A view of part of Vinalhaven’s Main Street

Working Waterfront

Vinalhaven plans for downtown’s future

By Tom Groening Though it is 13 miles offshore, the island community of Vinalhaven functions much like a mainland coastal town. With a year-round population of 1,200, it is the most populous of Maine’s island communities, and it features a compact, attractive downtown. That downtown was the subject of community-wide… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Winners rise to top in decade of recipes

By Sandy Oliver Apparently, the average American household cooking repertoire contains something like 20 dishes which are the backbone of family meals, frequently repeated. I don’t know if that includes take-out fare or pizza, which are usually less common on Maine islands. Around here, the garden drives seasonal variations so… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Island life teaches me the ‘focal’ way of understanding

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. By Caroline Carrigan Swan’s Island is a place of true simplicity. There are just three to five main roads, depending on… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The joys of a quiet January

By Barbara Fernald Ahhhh! The month of January on Islesford is one of my favorites. It’s not because the island has so much to offer at this time of year, but because it gives me two things I’ve been yearning for since last spring: time and quiet. Ever since our… SEE MORE

Fishing boats at anchor in Lubec in January 2018.

Working Waterfront

Lubec lands major grant to create safe harbor

By Wanda Curtis The town of Lubec was awarded a $19,650,000 federal grant to provide a year-round safe harbor for resident and visiting fishermen and recreational boaters. The total cost of the project is estimated at $19,689,750, with the remainder of the cost paid for by a $30,000 grant from… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Generational fault lines, not earthquakes

By Tom Groening All generalizations are false, right? Well, yes. Including that one. But I’ll admit that assigning distinctive qualities to groups of people is to step on a slippery slope. Careers have ended when high-profile people have done so, and those falls from grace are usually deserved. Yet it… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Jeremiah Hacker, Portland’s ‘genuine homegrown radical’

By Tom Groening Jeremiah Hacker is not more than a footnote in Portland’s history, let alone Maine’s history. But examining his work as a crusading journalist through the middle of the 19th century opens a window on a world wrestling with slavery, brutal prisons, poverty without social safety nets, a… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Our readers write about…

Giving thanks works To the editor: I really connected with Barbara Fernald's piece on “tacking toward the positives” in life (Cranberry Report, November issue). Her physiological explanation for the seasonal disorder is easy to understand and logical. Her strategies to look around at what is available to all of us,… SEE MORE

A Maine State Ferry Service boat rounds the Rockland Breakwater as a full moon rises.

Working Waterfront

How we get here: A history of Maine’s ferry service

The SS Governor Bodwell, seen here, was launched at Rockland on May 27, 1892, by the Vinalhaven & Rockland Steamboat Company. It ran between the island and Rockland from 1892 to 1924. PHOTO: COURTESY HISTORY PRESS/VINALHAVEN ISLAND’S MARITIME INDUSTRIES By Nancy Griffin The allure of living on an island includes… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Potential energy in my yard, and in island life

By Courtney Naliboff Last month, my daughter and I planted tulips, the first fall bulbs I’ve put in since my wedding seven years ago. Back then, a friend and I pre-dug holes in the border of our woods, and my young female friends and relatives planted a variety of daffodils… SEE MORE