Working Waterfront

Long-time merchant mariner reflects on sea lessons

By Isabel Reddy The ship, a 100,000-ton, 750-foot-long cargo transport, was in heavy weather. The anchor was banging away against the bow. Weighing around 1,600 pounds, it could do considerable damage. The captain, Mike Flanagan, responded to the emergency by telling a crew member, “Secure the anchor.” The crew member… SEE MORE

The Schwörers look up and out of their home on the Pachama.

Working Waterfront

The Swiss family climatologists

In the Arctic, islanders are being forced to abandon the land where they’ve lived for generations, because eroding coastlines and rising sea levels have made their homes uninhabitable. As permafrost melts and the ice retreats, they are losing the fishing and hunting on which their livelihood depends. In Nova Scotia… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Clock is ticking on vision for Southport’s ‘Ruth’s House’

It’s linked by a small bridge to busy Boothbay Harbor, but don’t tell Southport residents that theirs isn’t an island community. Summer houses, used by multi-generational seasonal visitors, line the shore. The pre-K to 6th-grade school educates just 30 kids. And the civic and business lives of the 600-plus year-round… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Island tick survey gathering data, but more participants sought

An online and print survey of Maine's island residents on ticks has garnered more than 500 responses, but more data is being sought. Susan Elias of the Maine Medical Center Research Institute said some about half the respondents are women 55 and older, and there is an even split between… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Cultural close encounter delights island students

A concern that we sometimes have as educators on a fairly isolated island in Penobscot Bay is how our students will react and behave when suddenly confronted with a new group of people. This could be a group of people from as nearby as Vinalhaven or Rockland—our students are sometimes… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Fund launched to help support Frenchboro school

A philanthropic fund to help one of Maine’s offshore island communities might focus on any of a dozen goals. Or maybe on all of them. But for Frenchboro, the community on Long Island, some eight miles off Mount Desert Island, it became clear that the school was the cornerstone of… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

E.B. White was indeed ‘Some Writer’

E.B. White was a writer’s writer. He wrote poetry, columns for magazines like The New Yorker and Harper’s—essays, really, and in a style that remains in vogue 70 years later—and, of course, children’s books like Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web. He literally wrote the book on writing, too, building on… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

My new favorite word reflects my new life

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. Andrew May is working with the North Haven Community School, Southern Harbor Eldercare Services and Waterman’s… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

UMaine Machias students grows her own coral

Coral reefs make up less than 1 percent of the ocean floor, yet they provide shelter for as much as a quarter of sea life. “They’re a huge keystone ecosystem for the ocean,” explains Clair Aldrich, a senior at the University of Maine at Machias. “They’re so important.” So important—especially… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Island lessons carry through teaching job

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. Maggie Small is a former Island Fellow who served on Peaks Island The dictionary definition of community… SEE MORE