Working Waterfront

When communes sprouted in Maine

Politically motivated violence. Defiance of the legal order. Rejection of long-held moral values. A widespread move toward a new social order. I’m not talking about the state of our nation today, but about the late 1960s and early 1970s, an era that impacted coastal Maine and in many ways still… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Our readers have opinions

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Photo correction To the Editor: The photos of the storm damage in the February/March issue of the newspaper were great, but the ruined lobster shack in Bernard on Mount Desert Island is not the town wharf, as the caption read, but a private wharf and shack… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Human loss and devastating damage

On Jan. 5, five days before a storm would wreak havoc along the Maine coast, the town of Cranberry Isles suffered the unexpected death of one of its citizens. Cory Alley collapsed in his skiff on the way out to his mooring. As his wife, Cari, and their youngest son… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Islesboro’s Olivia Britton serving on UMaine board

“The decisions that happen at the board level, even though they are sometimes complicated and a little bit confusing, affect our everyday lives,” Britton said SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Finding the essence of the Lost Kitchen

Big Heart Little Stove: Bringing Home Meals & Moments From The Lost Kitchen By Erin French (with Rachel Holtzman); Celadon Books, 2023. I think it’s safe to say, at least in Maine and for her many fans, Erin French is considered something of a treasure. She has put a spotlight… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The storm damage we cannot see

Almost two months after the January storms pummeled the Maine coast, we are still piecing together a full picture of the destruction. In the direct aftermath, of course, communities could document buildings now angled slightly off their foundations or entirely set adrift, pilings separated from their pins, and beaches and… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

On the record with… Cliff Island’s Bonnie Rideout

Bonnie Rideout’s house on Cliff Island is on a small bluff jutting to the south, ringed by steep shale cliffs descending into the ocean. The house was used in the filming of The Whales of August in 1987. Rideout gave me a quick tour of the old house, showing me… SEE MORE

John Wissemann’s “Friendship Harbor 2013,” mixed media on paper, 22 by 30 inches PHOTO: JEFF FULLER

Working Waterfront

John Wissemann stencils Friendship

In a scene in Jeffrey Mathias’s 2014 video “John Wissemann: Stencils & Pencils & Working Harbors of Maine,” the artist visits Friendship Harbor with fellow painter Sam Cady who lives in the neighborhood. As they admire the configurations of sheds, docks, and boats, Cady notes that Friendship has made “a… SEE MORE

Three young women pose for a photograph at the steamship wharf at Sandy Point in Stockton Springs. PHOTO: COURTESY PENOBSCOT MARINE MUSEUM

Working Waterfront

Steamboat days in Stockton Springs

Three young women pose nervously for the camera in our image this month. They are dressed for an outing and are holding parcels, maybe containing their lunch. Their chaperon, a spinsterly-looking character, is clearly not amused at the spectacle they are causing on the busy steamboat wharf at Sandy Point… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A card for you

Among our many interesting island traditions is one that’s wonderfully functional. Before one of our favorite institutions, The Paper Store, closed, whenever an islander died, or someone with an island connection—a seasonal resident for example or even the mainland relative of one or the other—a little basket appeared on the… SEE MORE