Michael Kerr is a psychiatrist on Islesboro who has written a book about his work on Murray Bowen’s family systems theories.

Working Waterfront

Breaking family ties that bind us to bad behavior

By Tom Groening The image of a patient laying on a psychiatrist’s couch, telling the doctor that his mother never loved him and his father was too demanding, is a familiar one in our popular culture. Another image comes to mind after hearing Islesboro’s Dr. Michael Kerr explain the theories… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Waiting with ‘baited’ breath

Reflections is written by Island Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands and in remote coastal communities through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. By Dan Debord First, there was the early morning wakeup, lying in bed, wide-awake with anticipation, for an hour until… SEE MORE

Boats in a protected anchorage on Grand Manan

Working Waterfront

Maritime Canada as Maine’s cousin

By Tom Groening One of my college professors, Louis Simpson, won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1964. He was a wonderful teacher, and I sought out his work, even after graduating. One of his poems from the early 1980s has lingered in my memory. It’s from the perspective of… SEE MORE

A view of Mount Desert Island from Great Cranberry Island

Working Waterfront

National Park Service wades into worker housing issue

By Tom Walsh Maine’s uncounted thousands of seasonal workers on our coast are largely invisible. Nonetheless, they are essential cogs in the machine that makes possible the substantial revenues left behind by millions of visitors to Acadia National Park and other waterfront tourist destinations. Hotels, motels, B&Bs, restaurants, bars, gift… SEE MORE

Volunteers pitch in to work on the store building.

Working Waterfront

Lots in store for Isle au Haut’s store

By Molly Siegel It is a clear September day and the sounds of paint scrapers, nail guns, and hammers ring out across the Isle au Haut Thorofare. Volunteers have been working for two days to make much-needed improvements to the community’s Island Store Co-op. With tasks ranging from stripping old… SEE MORE

Brunswick High School Marine Biology students test our their waders on their first day at the outdoor classroom on Maquoit Bay.

Working Waterfront

Brunswick boosts next generation of marine entrepreneurs

KELLI PARK Brunswick High School Marine Biology students check green crab traps with their teacher, Andrew McCullough. Story and Photos by Kelli Park Young marine entrepreneurs in Maine are seeing new opportunities evolve almost as quickly as the changing tides. In Brunswick, the Student Shellfish Initiative is helping some of… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Former Google employee launches seaweed tea business

By Stephanie Bouchard If you were Josh Rogers’ childhood friend, you probably were offered dried dulse instead of Doritos chips for a snack. The red seaweed is today a trendy health food, but in the 1980s in Auburn, his friends thought it was “totally bizarre.” Rogers hasn’t given up trying… SEE MORE

A man rows to the dock on Islesford in late autumn of 2017.

Working Waterfront

A new approach to the ‘sweet decline’ time

By Barbara Fernald This year, as I anticipated my annual sense of melancholy for first two weeks of September, I realized something was different. I could easily summon an aching loneliness, but it was not ever-present. I had spent the summer finding ways to cope with my grief over several… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

MDI lab sees break-through in regenerative medicine

PHOTO: COURTESY MDI BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY Kevin Strange, Ph.D., CEO of Novo Biosciences in Bar Harbor. By Tom Groening Two scientists walk into a bar. It’s not the start of a joke, but someday, it may be marked as the start of a break-through in regenerative medicine. Work that began at… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Our oceans are worth a deeper dive

By Tom Groening The rock musician Frank Zappa often chose bizarre, sometimes off-color, but usually witty titles for his instrumental songs. One from the late 1970s, “The Ocean is the Ultimate Solution,” remains in my memory, even though I can’t summon to mind a single lick of the tune. The… SEE MORE