Working Waterfront

It’s time for an honest conversation about aquaculture

In the last few years we have watched the promise of an innovative and dynamic seafood industry be picked apart by groups flying a false flag of environmentalism or “fishing heritage.” SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Writing prompts personal revelations

It's impossible to not be moved by someone opening up this way, and the only way it can fail is when it is overwrought, pretentious, or over-written. There are a few pieces that slide into these sins, but the bulk are honest in their aim. SEE MORE

Harvested rockweed at a boat launch in Hancock. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

A life in seaweed, seen from inside

For the past 50 years, I have harvested seaweeds for food, medicine, and fertilizer, working within a five-mile radius of a home cove on Gouldsboro Bay where I keep my four little wooden boats which I built for $1,000 over 40 years ago. There’s no “floating mortgage” in my business.… SEE MORE

Pauline Inman's “Fisherman’s Boots,” 1943, wood engraving, edition eight of 40. COURTESY TIDES INSTITUTE AND MUSEUM OF ART, EASTPORT

Working Waterfront

Pauline Inman engraves Downeast shore

[caption id="attachment_46124" align="alignnone" width="650"] Pauline Inman, Abandoned Quarry, ca. 1956, wood engraving. COURTESY TIDES INSTITUTE AND MUSEUM OF ART, EASTPORT.[/caption] When we think of Maine’s working waterfront, images of lobsterboats, stacks of traps, busy wharves, tied-up dinghies, and the like are apt to come to mind. The printmaker Pauline Winchester… SEE MORE

A boat arrives at the Monhegan pier. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Building higher on Monhegan

Facing the community now is the decision of how to move forward—forward toward a response to the increasingly powerful winter storms and the growing summer traffic. The main thing I am considering is how the changes will last for generations and affect the function of the island in every season. SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A poor report card from Maine’s ocean

Arctic warming and accelerating ice melt are leading to changes in global ocean circulation. With a northward shift of the Gulf Stream and a retreat of the Labrador Current, more warm, salty, low-nutrient Gulf Stream water is entering the Gulf of Maine. SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Remembering trees

It began with my younger brother stumbling across a photograph of a beautifully decorated Christmas tree—stunning in fact. It was taken in 1954 but was entirely typical of the many nearly identical and similarly breath-taking trees I’d enjoyed by then for ten Christmases and he for eight and our still… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Winter’s highs and lows

“What is winter like on the island?” We’re back at that time of year that summer visitors ask about the most. My standard answer is, “Pretty quiet. We often get rain when the mainland is getting snow. It can get pretty windy, causing boat cancelations and power outages.” I don’t… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The recipe is just part of the story

It’s a terrible job writing recipes. I know this because during the past 40 or so years, I’ve written around 1,400 of the little stinkers. The biggest chunk of those were recruited from friends, neighbors, and readers which I tried out, reworked a little, and published for a weekly column… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Life prepares for spring

Last year, I got myself a Chanukah present, a little thank-you for making it through the year. It was a vertical grow light array, two shelves and four lights. It's next to my desk as I write this column, and on the top shelf I have a tray of just-sprouted… SEE MORE