Articles
Would you sell a short lobster to this man?
ROCKLAND — Sgt. Marlowe Sonksen of the Maine Marine Patrol didn’t grow up around lobsters. A Mainer by choice, Sonksen chose the career out of a desire to protect natural resources and a love for the water. Over the course of a couple of conversations earlier this summer, he often came back around to how
A new citizen reminds us of what we share
Here is an image to consider in mid-summer, when Maine islands are busy places and every bunk is full: Sometimes, in the winter, you can walk the ridge road the length of Matinicus and not encounter a soul. You might not notice a single light in a window, or wave to the driver of a
The Alcatraz of the willing
Through the hurricane season of late summer and fall, the long Maine winter and the exaggerated, shameless, Wellie-sucking mud of March and April — at least some years — we who live on islands are interrogated regularly by telephone, by text, by Internet, by single-sideband, by any other available means and asked the same question,
Planning for the Unthinkable
A group of Maine forest rangers and other responders from Downeast headed for New York City on October 31st to help with the disaster caused by Hurricane Sandy. According to the maine.gov website, the Maine Forest Ranger Incident Management Team (MEIMT) was “requested through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC), a mutual aid agreement which
A Shrinking Island Community Invests in the Future Anyway
In early October I took a walk. Along the way, I chatted with Matinicus Elementary’s “ed. tech.” and a local mom outside the one-room school as six kids played on the swings. I passed Matinicus Island Rescue’s first aid storage shed, which now contains four (not two) backboards and all sorts of other helpful equipment,
Matinicus Airstrip Improvement Set to Begin
A strange, almost lunar landscape is gradually growing beside the parking area next to the small gravel airstrip on Matinicus Island, as pile after pile of gray stone is delivered to the site by three dumps trucks. Gathering enough material to resurface an airstrip takes quite a while, here where the wharf is only accessible
Gratitude
My aunt always told me to write thank-you notes Unsung heroes lurk in the shadows of every community and workplace. Troubleshooters, first responders, sidewalk psychologists, arms to lean on, shoulders to cry on, resourceful MacGyver types, Johnny-on-the-spots, ride-givers, toolbox-carriers and solution-finders help the rest of us poor slobs get through life. While some college kids
Island Power Company Tests Hydrogen Fuel System
Matinicus Plantation Electric Company (MPE) has installed a supplemental hydrogen fuel system on one of the engines in the powerhouse, and a couple of island lobstermen have recently added the hydrogen generators to their marine diesel engines in hopes of reducing operating costs. So far, the results look promising. Matinicus lobsterman Jarod Bray was at
The 24-Hour Interview
How do we actually hire a teacher for our island school? Short of putting each applicant through a rigorous battery of psychological tests akin to what NASA is considering for potential astronauts who think they want to sign up to go to Mars—well, actually, we’d like to do that. The ideal candidate would pass NASA’s
Matinicus Student Receives Liver Transplant at Boston Children’s Hospital
At about 10:30 p.m. on February 5—the night of the Super Bowl, after the Patriots had just lost a close game and New England football fans everywhere were shaking their heads in disappointment—a telephone rang at a home in Camden. Natalie Ames answered. “This is Dr. *** calling. I think we’ve found Zeke a liver.”