Working Waterfront

A belfry, a rope, and a Leatherman

On Aug. 15, 1957, an article appeared in Stonington’s Island Ad-Vantages newspaper reporting on the Isle au Haut church centennial: “Sunday was a great day down on the Gem of the Penobscot. The occasion was the centennial of the Isle au Haut Congregational Church. As the entire community walked up… SEE MORE

Wild Blueberry Heritage Center to open in 2023

Working Waterfront

W.R. Allen donates antique canning equipment

Downeast Maine’s Wild Blueberry Heritage Center now owns some of the equipment that helped move the industry into the 20th century. The Wild Blueberry Heritage Center will replace the iconic Wild Blueberry Land bakery and gift shop on Route 1 in Columbia Falls, transforming the giant blueberry dome into a… SEE MORE

An employee of Lyman-Morse in Thomaston carries a boat stand. PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN

Working Waterfront

Maine boatbuilding: Busy, but fraught

According to the industry trade association Maine Built Boats, boatbuilding in the state generates annual industrywide sales of more than $650 million and some 5,000 jobs. SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Home, again, to Matinicus

Not surprisingly, traps and boats and fishing have been a big part of Scott’s life, though that life took him far from the Gulf of Maine. SEE MORE

Port Clyde, 1993, by Malcolm Morley (oil on canvas, 38 by 52 inches Private collection, Maine). Copyright the estate of Malcolm Morley.

Working Waterfront

Malcolm Morley’s Port Clyde collage

An artist with a checkered past—he served time in a U.K. reform school and prison before finding his way to art school and subsequent fame as a painter in New York City—Morley became a U.S. citizen in 1991 at age 60. SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

‘Bunglaries,’ island criminal misadventures

At the motel, eager to make up their losses, they busted out an awning window that was much too small for any one of them to have squeezed through before trying the door and finding it open. SEE MORE

The shadows of two boys whose futures lay in the marine industry are visible in this photo, circa 1948, along with a lobster boat being dragged to its winter home at Snow Marine Basin. PHOTO: PENOBSCOT MAINE MUSEUM COLLECTION

Working Waterfront

A future in boats and photos

After World War II, Bert Snow and Maurice McKusick partnered with Alfred Storer and Ralph Cowan to develop the Snow Marine Basin at the site of an old lime kiln... SEE MORE

Bernard Henderson poses with his smelting shack on the Sasanoa River in 1962. PHOTO: MAINE MARITIME MUSEUM

Working Waterfront

A traditional winter fishery in decline

A resident of Phippsburg, he set up his shack on the Sasanoa River between the towns of Woolwich and Arrowsic SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Island autumn and birds on the wing

The birds aren’t the only thing migrating these days. From shallower water the lobster traps start to either come ashore or get moved out to deeper water... SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Be sure to feed the watchdogs

The irony wasn’t lost on the audience. Especially this audience. I attended the Maine Press Association’s fall conference in Bar Harbor in late October—for the first time in over 20 years—and came away charged up and proud. One of the presentations was by Steve Waldman, co-founder of Report For America,… SEE MORE