Jon Cheston and Nancy Hauswald aboard their boat

Working Waterfront

To pee (or not to pee) at sea

By Nancy Hauswald Thursday, June 4, 1987 Approx. 75 miles off the coast of the Carolinas The storm drags on, unrelenting in its pummeling of Merry Yarn and us. Jon is down below, glued to the nav station, poring over the chart, plotting our location, getting constant fixes, and keeping… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Generational fault lines, not earthquakes

By Tom Groening All generalizations are false, right? Well, yes. Including that one. But I’ll admit that assigning distinctive qualities to groups of people is to step on a slippery slope. Careers have ended when high-profile people have done so, and those falls from grace are usually deserved. Yet it… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Our readers write about…

Giving thanks works To the editor: I really connected with Barbara Fernald's piece on “tacking toward the positives” in life (Cranberry Report, November issue). Her physiological explanation for the seasonal disorder is easy to understand and logical. Her strategies to look around at what is available to all of us,… SEE MORE

Monhegan's meadow is part of the island's freshwater aquifer.

Working Waterfront

Water harvesting as a solution for island communities

By Robert Glennon As Maine’s island communities and coastal residents address water supply problems created by rising sea levels (see "Monhegan's water supply threatened," December/January issue, they may want to borrow a tool developed in the arid West. Water harvesting involves capturing precipitation, whether rain, snow or sleet. Saltwater intrusion into… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Revisiting N. C. Wyeth

By Carl Little For a couple of months, the Portland Museum of Art is stealing some of the Farnsworth Art Museum’s Wyeth thunder. “N. C. Wyeth: New Perspectives” (through Jan. 12) offers 46 paintings and one drawing by the granddaddy who launched the family art dynasty at the turn of… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Islander discovers the joys of backwoods snowmobiling

Making Tracks by Matt Weber Islandport Press, 2019 Review by George Smith This guy snowmobiles in all of Maine’s best places Even though I don’t snowmobile, I really enjoyed Matt Weber’s book, Making Tracks, published by Islandport Press. Although he lives on Monhegan, he snowmobiles all over Maine, and his… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Potential energy in my yard, and in island life

By Courtney Naliboff Last month, my daughter and I planted tulips, the first fall bulbs I’ve put in since my wedding seven years ago. Back then, a friend and I pre-dug holes in the border of our woods, and my young female friends and relatives planted a variety of daffodils… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The Outer Bell

By Phil Crossman (The perspective is that of a Maine State Ferry on a day in 1973 when I was reminded of its involvement in our island lives.) A cocky young man from away who one of our girls has brought home strikes a jaunty pose on the bow and,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Living in, and with, a lighthouse

The Lighthouse & Me: History, Memoir, & Imagination By Jeffrey Burke Review by Tina Cohen It isn’t always the case that storytelling in support of a larger purpose—fundraising for example—can stand on its own as a satisfying literary experience. But The Lighthouse & Me: History, Memoir, & Imagination pulls off… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Challenging the enduring weight of ‘local’

By Tom Groening For journalists, elections are something like Christmas morning. Actually, as the polls close and the counting starts on Election Day evening, it feels like Christmas Eve. Then the final tally is like opening the presents under the tree the next morning. Even those of us with some… SEE MORE