Camden, Maine: Down East Books, 2007 $15.00 Good pictures that cast no spell Greg Currier is a good photographer and the pictures in this book are nice. For your money you have a souvenir of Maine, or an addition to the coffee table, or a house present to leave with hosts. Besides those positives, it
Vinalhaven teen attends D.C. protest
In contrast to the Vietnam war era, political activism has not been particularly popular among teenagers during the Iraq war. However, Vinalhaven tenth-grader Morgan Bouton doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about what is popular. The 16-year-old spent St. Patrick’s Day with approximately 50,000 other demonstrators at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., protesting the
Cranberry Report: Make Your Own Job
After a nasty northeaster, spring returned to the Cranberry Isles in the last week of April. Neighbors came together under beautiful skies to perform community service in observation of Earth Day. On Islesford, Island Institute fellow Eric Dyer organized a beach cleanup, followed by a community supper and a showing of the movie, “An Inconvenient
Bath revives its community garden
Brenda Nelson, an avid gardener, discovered a problem when she moved into her new home in Bath. “My little house had too tiny of a yard,” Nelson said. Like many Bath residents, Nelson lives in a densely-populated neighborhood Her little home is sandwiched so close to neighboring houses that when friends phone her, they can
Forest Service examines Peaks Island’s risk of wildfire
On April 21, Peaks Islanders gathered at their community center to hear rangers from the Maine Forest Service give a presentation about the threat of wildfire to their homes. The rangers shared the results of a risk assessment they had previously conducted, and also suggested several strategies for homeowners to reduce the risk of a
Island fellow uses trails, other projects to promote “positive change”
It’s no surprise that David Steckler, the Island Institute’s Fellow on North Haven, finds himself drawn to place-based education as a powerful teaching tool. “Growing up, I was always attracted to being outdoors — and my learning style has always been to learn by doing,” he says. As the Place-Based Education Fellow at the North
“A murder mystery was a good place to start”
As we pull up to the town dock at Isle au Haut, Linda Greenlaw steps out onto the float to greet us in true islander fashion. For someone who has led a life of big adventure, including a swordfishing career made famous in Sebastian Junger’s book The Perfect Storm and the subsequent blockbuster film of
An Inside Look at the Workings of the Royal Navy
There are 18 novels in the Ramage series, featuring the exploits of Lord Nicholas Ramage, an intrepid British Sea captain during the Napoleonic Wars. The novels cover the years 1796-1806, when England was locked in a brutal struggle with Napoleon’s France. Our first meeting with Ramage is in the middle of a naval battle off
Journal of an Island Kitchen: Pot Lucks and Plates
When I was little girl my mom brought our family’s own plates and silverware to pot luck suppers. I recall that she would set our places on one of the big rectangular tables, two settings on one side and two opposite. When we children were done running around the church or community hall and it
Sailing Maine
Photographs by Becca Albee. Poems by Jan Bailey, Kate Cheney Chappell, Keller Cushing Freeman, Kristen Lindquist, Candice Stover and Elizabeth Tibbetts Cedar Mountain Books, Greenville, South Carolina 12 pp. $14.95 “Lost trees have righted themselves. Everyone is still alive.” The poet George Oppen, who sailed among the islands of Penobscot Bay, once wrote, “There is