If you live in the Midwest, it is hard to avoid the talk this summer about corn and drought. If you live in the New York, Pennsylvania or Ohio, the talk is all about drilling for natural gas. If you are on the Maine coast, you cannot avoid hearing about lobsters. Everyone, especially lobstermen, want
Community Helps Coastal Farm Rise From Ashes
If you didn’t know better, Gouldsboro residents Cynthia and Bill Thayer sound like any pair of farmers excited about an upcoming barn-raising. “The slab has been poured,” Cynthia Thayer said in a phone interview. “Bill’s picking up horses today.” But this is no ordinary barn-raising at Darthia Farm. In the early hours of May 7,
Hello Goodbye!
It’s the height of summer in the Cranberry Isles, with people constantly coming and going. Every week we say hello to someone who has just arrived and goodbye to someone else whose vacation time is over. No bridge connects our islands to the mainland or to each other, so arrivals and departures cross the water,
Regional Ocean Planning Underway
The Northeast Regional Ocean Council (NROC) is ramping up its efforts to gather data and create a cohesive picture of current use of New England’s marine waterways. The council, a collaborative effort set up by New England’s governors in 2005 to create a unified regional approach to ocean planning, will reach out to stakeholders in
The Contingent Nature of Island Life
The ties that bind islanders together are reinforced on a day-to-day basis in hundreds of small ways. An island newspaper does not publish a lot of news in any ordinary sense of the word, since the front page is always given over to the innumerable acts of kindness that islanders are constantly performing for one
Musings of an Island Bush Pilot
The day begins at 0600. The chief pilot makes aircraft assignments. We check oil, gas, controls, instruments, anything that could affect the safety of flight, and tiedowns are removed. In the meantime, Penobscot Island Air’s vans are on the way to the Rockland Post Office. Engine checks are finished and the airplanes are prepared for
A New Fishery in Maine
Culinary trends can be tricky to predict with the recent trend to sample both exotic and local foods—sometimes on the same plate. The roster of locally available foods is well known, and here in Maine one can expect rather hearty fare; potatoes, lobster, apples and kale are among the offerings, but lately there’s been a
LPG Concerns
To the Editor: The Working Waterfront report on the Army Corps of Engineers assessment of the LPG facility proposed for Mack Point, in the July 2012 edition, summarizes often unsupported and inaccurate material from the assessment, authored by Jay Clement, without balancing source material, ultimately concluding “minimal disruption” from the LPG facility. It was unfortunate and
Legal Wrangling Continues Over Searsport LPG
Review of a proposed $40 million, 22.7 million gallon liquefied propane gas (LPG) storage tank is now in the hands of the Searsport Planning Board. But opponents and skeptics of the project still wonder if their concerns will ever be fully addressed. “There’s a tremendous number of moving parts, and the responses we’ve seen to
Hard Stone, Hard Choices
Vinalhaven resident, Scott Candage, a student at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, recently mounted an exhibit “Hard Stone, Hard Choices” for the island community to view before presenting it as part of his master’s degree thesis. The “temporary arts,” multi-media installation in the historic Pleasant River Grange Hall commemorates the lives of 10 of Vinalhaven’s