Island Institute Fellows, including those returning for a second year and those beginning their fellowship this fall, pose for a photo during an orientation in St. George. Back row, from left: Katie Liberman, Lavinia Clarke, Olivia Jolley, Kaylin Wu, and Morgan Karns. Front row, from left: Alice Cockerham, Brianna Cunliffe, Grace Carrier, and Claire Oxford. PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN

Working Waterfront

Island Institute announces new Fellows

Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, has announced its new cohort of Island Institute Fellows who join a group returning for their second year. The Fellows program places recent college graduates in island and remote coastal communities to do service work. New Fellows include: [caption id="attachment_38241" align="alignnone" width="300"] Alice… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A top-notch choice

I am writing to simply say I greatly enjoyed your column “My happy Maine anniversary” (Rock Bound, September issue). I was enjoying reading your essay—Deer Isle is my ancestral home, both parents born and raised there, and I got a tingle. But then you went and done it. You decided… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Why am I painting the living room?

As summer wanes, the urgency to squeeze out the last of projects and fun grows to a fever pitch, especially so in Maine, where the season is so fleeting. That urgency comes with a conundrum—how to balance projects with fun? Lyrics from an old folk song by the husband and… SEE MORE

Eastport’s buoy in its setting on the city’s breakwater on a foggy night in August. PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Selfie magnet—Eastport’s artsy buoy

Eastport has plenty of bragging rights—its pretty, compact downtown with red brick buildings and handsome 19th century homes. Its dramatic, wild tides and its setting at the confluence of two bays, the Passamaquoddy and Cobscook. Its proximity to Canada, visible across a strait. [caption id="attachment_38225" align="alignleft" width="325"] Eastport’s buoy in… SEE MORE

Stow Wengenroth, “Low Tide,” August 1931, lithograph, edition of 51, 9 1/16 by 12 9/16 inches Edition of 51. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE TIDES INSTITUTE AND MUSEUM OF ART.

Working Waterfront

Stow Wengenroth: On the Eastport waterfront

In 1927, the Grand Central Art School started offering summer classes in Eastport. Founded in 1923 by painters John Singer Sargent, Walter Leighton Clark, and Edmund Greacan, the esteemed school located in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal decided to establish a chapter way Downeast. [caption id="attachment_38166" align="alignleft" width="450"] Keith… SEE MORE

Otter Cliffs in winter. PHOTO: COURTESY FRIENDS OF ACADIA

Working Waterfront

Mapping MDI’s climate future

Reflections is written by Island Institute 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. In the library, Tremont residents gather around flood maps. Disoriented at first, we find key landmarks—the school, Hansen’s Outpost,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Take it or leave it

On Aug. 2 on Great Cranberry Island, the Ladies Aid Society held its 122nd annual fair. It featured, among other things, lunch, crafts, clothing, cookbooks, a garden table, face painting, and a silent auction. For many years the Church Club on Islesford hosted the same kind of fair, making sure… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

In praise of pruning

In the summer, with my days suddenly unstructured, I become an inveterate putterer. No shelf is left unorganized, no drawer unpurged. The yard gets the most attention. At some point every day, I find myself wandering from plant to plant, flowers and vegetables alike, touching leaves, saying hello (out loud!),… SEE MORE

A summer scene off Stonington. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Stonington launches resilience strategy

The Hancock County town of Stonington is launching an economic resiliency strategy to complement its 2018 comprehensive plan and to proactively respond to current and future challenges and changes impacting the town’s ability to thrive as a year-round community. The analysis and action plan was commissioned in the spring of… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

An island’s hold on family

High Time TidePool Press (2023) As the state ferry approaches North Haven in the Fox Island Thorofare, my eye goes to the large, sprawling cottage-style mansions that line neighboring Vinalhaven’s cliffs to the south. The buildings, which in the offseason are shuttered, or at least without signs of life, date… SEE MORE