A view of Belfast's tug boats from the harbor walkway.

Working Waterfront

Stand-off on Belfast’s waterfront illustrates new dynamics

The Island Institute launched this newspaper over 20 years ago in part to highlight the importance of Maine’s working waterfronts. Those properties, from which marine harvesting and other water-dependent businesses operate, were suddenly threatened by commercial and residential development. The most visible example of that threat came when condominiums were… SEE MORE

Near the old Portland Public Library on Congress Street.

Working Waterfront

Home: Portland in the 1960s

Note: This is the first in a three-part series recollecting the look and feel of Portland in the 1960s, '70s and '80s by a Maine writer who spent his youth there. About 5 a.m. around the first of December 1977, I was standing in streetlight shadows on the corner of… SEE MORE

A sailboat and cargo ship share the waters off Searsport.

Working Waterfront

Film screened in Belfast June 16 explores conflicting ocean uses

On Thursday, June 16 the film “A New England Story for Sustaining the Sea” will be shown at the Abbott Room of the Belfast Free Library. A discussion following the film will include two panelists familiar with the needs of stakeholders working to maintain the diverse uses of the ocean.… SEE MORE

A fisherman points to a part of a map included in the draft ocean plan.

Working Waterfront

Draft ocean plan suggests better data, coordination for users

The draft of a first-ever plan for the ocean was released May 25, launching a new way of considering a host of marine uses for the region from Connecticut to the Canadian border. Public meetings on the draft plan are scheduled in June for Portland, Rockland and Ellsworth. The 198-page… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Small, island-town values play well in big world

Benjamin Stevens of Islesford (Little Cranberry Island) graduated this month from Maine Maritime Academy in Castine. Every year, people from Maine’s islands buy all sorts of things. We buy clothes and shoes, tools and supplies, fuel and electricity, and groceries. Every island resident knows how challenging it is to get their… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A rock ‘n roll novel with a melancholy, humorous heart

Vexation Lullaby By Justin Tussing/Catapult, 2016 Mild-mannered and romantically abandoned doctor Peter Silver is not accustomed to mystery or adventure, but finds himself steeped in both when he trades in his hospital scrubs for a rock tour bus. Enigmatic Dylanesque superstar Jimmy Cross needs a house call (a hotel call,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Saving community underpinnings means recognizing them

A friend of mine once wrote that fishing villages came in to existence once they began to disappear. Once seaside villages were lost to other forms of development, nostalgia over their loss emerged, giving rise to the term “fishing villages” in the early 19th century. Most of the time, it… SEE MORE

Peter Willcox in the wheelhouse of a Greenpeace ship.

Working Waterfront

The dangerous work of bringing a green peace

Greenpeace Captain Macmillan, 2016 Big whales, bigger weather, young men at sea in rickety boats as underdogs in quixotic quests. It’s the stuff of good fiction. It’s also the story of Peter Willcox, who has traveled more than 400,000 miles at the helm of Greenpeace ships, through tropical storms and… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Tales from the boatyards

Boatbuilding on Mount Desert Island By Laurie Schreiber The History Press, 2016 In a small, once-isolated Maine community like Mount Desert Island, before it became a destination resort, boatbuilding was a necessity. Everyone lived on an island; roads were few or nonexistent; water was the way to get around the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Topsham: A history from the Abenakis to I-295

Topsham: From the River to the Highlands By Robert C. Williams Just Write Books, Topsham, Maine, 2015 Long before Thomas Purchase in 1628 set up a little trading post in the area known as Pejepscot near the outlet of the Androscoggin River, Abenaki Indians probably ran a village there. Archaeological… SEE MORE