Working Waterfront

The ticks don’t care

In the 1980s and 1990s when I was teaching at Unity College, the outdoor recreation professors drilled a memorable sentence into every generation of student: “The woods don’t care.” It meant that along with being remarkably beautiful, the forest is remarkably dangerous. The oaks and cathedral-like firs do no more… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Weather, The Great War and a homeward bound schooner

Let’s start with the weather. It’s April, that often cruelest of months, as this is being written. In Maine, April is a flirt, flashing a warm, beckoning smile one day, and spitting snow the next. This winter followed the pattern of last year’s, easier on the snow and cold—though in… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Islands on the mind and a beer in hand

Maine and the country have seen amazing growth in the craft brewing business. This evolution began over 25 years ago, and there are now over 80 breweries in Maine. People appreciate a better tasting product and are willing to seek it out. The brewing community is a passionate group that sees… SEE MORE

Sellam El Ouahabi teaching circus skills.

Working Waterfront

Circus School coming to Vinalhaven, Bar Harbor

A circus arts school recently formed in Biddeford will bring classes to the coast this summer. The Sellam Circus School, founded by Sellam El Ouahabi and Amity Stoddard, will offer its first-ever summer circus arts day camp on Vinalhaven Island in July and in Bar Harbor in August, part of… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Island life spiced up by dining opportunities

April’s issue of the North Haven News, our monthly island newspaper, came with a delightful surprise announcement: Cooper’s Landing would be re-opening for the season on April 17. The Landing has been an on-and-off North Haven institution. The slate blue building just across the street from the ferry terminal has… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Eating garbage as the responsible, frugal thing to do

Danish chef Mads Refslund has just written a book called Scraps, Wilt, and Weeds: Turning Wasted Food into Plenty. This is just the most recent evidence of a recent phenomenon of people trying to figure out what to do with food that normally is dumped into the garbage can. Old… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

‘A world of singers’ is siren for Islesford poet

At Bunker Cove. Poems by Ralph Stevens. Westbrook, Maine: Moonpie Press, 2017. 58 pp. Softbound, $14 Born during World War II to a father who was in the Navy, Ralph Stevens moved at least ten times before graduating from Lincoln Academy in Newcastle. He dropped out of college and did… SEE MORE

Andrea Shane poses with one of her patients at the Antigua Exotic rescue center in Antigua

Working Waterfront

Fox islanders go from high school to the world

Mainers commonly travel during the winter and early spring, and Andrea Shane and Skyler Sanborn, both of Vinalhaven, are no different. But Shane and Sanborn are not snowbirds. The girls, both 2016 graduates of Vinalhaven High School, are spending time in Guatemala as part of a gap year before college.… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Nostaglic for one island, learning the life of another

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. I’ve been taking lots of walks. Without a vehicle, this is inevitable, but it’s also been a… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Dancing with the woodcock as a rite of spring

In the cold damp beginning of April, I walked out to check my garden, looking for any signs of life. Where were the snowdrops I planted last fall? I thought they would be up by now. Still, I know spring is on its way by the activity of the early… SEE MORE