From left, the Island Institute's Eastport Island Fellow Paige Atkinson; Institute staff Alex Zipparo; Mount Desert Island Fellow Brianna Cunliffe; and Institute staffer Abby Roche.

Working Waterfront

Resilience is the response

I was on Great Cranberry Island for a community event recently and encountered a sight that will not be easily forgotten. As I stood on the dock awaiting the mailboat back to mainland, I looked to the west and saw several gravestones on a grassy enclave that were dangerously close… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The radical idea of public parks

I was walking recently along Belfast’s Harbor Walk, a paved trail that follows the shore along a large lawn area where a shuttered poultry plant once stood, past a boat dealer and marina, across Main Street and, amazingly, through the Front Street Shipyard, offering views of yachts, ocean-going fishing vessels,… SEE MORE

The Machigonne II on its way to Peaks Island. FILE PHOTO: MICHELE STAPLETON

Working Waterfront

New ferries on the way for Maine

[caption id="attachment_35572" align="alignnone" width="700"] The Margaret Chase Smith on Islesboro. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING[/caption] New ferries, the vital link between Maine islands and the mainland, are in the pipeline. In recent months, construction has started on ferries to serve Peaks Island in Casco Bay and Matinicus off Penobsot Bay, and… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Defying authority in a Maine mill town

And Poison Fell From the Sky: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Survival in Maine’s Cancer Valley By Marie Therese Martin (Islandport Press, 2022) The poison in Marie Therese Martin’s And Poison Fell From the Sky: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Survival in Maine’s Cancer Valley is the toxins… SEE MORE

Gov. Janet Mill, left, poses with Paul Coulombe in front of TV cameras at the Governor’s Tourism Conference in Bangor on March 28. Coulombe was honored with the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Tourism for his philanthropy and commercial development work in Boothbay Harbor. PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Another good year for Maine tourism

Maine’s tourism economy rarely seems to enjoy a normal year. Factors such as fluctuating gas prices and airline fares, terrorist attacks, and pandemics play their part in either inflating or deflating visitation. But despite these variables, the numbers make the case that tourism remains a major economic sector in the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Free community college gets good marks

Emma Brezovsky, 18, a senior at Bucksport High School, wants to become a teacher. To achieve that goal, she knows she needs a bachelor’s degree. “My original plan was just going to be four years at [University of Maine] Farmington,” she said. “But now I’m going to do two at… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Listening for right whales

You might think keeping track of a 100,000 pound animal would be easy. But when its home has no boundaries and its prey moves with changing ocean circulation within the vast Atlantic, it presents a challenge. Then there’s the fact that there are only around 350 remaining and they aren’t… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Kim Hamilton named Island Institute president

The Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, named Kim Hamilton as its president, effective April 1. Hamilton has served as the organization’s interim chief programs officer since September, overseeing the Institute’s climate, economic resilience, and leadership programs and serving on its senior leadership team. The Rockland-based nonprofit’s board of… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Boothbay’s ‘hidden treasure’ is water temperature data

Maine’s Department of Marine Resources has maintained a hidden treasure in Boothbay Harbor for nearly 120 years—a daily measurement of sea surface temperatures, which provides an uncommonly long record of a warming ocean. Those daily records (more than 42,000 of them) were translated into annual averages to show the estimated… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Making our ‘civic deserts’ more fertile

Like most of Generation Z, many of my early life milestones were bookmarked by incredible socio-political events. I graduated high school in 2016, the same year as a shocking U.S. presidential election and the second deadliest mass shooting in the country. When I graduated from college in 2020, the first… SEE MORE