Ashley Bryan holds a copy of Beautiful Blackbird

Working Waterfront

Ashley Bryan reminds us: ‘Beautiful are the souls of my people’

The award-winning children’s book author and illustrator Ashley Bryan from Islesford (Little Cranberry Island) often concludes his storytelling performances with a remarkable recitation of Langston Hughes’s poem “My People,” asking his audience to repeat the lines after him. Everyone goes away with the last line echoing in their heads: “Beautiful,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The summer we built ‘The Camp’

Editor's note: Phil Crossman's brother, Dick, has written this remembrance from the boys' childhood on Vinalhaven. It was just a camp built by boys, because that is what we were back in 1959—boys in search of adventure where Brandy Brook empties its copper colored water into Carver’s Pond, an estuary… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Phil Crossman’s Vinalhaven Observations is history and opinion

Phil Crossman has a new book out called Observations: A Maine Island, a Century of Newsletters and the Stories Found Between the Lines. His name and writing will be familiar to readers of The Working Waterfront and Island Journal over the years as well as his popular book, Away Happens… SEE MORE

Island students learnt to play golf croquet.

Working Waterfront

‘Golf croquet’: new sport a good fit for island schools

This past summer at a luncheon for the recipients of a scholarship program administered by the Island Institute, Melissa Amuso, one of the mothers from Islesford, spoke of the lack of recreational activities for the children in their small school system. It was suggested that "golf croquet" might be appropriate… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Great Cranberry resident Phil Whitney traveled the world, dodged danger

As a “small-town boy” growing up in Southwest Harbor, Phil Whitney had dreams of traveling the world. When he entered the U.S. State Department’s Office of Security, he found himself on a career path that would fulfill his dreams many times over. Over 20 years, Whitney’s service in dignitary protection,… SEE MORE

Beal & Bunker's Sea Queen in Northeast Harbor.

Working Waterfront

Island updates: Cranberry boats, Swan’s blood…

As a ten-times a year publication, The Working Waterfront falls somewhere between newspaper and magazine. We have an active web presence, and try to post our stories there in a timely way (WorkingWaterfront.com and our Facebook page) and we send out a weekly email newsletter with stories, photos and… SEE MORE

Houses clustered on the hillside in Stonington.

Working Waterfront

A home away from home… for a week, anyway

The Blue Hill peninsula, Deer Isle and Stonington don’t draw the millions who visit the region’s neighbor to the east, Mount Desert Island, each year. And that might be exactly why this quieter region is seeing a growing market for vacation rentals. “We have a working waterfront, which is the… SEE MORE

Phyllis Sommer poses at her Searsport shop

Working Waterfront

Antique business evolving in Maine, elsewhere

Maybe you’ve noticed something missing in Maine’s coastal communities: the Mom-and-Pop antiques shops that seemed to be everywhere a decade or two ago. You’re not imagining things, but the disappearance of these shops doesn’t necessarily portend bad news for the antiques market that draws tourists and dollars into coastal communities.… SEE MORE

A waterfront house for sale in Stonington is not likely to be in the affordable range.

Working Waterfront

Generational clash part of Maine’s housing challenge

Aging baby boomers and millennials in their late 20s and early 30s have one thing in common: they're both looking to buy the same sort of houses. That was one takeaway from MaineHousing's annual conference on affordable housing in Bangor on Oct. 13. Boomers—born between 1946 and 1964—are looking to… SEE MORE

Beal & Bunker's Sea Queen at the dock in Northeast Harbor.

Working Waterfront

Cranberry Isles to hold Oct. 24 special town meeting on boat issues

Cranberry Isles voters will be asked at a special town meeting on Oct. 24 to authorize selectmen to negotiate with individuals or entities to appropriate or secure ferry transportation service from Northeast Harbor and Southwest Harbor to Great Cranberry Island, Little Cranberry Island, and Sutton Island, with the product of the negotiations… SEE MORE