Working Waterfront

Island Institute deploys Island Fellows Downeast

Over the past 20 years, the Island Institute’s Island Fellows program has invested in island and coastal communities from Casco Bay to Eastport. Though the program is well known on the 15 year-round island communities, expanding the organization’s impact into other regions is an important part of creating a thriving… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Children’s author brings worker rights champion to life

It was clothing and a tragedy that brought Jennifer Merz and Frances Perkins together. Merz, who recently retired to Phippsburg with her husband, is a collage artist and writer who has published three children’s books; the third, in September, is Steadfast: Frances Perkins, Champion of Workers’ Rights. Perkins (1880-1965) was… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The sublime joy of sailing, courtesy the Apprenticeshop

When power boats supplanted sailboats, the argument could be made that mariners were free of the reliance on the vagaries of the wind. But does that freedom to travel wherever and whenever outweigh the freedom one feels when gliding across the water in a sailboat? Those at the Apprenticeshop in… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

One veteran’s bewilderment

As a veteran, I have never gotten over the fact that, in spite of his having made such crass and appalling statements as calling John McCain a loser for having been captured and in spite of having implied many times before and during the 2016 campaign that those of us… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A very long swim, a new view of my island

I was one of those kids who always managed to find her way into the water. At Sea World, I leaned so far into a dogfish petting tank that I got soaked head to toe, resulting in the purchase of a very expensive souvenir sweatshirt. Wading in the shallows of… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

World War II-era tower is island family heirloom

You may be forgiven for thinking a 65-foot-tall tower on a Casco Bay island has something to do with warning mariners away from danger. But the tower in Brad Brown’s side yard on Long Island actually was built to harm mariners. Well, invading mariners, anyway. At any rate, it’s not… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The man is gone, but the story remains

I never met Stephen H. Robbins Jr., a legendary offshore lobsterman of Stonington who passed away in July of this year. However, I do know Randy Olson, a marine-biologist-turned-filmmaker, who made one of his first movies about Stevie and his family, nearly 30 years ago. I watched this film again… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Seaweed, shellfish aquaculture are thriving on Hancock County coast

Seaweed, mussels, and scallops—these are some of the farmed seafood products that are enjoying great success among small aquaculture operations off the Hancock County coast. And business owners continue to innovate as they look to expand markets, share their technologies and know-how with newcomers, promote aquaculture as a sustainable industry,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The melancholy season is different this year

Every year I experience a two-week stretch of melancholy that hits me in the middle of September. It doesn’t matter that it is one of the most beautiful times of the year in the Cranberry Isles. Even though it is part of the rhythm of the place in which I… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

One man’s seaworthy seagull companion

As a lobsterman who’s spent six decades on the water, John Makowsky knows the meaning of lasting relationships—with the sea, with his boat, with his crew, and with his best friend of 16 years: a seagull named Red Eye. Makowsky hails from Long Island Sound in Connecticut, where he grew… SEE MORE