Working Waterfront

Majestic eagle caught in awkward moment

Editor's note: This month's Observer is a reprise of an earlier published column. I'm not a bird watcher but I did notice, last week, an Eastern Phoebe light on a weatherstick outside my window. The stick was tiny and delicate but the Phoebe was even more so and the stick's… SEE MORE

Chris Warner explains the restoration design with John Hagan setting green crab traps in the background.

Working Waterfront

Beating the green crabs in Georgetown

By Susie Arnold, Ph. D. and Heather Deese, Ph. D. "We believe, yes!" This is Georgetown clammer Chris Warner's answer to the question: Can a single shellfish harvester with a small up-front investment create a viable soft-shell clam farm and beat the green crabs? But you don't need to take… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Facebook, the island version

At the top of Kent's Hill, the one-way road leading into North Haven's downtown, is the community bulletin board. Hand-written notices of transfer station hours, with annotations like "No April Fool's Joke!" and "Dump Closed—Guess Why" are posted there, along with the high school basketball schedule, welcome home notices for… SEE MORE

Lucas Milardo works with Frenchboro's two students.

Working Waterfront

Learning about island history from children

Luke Milardo is an Island Fellow, a participant in a two-year service program operated by AmeriCorps and the Island Institute, doing community development work on islands and remote coastal communities. He is serving on Frenchboro (Long Island) off Mount Desert Island. This fall, the Frenchboro School studied island history and… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Pairing preservation and energy efficiency

I hadn't considered historic property management as a part of the work of running the Island Institute, but with a 165-year-old building on Main Street in Rockland being our headquarters, I've had to learn the basics. I've learned that for some, the act of restoring historic properties is akin to… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Henry Mowat’s little-remembered role in Maine history

I took history—American history, world history—in high school like most kids but now, 50 years later, nearly everything I've learned about Maine's own history I've learned from Maine authors like Harry Gratwick. More specifically, I think it may be true that much, if not most of what I've learned about… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Asserting ourselves locally is still an option

The traditional March town meeting in Maine, an institution that has launched many a laudatory newspaper editorial praising it as the last bastion of pure democracy, ain't what it used to be. And that's too bad. In recent decades, management of schools, law enforcement, solid waste and other government functions… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

From Castine to the world—again

Picture in your mind a cargo ship and an aircraft carrier, one 900-feet and the other 1,200-feet-long and both 20 stories tall, traveling through the ocean only 100 yards away from each other. Water shoots between them, causing suction and push forces that make the two vessels want to steer… SEE MORE

Ellen Cohill and Glen Charles outside Cohill's Pub and Inn in Lubec.

Working Waterfront

Deer Isle community ‘glad to help’

Ian Watkins is an Island Fellow, a participant in a two-year service program operated by AmeriCorps and the Island Institute, doing community development work on islands and remote coastal communities. Watkins works on Deer Isle and the Downeast coast with high school students. Close to two years ago when I… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

I don’t play island favorites

Editor's note: Reflections is a monthly column written by Island Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, and AmeriCorps. This always happens. I'm telling someone what I do, how I work to lower the cost of… SEE MORE