On cold winter days, people from the Cranberry Isles will still make the three-mile trip to Northeast Harbor so they can go to work, do some grocery shopping, see the doctor, take a class, meet a friend for lunch, go to the dentist, etc. On any day off-island, at this time of year, I will
Oceans Past: Management Insights from the History of Marine Animal Populations
Earthscan, London, England 2008. Hardcover, 213 pages, $127 Connecting ocean changes with modern culture Oceans Past is an academic compilation, written by a multi-disciplinary team of historians, marine biologists, and others, which aims to provide an academic view of historical changes in ocean ecosystems. Each of the eleven chapters stands alone as a case-study of
Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World
Random House, 2008 Hardcover, 368 pages, $30 A timely book about a horrific war Following the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Suleiman the Magnificent, sultan of the Ottoman Turks, made plans to expand his empire to the western part of the Mediterranean Sea. Standing in the way was a scattering of European outposts including Christian
North By Northeast: Wabanaki, Akwesasne, Mohawk, and Tuscarora Traditional Arts
Tilbury House, 2008 Softcover, 120 pages, $20 Native American artists continue their culture through crafts “Traditional teachings, stories, songs, symbols, language-all these shared understandings-tell us who we are as Haudenosaunee (People Building a House),” writes Folklorist Kathleen Mundell in her new book. Mundell has been gathering material for this book for 15 years. Native American
Two-thirds of Sears Island protected from development
In January, the State of Maine placed two-thirds of Sears Island under a conservation easement, protecting that portion of the island from development while leaving the remaining one-third open for a possible container port. Depending on one’s perspective, the conservation agreement was anywhere from four to 40 years in the making. The fate of Sears
Andrew Wyeth 1917–2009
The Long View: The law of lobster supply and demand
The law of supply and demand has not been repealed. After lobster prices plunged rapidly during the crucial fall season last year to levels not seen for at least a decade, something seemed terribly wrong in Maine’s lobster industry. No one could remember when prices to fisherman fell from over $4 per pound to as
Lobster industry task force starts working
When Canada’s lobster processors were unable to obtain the lines of credit they needed to purchase Maine’s annual glut of soft shell lobster because three of the Icelandic banks that financed them had gone into bankruptcy, Maine found itself knee-deep in lobster as the boat price, the price paid to the fishermen who trapped the
For an island power company, dealing with outages is a community effort
Electricity customers on Matinicus Island say, “We’re not off the grid, we are the grid.” The ratepayers, and the diesel generators, on Matinicus Island, are among the few Mainers who are not part of the New England power grid system by which most electricity users and generators are interconnected. The Matinicus power company (its legal
Cutting-edge technology comes to Maine island schools
Have you ever wished you could teleport somewhere new and exciting? If only real life were to catch up with “Star Trek” imagine how much more convenient our lives would be. The island schools of Frenchboro, Swans, Islesford, Matinicus, Monhegan, and Isle au Haut have been experimenting with a new technology that has catapulted their