A worker at the Portland Fish Exchange sorts fish. PHOTO: MICHELE STAPLETON

Working Waterfront

Fishing for a solution

Scores of hard-plastic crates filled with ice-covered fresh fish sit on the floor of the Portland Fish Exchange, ready for inspection before the bounty is auctioned in lots to the highest bidders. The fish comes from eight boats that brought their catches of cod, haddock, monkfish, grey sole, and other… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The perils of love and lobstering

Maiden Cove: A Novel By Roy Knight (2020) Review by Dana Wilde Roy Knight grew up just about a stone’s throw from Maiden Cove, right on the channel into Portland Harbor between Cape Elizabeth and Cushing Island. As a teenager in the mid-1960s, he learned lobstering in that channel from… SEE MORE

A photograph composed and made by Carroll Thayer Berry shows a soon-to-vanish method of herring harvesting. PHOTO: PENOBSCOT MARINE MUSEUM

Working Waterfront

Harvesting the ‘fish that feeds all’

In this month’s image, Harlan Hurd sits in his dory wearing a ball cap and a heavy flannel jacket which is covered in fish scales. His son, Karl, stands at the other end of the dory wearing a jeff cap and an apron over his own flannel coat. They watch… SEE MORE

Luke Goldman working with eDNA. PHOTO: COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MAINE

Working Waterfront

A bold mission—saving the Atlantic cod

Luke Goldman was working as an ocean rescue lifeguard on the Jersey Shore when he decided that he wanted to study ecology. He now is a marine protector of a different sort—a researcher at the forefront of using eDNA to try and save the Atlantic cod. Goldman came to University… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Column prompts ‘ledge bound’ memory

Returning to my new home in Pennsylvania hill country from a two-week visit to my daughters and friends in Maine, I was pleasantly surprised to find in my mail the latest issue of The Working Waterfront with several articles that intersected with my history in Maine. The review of the… SEE MORE

Rebekah Hodgson poses at the Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland. PHOTO: COURTESY HODGSON FAMILY

Working Waterfront

Mrs. Maine is the real deal

In Rebekah Hodgson’s earliest memory of lobstering, she’s on her father’s boat and they’ve just anchored off of Jonesboro’s Looks Point to visit her great uncle Scott, who gave her a banana. “I must have been about four years old,” recalls Hodgson, now 32. “I remember getting back on the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Closing the tap on the plastics problem

Oh, no! You got distracted and left the water running in the bathtub. You run into the bathroom, see it overflowing onto the floor, and you turn and run for a mop. A mop? No, you don’t run for a mop, says Jackie Savitz, chief policy officer for Oceana. You… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Lobstermen see ‘dark cloud’ hovering over industry

Lobster fishermen continue to grapple with what they say are the cascading consequences of new rules designed to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale which affect how and where they fish. “It’s this dark cloud looming over us. One court decision could shut the entire lobster fishery down,” said… SEE MORE

The stern deck of Maine Maritime Academy's current training vessel. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

New, bigger State of Maine being built

Barring the vagaries of pandemics, the economy, and politics, Maine Maritime Academy in Castine will have a new training ship before the end of 2024. Its impacts on both the academy and the town will be hard to miss even before its arrival. To be christened as the next T/S… SEE MORE

Tina Ingraham’s Harbor Fish Market, Portland Pier, 2005, oil on canvas, 30 x 74 inches. PHOTO: DENNIS GRIGGS

Working Waterfront

Tina Ingraham paints the Custom House Wharf

The facade of the south side of the Harbor Fish Market reminded Ingraham of the Italian architecture she had seen in Perugia dating back to Etruscan times... SEE MORE