Working Waterfront

Islesboro’s Olivia Britton serving on UMaine board

“The decisions that happen at the board level, even though they are sometimes complicated and a little bit confusing, affect our everyday lives,” Britton said SEE MORE

The cottage on Long Island in Casco Bay. PHOTO: CANDICE DALE

Working Waterfront

Ode to an island cottage

On Long Island in Casco Bay, a summer cottage sits back from the road across from the conservation area and white sands of Fowler’s Beach. The full branches of pines and maples hide much of Hussey Sound from view off the high porch in the summer months. As autumn arrives,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

On the record with… Cliff Island’s Bonnie Rideout

Bonnie Rideout’s house on Cliff Island is on a small bluff jutting to the south, ringed by steep shale cliffs descending into the ocean. The house was used in the filming of The Whales of August in 1987. Rideout gave me a quick tour of the old house, showing me… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Goodbye ‘Pandalus borealis’

Many years ago, my family and I began to spend summers on Vinalhaven. Over the years, first we were summer people, then longer term visitors, and now fortunately homeowners; much has changed. Not the island so much, although it has. But the oceanic world surrounding us. First to go were… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A card for you

Among our many interesting island traditions is one that’s wonderfully functional. Before one of our favorite institutions, The Paper Store, closed, whenever an islander died, or someone with an island connection—a seasonal resident for example or even the mainland relative of one or the other—a little basket appeared on the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Christmas expectations are child’s play

After three years of missing out on being together for the holidays, I asked our sons and their families if they would like to come home to Islesford for a family celebration. They agreed, as long as they could still be in their own homes for Christmas morning. One family… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The toil and time of breakfast

Somebody recently told me that millennials weren’t eating as much packaged cereal as they used to because pouring milk into it and then cleaning up the bowl afterwards took too much effort. I thought, surely that’s apocryphal. Nope. In 2016, the Washington Post reported that cereal sales were lagging and… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Take a break, or it takes you

As I bustled down the school hallway between dropping students off at their elementary classroom and eating a quick lunch before recess duty, something unusual caught my eye. A sea urchin, a resident of the ocean tank outside the kindergarten room, had pinned a piece of rockweed between the aquarium… SEE MORE

“We aim to create a true community newspaper, delivering news about our schools, businesses, local government…”

Working Waterfront

Peaks Island launches newspaper

The goal, according to the website PeaksIslandNews.org, is to provide “objective reporting, focusing on the issues that matter most to our community.” SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The sad tale of a religious charlatan

He must have been charismatic. He must have been passionate. And he must have been persuasive. The open question is whether or not his faith was sincere. The late 19th century was an era now known by religious scholars as the Third Great Awakening, a period when Christians expected the… SEE MORE