BOOK REVIEW With an expertise as naturalist and artist, Josie Iselin’s books have offered a new eye on the wonders of ocean environments. Beach, Seashells, and Heart Stones each featured close-ups of found treasures in nature, accompanied in varying degrees with explanatory text or more lyrical musings. By photographing objects with a large flatbed scanner,
The college years offer ‘redefining’ experience
NORTHPORT — Erica Papkee, like many of her generation, looked to Google for help. A resident of Long Island in Casco Bay who will be a junior at Boston College in the fall, Papkee was awarded the $10,000 S. Parkman Shaw Scholarship in a ceremony at Point Lookout on Saturday, May 31. She joined 59
Designing and building gardens for North Haven a growing business
NORTH HAVEN — Down a long dirt driveway on North Haven’s South Shore road, flanked by Mullen’s Head Park, hides Islandscape, an established garden design and plant retail business owned by Eileen O’Connor. “I had been, in graduate school, unhappy. I worked with this great British landscaper Claire Ackroyd for a year and she said
Promising signs of rebound for the mighty halibut
There has been a lot of excitement this spring around the biggest flat fish in the Gulf of Maine. Atlantic halibut—Hippoglossus hippoglossus—is a large, right-eyed flounder found between New York and Labrador. The largest halibut ever recorded was 620 pounds off of Cape Ann, and a 250-pound fish was landed in Bass Harbor last year.
Balancing act: year-round businesses and summer work
The early morning ferries for the near-shore islands are packed. Dozens of commuters carrying lunch buckets are heading out to the islands to work. While walking down the ramp onto the ferry you might hear a common refrain from visitors: “Why don’t island businesses hire on the island?” Within the answer lies a longstanding dilemma
Monhegan: ‘The Unfailing Muse,’ opens at Archipelago Fine Arts Gallery
ROCKLAND — Monhegan: The Unfailing Muse, an exhibit of work by more than two dozen Maine artists, is coming to Archipelago Fine Arts Gallery, 386 Main Street, beginning with a reception for the general public on Friday, June 27, from 5 to 8 p.m. Guests at the opening reception will enjoy refreshments, including beer being provided
‘Tall Barney,’ a Beals Island legend, lives on
BEALS ISLAND — A bright yellow lobsterboat motors under the bridge that links Beals Island to mainland Jonesport. On a sunny spring day, primary hues are everywhere—a tangerine hull on blocks near a lemon-colored house; multi-striped lobster buoys in rounded heaps resembling flowering bushes. Once a year in July, the bridge is jammed with hundreds
Dockside oceanography: taking the pulse of the ocean
The sea is a weird potion of invisible magic. I’m a scientist, and a very geeky one at that, and I’m always amazed at what can be learned with simple tools, such as a bucket, seawater, and paying attention. A friend of mine once leaned over a dock and pulled up a bucket of seawater
It’s June 1, so let me the first to say, ‘Happy New Year!’
Ten days into winter I am usually ready to kick the old year to the curb, but life really does not feel all that different on the first day of January than it did on the last day of December. Other than feeling relieved that the stress of the holidays is over and writing a
In praise of rhubarb
Two feet of dirt was piled on top of the old rhubarb plant last fall. I mourned, thinking I would never see it again. I had a septic system installed and added a flush toilet to my bathroom. I consoled myself with the thought that I had divided the rhubarb and put the division in