Working Waterfront

My wife can’t throw a flatbar

My wife can do almost anything, really, almost anything. I mean mechanical stuff, electronic stuff, and carpentry stuff, plus all sorts of things that involve thinking, like philosophical and ethereal stuff. Further, she’s a marvelous painter and runs her own very successful gallery. She also knows (she reminds me now… SEE MORE

Colleen Haskell, DEI's education director, poses with Hannah Greene. PHOTO: LESLIE BOWMAN

Working Waterfront

Teacher turns the tables on herself

Reflections is written by Island Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands and in coastal communities through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. Over the past few months I’ve collected stories from students, past and present, who participated in Downeast Institute’s education program.… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Trail death probed with obsessive detail

Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders By Kathryn Miles; Algonquin Books of Ch2022; $28.95. Review by Dana Wilde Kate Miles arrived at Unity College in 2001 as a writing instructor and a backpacking enthusiast at a school devoted to backpacking. She’d heard that a Unity student and… SEE MORE

Yani Nganzobo PHOTO: COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MAINE

Working Waterfront

UMaine Machias grads to serve community

Before she arrived at the University of Maine Machias, Yani Nganzobo admits she wasn’t an exceptional student. “I was never an ‘A’ student. There were moments I cried because things weren’t going well,” Nganzobo says. “My perspective of life completely changed in 2019 when I arrived in Maine.” When she… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Teen climate activist wins White House recognition

For Sirohi Kumar, a senior at Mount Desert Island High School, seemingly overwhelming challenges become less daunting once identified. “Once you know that a problem exists, then you can start crafting solutions,” she says. Her words—and work—on climate and racial justice activism have gained attention at the national level. Kumar… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

An island’s story reveals a life

Autobiography of an Island: A Memoir By Sarah Faragher (2021) Review by Carl Little In 2004, while visiting Great Spruce Head Island, painter Sarah Faragher had the occasion to explore nearby Bear Island. Conversing with a Bear islander, she learned of Birch Lodge, a humble dwelling that could be rented… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The summer of Cronkite

[caption id="attachment_31711" align="alignleft" width="262"] Walter Cronkite at the helm.[/caption] Walter Cronkite was known as “The Most Trusted Man in America” when he was the anchor of CBS’s network news in the 1960s and ‘70s. His sign-off “and that's the way it was” was recognizable to millions. Cronkite refused to allow… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Peter Kilgore’s island poetry

[caption id="attachment_31703" align="alignleft" width="350"] Peter Kilgore[/caption] In some alternate history of Casco Bay, Peter Kilgore is the poet laureate of Long Island. His terse, descriptive lyrics written during the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s evoke so purely the sights, sounds, and sensibilities of the island as experienced by human beings, if… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

It’s the people

After 17 years on North Haven, some elements of life have achieved a pleasant predictability. After the first heavy spring rain, the peepers will begin their insistent shrieking from vernal pools and roadside bogs. Dandelions and violets will be the first to bloom, followed by strawberry blossoms, thickest in the… SEE MORE

Murphy in front of the First Parish Church in Portland during one of his walking tours. PHOTO: COURTESY DUGAN MURPHY

Working Waterfront

Reviving Portland’s unsung historical heroes

On the morning of Oct. 18, 1775, a British naval fleet anchored in Portland Harbor began bombarding what was then known as Falmouth, Mass. The bludgeoning of Portland lasted all day followed by more insult to injury when the British sailors swarmed the ruined community of about 2,000 residents to… SEE MORE