesture of leaving patches… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A sunshine filled kitchen

When Capt. Emery Bunker, who lived in my home with his wife Adrianna in the last half of the 1800s, renovated the house in 1889, he added a kitchen ell and attached it to the barn. Before he became a master mariner, he learned carpentry from his father Silas, and… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Seafood shrinking as world’s protein source

If we do not do something to counter pressure through consumption and illegal fishing, we will face a crisis in protein supply to feed the growing world population, an estimated 40 percent of whom today are reliant on seafood as their essential source of protein. We have exhausted certain areas,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Equitable access to broadband is a worthy investment

The pandemic clarified what many already knew—your ability to connect to the internet is not guaranteed. Where you live determines the quality of the infrastructure you can access. Your ability to use that connection depends on whether you can afford internet service, if you have a device to use, and… SEE MORE

A photographic rendering of what Nordic Aquafarms' Belfast facility would look like.

Working Waterfront

Fish-farm opponents distort facts

The November issue of The Working Waterfront featured a misleading opinion column by John Krueger, an activist from Upstream Watch, a group opposing plans by Nordic Aquafarms to build a salmon growing facility in Belfast. As with his previous efforts, Krueger’s storytelling is deceptive and designed to fit his activist… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

How Vinalhaven wrestles with the pandemic

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. When I began my fellowship with Vinalhaven’s town office in September 2020, I came to the island in the midst… SEE MORE