Working Waterfront

‘Lost and found’ a metaphor for this year

I pulled out my laptop to write just now and asked my six-year-old what this month’s column should be about. I had some vague ideas around maybe the virtual one-acts festival my students participated in back in March, or an ode to my greenhouse, which currently has the first tiny… 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

Telling stories about the birds

Birds, says field biologist Richard MacDonald of Bar Harbor, have been “a unifying theme” in his life. At age ten MacDonald was banding ducks and in college he carried binoculars wherever he went. And for the past several decades he has led birding expeditions, local and way away (Antarctica), while running the Natural History Center on Mount Desert Island. SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Walking back the memories

I suppose this is a little island. I mean, look at Greenland. On the other hand, Vinalhaven is the same size as Manhattan and it is the largest island in Penobscot Bay. Still, in the scheme of things or if one lives here for eons and is in the habit… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Island life through the eyes of COVID refugees

When Andrei Pogany, his wife Deborah Gorman, and their two young daughters, Klara and Amalia came from Los Angeles to stay on Islesford last September, they planned to be here for about three months. The island internet was fast enough to work from home and Klara could start her L.A.… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Let’s talk about ‘fresh’

For millennia, humankind dwelling in the parts of the globe with four distinct seasons—during which at least one of them nothing grows—never hankered for salad in February, or asparagus in January. Or strawberries, or broccoli, except in season. They actually enjoyed good health, except when struck with contagious disease, like… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Food is an anchor of normalcy

It’s very close to the one-year anniversary of “quarantimes” as I write this column. On March 13, 2020, our students had their last day of in-person school for the year, although we didn’t know it at the time. We shut everything down—for two weeks, then for a month, then for… 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

A Maine power company: possible and practical

As Maine grapples with decarbonizing its economy to meet ambitious climate mitigation goals, I urge us to think big and consider what a statewide, ratepayer-owned electric utility could do to aid us in our quest. Electric utilities are natural monopolies. More than 100 years ago we had competing companies and… 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