Working Waterfront

Calm reflection on Hurricane Island

Between the end of the school year and the needle drop on summer, I found myself on a very fast boat headed to Hurricane Island. The boat was piloted by a guy I’ve known, through various cosmic-level coincidences, since he was 8-years old, and who’s now the facilities manager for… SEE MORE

Students were eager to enter the reopened Longfellow School on Great Cranberry Island last September.

Working Waterfront

Small island schools better with TLC

Think back to 2008: summer Olympics in Beijing; signs of the Great Recession start to show; Barack Obama is elected president; Celtics beat the Lakers in the NBA finals. On Maine’s outer islands, teachers work tirelessly to maintain their one-room schools. Tirelessly and separately. Each school has a teacher and… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

New Islesboro pre-school facility opens this summer

The reasons for providing daycare and preschool services on an island are many, and they are compelling. But the new Islesboro Pre-School facility came to fruition because island leaders asked for help and got it. First, the reasons. Bruce Claflin, who led the fundraising efforts for the facility, says the… SEE MORE

A sailboat approaches Portland's waterfront.

Working Waterfront

Island students learn by serving other Mainers

For some island kids, overnight trips to the mainland are no big deal. For others, a night or two in a strange place, especially with teacher chaperones and not parents, is a truly daunting prospect. For that reason, we try to regularly build overnight off-island experiences into the North Haven… SEE MORE

An aerial photo shows the North Haven Community School with the Camden hills on the horizon.

Working Waterfront

North Haven school will try magnet program next year

North Haven Community School, Maine’s smallest K-12 public school with an average of 60 students, is seeking mainland students to participate in the pilot year of its new magnet program. Magnet schools are permitted by Maine law and allow publicly funded schools to accept students from outside their service area.… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Children’s guide book offers fresh vision of Acadia

Ten Days in Acadia: A Kids’ Hiking Guide to Mount Desert Island By Hope Rowan/Art by Jada Fitch Published by Islandport Press, 2017 Twelve-year-old Hattie and her family take a 10-day vacation to Acadia National Park, where they enjoy hiking the trails, eating lunch on the mountaintops, swimming in the… SEE MORE

Swan's Island students on the deck of the State of Maine with their boat

Working Waterfront

Swan’s Island students drift from Maine to Europe

The advantages of attending a small, island school are many. But often, educators must work to combat the insularity and isolation of those schools. For the Swan’s Island School, a ticket off the island to the larger world came through Educational Passages, a long-established program that helps students learn about… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The fall and rise of the Great Lakes is a cautionary tale

The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan; W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2017; 280 pages, hardcover, $27.95. The federal budget that President Trump proposed to Congress in March of this year reduces funding for practically everything in it except the military. And among federal departments,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Vinalhaven college student served in French refugee camp

Resettling refugees is one of the biggest hot-button issues of our time. Here and in other countries, many fear an influx of refugees, citing heightened risk of terrorism and overpopulation. Vinalhaven's Izza Drury, 22, sees the issue differently. After taking a Brown University class on capitalism, colonialism, and the systems… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Directing community theater in Eastport invigorates

Reflections is a monthly column written by Island Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands and in remote coastal communities through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. This week has been one of anticipation in Eastport. I’m not referring to spring’s slow arrival, though… SEE MORE