Articles
The Long View: Zones, homeports and the law of the knife
These days you can cut the tension with a knife, to use an inappropriate metaphor, at any lobster wharf along the coast of Maine-and it’s even more palpable on the water. Conflicts have been building ever since the nearly catastrophic price decline for lobsters hit fishermen last October. More and more lobstermen wonder whether they
Waiting for the Alchemist
Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge (2008) Paperback, 59 pages, $17.95 A map of life Mark Perlberg, a summer poet of Vinalhaven, died last year in June at the age of 79. He left behind a deeply moving self-portrait in the form of a slender collection of his last book of poems-his fourth-titled Waiting for
The Long View: Sprucing up the summer house
Until the recent economic seizure, most Americans would change houses and communities about as often as Hollywood stars change partners. When I got my first mortgage, the broker trying to interest me in the then new product of an adjustable rate mortgage, assured me that if I were like most homeowners, I’d only stay in
The Long View: Local food; local energy
Lately when people ask about the biggest challenges facing Maine islands and working waterfront communities, two questions loom over all others: what will the price of lobsters be and what will energy cost? The prices for lobsters and energy will likely determine whether islands can survive as viable year-round communities and the trends suggest that
The Long View: In Maine, never takes seven years
Now that season has turned, yet again, ever so slowly, toward island summer, it is worth asking ourselves why so many people who are part of the great Maine Diaspora yearn to return to the state of Maine, if only for a few weeks a year. The answers go well beyond Vacationland. The real reasons
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
Column
Lobster tales 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
The mouse that roared
Søren Hermansen, the spokesperson for Samsø Island-Denmark’s alternative energy island-was back in Maine last month. Hermansen first came to Maine as a guest of the Island Institute last November where he gave presentations to packed audiences in Portland and Belfast and to island communities. During his recent visit, Hermansen addressed the Governor’s Offshore Energy Task
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