Jeff Gammelin points out the qualities of the granite.

Working Waterfront

Rocking the granite business

By Laurie Schreiber The sprawling shops at Freshwater Stone—22,000 square feet on 20 acres in Orland—are filled with the sound of industrial machinery, including wire saws and multiple-axis bridge saws, cutting into massive blocks of granite weighing tens of thousands of pounds. Digitally operated, the machinery produces slabs and complex… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

COA’s new building will use 80 percent less energy

From left, College of the Atlantic President Darron Collins, New York City architect Susan Rodriguez, Andrew Davis, who is the Shelby Cullom Davis Charitable Fund lead advisor, and Timothy Lock, a management partner with Opal, the architecture division of GO Logic in Belfast. PHOTO: LAURIE SCHREIBER By… SEE MORE

Jacquelyn Gill stands near the Indigirka River

Working Waterfront

UMaine scientist pursues ‘Lost Beasts of the Ice Age’

Jacquelyn Gill stood entranced inside a permafrost cave in Siberia. Woolly mammoth tusks protruded through glistening walls. A lion cub, dead for 30,000 or more years, appeared as if it was napping. “In those 30 minutes (inside the cave), I had the opportunity to get closer to the landscape I’ve… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Following the whale into an array of lessons

By Courtney Naliboff As an island teacher, it is often my duty and pleasure, and that of my colleagues, to take students off-island overnight. We do it for basketball games, we do it for rowing races, we do it for theater festivals. As wonderful as the island is, and as… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

National models for broadband impart lessons

By Kendra Jo Grindle In Clatskanie, a small rural town in northwestern Oregon, local organizers are piloting a new way to connect—“mesh” networks. Medina County, Ohio is implementing an open access fiber model to bring multiple, competitive internet service providers (ISPs) to residents county-wide. Multiple electric co-ops in Tennessee are… SEE MORE

The Penobscot Marine Museum campus along Route 1 in Searsport

Working Waterfront

Penobscot Marine Museum catalogues Maine collections

Thanks to a grant of $3,886 from the Maine Historical Records Advisory Board, the Penobscot Marine Museum has rehoused and cataloged four collections documenting quintessential 19th and 20th century Maine industries. The collections document the shipping of Maine’s natural resources, the use of Maine built ships in the global trading… SEE MORE

North Haven Community School from the air.

Working Waterfront

North Haven school gets personal with students

By Courtney Naliboff High school students at Maine’s smallest K-12 public school will start the 2019-2020 school year with something new: a personal learning plan. North Haven Community School staff have worked with Rural Aspirations this year to design a system that enables each high school student to have a… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Waypoints Forum envisions a more welcoming, diverse Maine

By Tom Groening Despite being in the depths of winter—or maybe because of it—a Feb. 8 gathering in Portland saw a host of forward-looking ideas aired that may shape the Maine coast and islands through the next decade. The Waypoints Forum 2019, hosted by the Island Institute (publisher of The Working… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

John Zavodny named president of Maine Seacoast Mission

The Maine Seacoast Mission has announced that John Zavodny, Ph.D., will be its new president beginning on Feb. 19. "During our interviews with him, his excitement and compassion for the work of the Mission and an understanding of life in rural Maine were evident," said Stacy Smith, the board chairwoman. "He… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Great Lakes islands launch basketball tournament

Editor’s note: The Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, has developed informal partnerships with residents of the islands in the Great Lakes, and we like to feature some reporting by those islanders. By Wil Cwikiel On the first weekend in December, Beaver Island Community School welcomed the Put-in-Bay Panthers, the Mackinac… SEE MORE