Working Waterfront

Organization within chaos is the ocean’s nature

Observing the ocean is to look for systems, myriad details in flux, each and every one, be it animal, vegetable, or data number, a microscopic part of a complex unit, each unit again a part of a system more complex. The ocean in a storm appears chaotic, in the air… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Plenty of grit in the women who lobster

Pretty Rugged: True Stories From Women of the Sea By Ali Farrell (Sea Street Publishing, Camden; 2020) Review by Tina Cohen This is a book about women who lobster, and it is about the grit of these fishermen (the term has become gender-neutral). Nothing is prettied up here. Author Ali… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The whole story on scallops

Mussels used to grow nearby on rocks at the water’s edge, and now there aren’t many at all. And it was getting harder about 25 years ago, but we used to dig clams out of a tidal flat just down the road, enough for a meal of steamers. No more.… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

On the record with… Sebastian Belle of the Maine Aquaculture Association

When it comes to aquaculture, it would be hard to top Sebastian Belle’s resumé. Belle, 62, earned a degree in fisheries and wildlife at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, fished offshore for a time, then moved to Europe. “I was able to get a job in Norway on an… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Is ‘fishless’ fish next on the menu?

Millions of research and development dollars are being invested in a startup company in Singapore that has converted a high-rise parking garage into a production facility that manufactures lobster “meat.” For years the meat “analogue” industry has been busy profitably developing, creating, and marketing plant-based meatless “beef” patties for Burger… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The ocean as natural capital

Standing onshore, we perceive the ocean as locality, the curve of the beach, the limit of the harbor, and as universality, the infinite inclusion beyond a distant horizon. We can look at the calculation of value in a similar way. We can understand capital as a monetized measure of value,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Delegation hopeful York River gets scenic designation

Maine’s Congressional delegation has reintroduced the “York River Wild and Scenic River Act,” legislation to initiate the final step in the process to add the river to the National Park System’s Wild and Scenic Rivers Program. If the bill is passed by Congress and signed by the president, the York… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

On the record with… Tom Meyers of the Waterfront Alliance

Tom Meyers has spent his professional life as an active member of working waterfronts. After serving in the U.S. Coast Guard for 28 years and as the head of the Portland base, Meyers then spent 13 years as a transportation and waterfront coordinator for the city of South Portland. While… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Ships, the Suez Canal, and our three ports

Assuming I have your attention, I am now going to ask you to look up and around the room in which you are sitting. What percentage of the things in the room were once aboard a ship? Thirty-five percent? Fifty percent? Seventy percent? Experts put the answer at over 90… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Halibut—a huge, thrilling, and tasty fish

“Once you’ve caught a halibut, you’ll never be the same, if you like fishing,” said Erik Waterman, a commercial fisherman who lives in South Thomaston and fishes out of Spruce Head. Waterman was talking about wild-caught Atlantic halibut, one of the largest fish in the Gulf of Maine and the… SEE MORE