Working Waterfront

Is ropeless fishing ready for prime time?

[caption id="attachment_24983" align="alignleft" width="300"] PHOTO: COURTESY BLUE PLANET STRATEGIES[/caption] As the North Atlantic right whale population declines rapidly, regulators have proposed or enacted a series of closures of significant areas of lobster fishing grounds off the coast of New England and Atlantic Canada to protect the endangered whales from entanglement… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Our waterfronts deliver the perfect superfood

Over the past year there has been renewed focus on the value of infrastructure. Transportation, health, information, electrical, and even the food system’s infrastructures have all been stressed, tested, and failed as we collectively experienced the fallout from years of undervaluing and underfunding the foundational elements that keep our society… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Poetry embedded in a fisherman’s diary

Review by Dana Wilde Didn’t Do Much but a Little of Everything: The Eagle Island Diary of Dalton Raynes Ian Ludders, ed.; Lulu.com It’s about 1961, a sunny day somewhere in Scarborough. Spread over what seems, to my 8-year-old eyes, like acres and acres of dry field, are sardine… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

‘Sweet and salty’ scallop fishery in good shape

Maine’s scallop fishery has changed considerably over the years. David Tarr, a Brooklin resident, has gone both dragging and diving for scallops since he was a kid in the early 1980s. “Things were way different back then,” he said. “It was kind of a wild, wild fishery. It was boom… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

In tough year, Maine seafood landings top $500 million

Despite unprecedented market losses, Maine fishermen earned over a half billion dollars for their catch in 2020. Valued at $516,796,614, the ex-vessel value of Maine’s commercially harvested marine resources was the ninth highest on record. “Maine fishermen and seafood dealers weathered one of the most difficult years in memory, but… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

State signals support of offshore wind

Earlier this year, Gov. Janet Mills announced her terms for the back-in-motion effort to site wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine. She is asking the legislature to back a ten-year moratorium on wind projects in the waters managed by the state—those within three miles of shore—and she affirmed her… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A science-based reality check

The past year has been tumultuous to say the least. Typically, as I begin to write this month’s column, I am at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum in a large conference room sitting shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of others who care about Maine’s fisheries and their future. That can’t happen… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Restoring Hindu

What could be better than a vessel that encapsulates the timelessness of a love story, the enchantment of a fairy tale, and the mystical allure of a legend? Well, how about one with the spirit of Maine in its every fiber. [caption id="attachment_24228" align="alignright" width="700"] Josh Rowan and Erin Desmond.… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Penobscot Marine Museum digitizes Maynard Bray collection

The Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, known for its extensive and growing collection of vintage maritime and New England photos, has begun a campaign to digitize images made by marine photographer Maynard Bray. Museum archivist Matt Wheeler will speak about Bray and the work at the Camden Public Library at… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Because Maine can’t wait to confront climate change

In the fall of 1970, 11-year-old Suzanne Clune wrote a letter to her U.S. senator. She lived on the banks of the Little Androscoggin River, a once-pristine tributary where deer could see their reflection when drinking from the water and where spring pine and chokeberry blossoms “filled the air with… SEE MORE