The Working Waterfront/Inter-Island News is looking for motivated students to write for our Web site. The Island Institute is starting a summer student-reporting program. As part of this effort, high school and college students in island and waterfront communities will write stories about all aspects of their towns. Students will work with Island Institute Publications
Islesboro group works with wild cats
It’s estimated there are more feral cats living on Islesboro than there are wild deer, but all those undomesticated felines haven’t proven to be too big a problem to the local community due to the hard work of the Island Feral Cat Association. As Janice Bethune, Island Feral Cat Association (IFCA) board member notes, “Because
Travels With Margie: hunting for bargains from South Portland to Blue Hill
While visiting my sister, Margie Mills, in Portland recently, I thought it might be fun to check out consignment and thrift shops during a Route 1 road trip. Because I volunteer at a thrift shop in Blue Hill, I wanted to assess the competition, and what with the economy having taken a dive, this seemed
Column
As fishermen prepare for the spring lobster-fishing season, a deep sense of unease hangs over Maine’s island and working waterfront communities. We now know that last October’s lobster price collapse ripped a gaping $50 million hole in Maine’s coastal economy-representing the decline in the value of the 2008 lobster season from the previous year, despite
Maine granite graces Yankee Stadium
With all the hoopla surrounding the opening of the new, $1.5 billion Yankee Stadium, most media have overlooked one irony: as fans stream through the massive gates, they walk right by Deer Isle granite, quarried by die-hard Red Sox fans. The granite rings the base of the stadium’s façade and was also used for the
Column
Searching for spring It is April 15 and I am wracking my brain to write this month’s “Cranberry Report.” I’ve had some great suggestions from wonderful friends but all I can think about is how much I dislike the month of April on Little Cranberry Island. Early spring in Maine is politely referred to as
Great cormorants threatened in Midcoast Maine
There is a small and dwindling population of great cormorants that nest in Midcoast Maine. These birds, the only great cormorants breeding in the United States, are threatened with extirpation because of their vulnerability to a thriving population of seabird-eating bald eagles. Great cormorants are elegant, intelligent and widely dispersed. There are populations in Europe,
Essay
“Mud season” has long been part of the Maine folklore. It’s spring-but-not-really-spring, or a less-than-welcome winter thaw, or a stretch of cold-weather rain that nearly results in the animals lining up two by two. When, as they say, the frost comes out of the ground, there is still a frozen layer beneath. This rock-hard subsurface
A new Sea Scout ship sets sail
As ice chunks floated down the Kennebec River and wind gusts rocked soaked bare branches outside the windows of the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, a group of mostly strangers gathered in the museum’s Long Reach Hall on a rainy March afternoon. They gathered to set up a new Sea Scouts ship based at the
Preserving traditional industries
With Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree’s introduction of a bond bill to preserve working waterfront and farmland, the state can continue the process of rethinking how we preserve public land that began with working waterfront preservation started in 2005. Pingree’s bill (LD 894) includes $5.5 million for the Working Waterfront Access Pilot Program, $5.5