The Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI) in collaboration with the Island institute and the Midcoast Fishermen’s Association (MFA) has just completed research confirming that fishing gear modifications by the MFA improve trawl selectivity and reduce the capture of non-commercial fish. “In 2007 fishermen from Port Clyde formed the MFA with a goal to restore
For an island power company, dealing with outages is a community effort
Electricity customers on Matinicus Island say, “We’re not off the grid, we are the grid.” The ratepayers, and the diesel generators, on Matinicus Island, are among the few Mainers who are not part of the New England power grid system by which most electricity users and generators are interconnected. The Matinicus power company (its legal
Made in Maine?
After reading about the lobster industry crisis in the November issue of Working Waterfront, I decided to make a greater effort to purchase lobster more often. However, living in Maryland in the winter (and visiting Augusta and Vinalhaven other seasons), I soon realized that the lobsters that are available in our Maryland area are of
Suspicions rise with lobster price
No sooner had the public become used to eating lobster because of the extraordinarily low price this past fall than it lost that gustatory pleasure when the price snapped up like a rubber band. In mid-January the price of lobster in the US and Canada doubled-went up $3- in 10 days. One day in that
Snooty review
When I read a snooty book review it usually catches my interest. Such reviews have often led me to a good book. I found a review of Carolyn Chute’s School on Heart’s Content Road in the December 2008-January 2009 issue of Working Waterfront by Tina Cohen. The headline. “A passionate, but bloated critique of the
Three Penobscot Bay island towns weathering economic storm
How has the economic downturn affected the municipal budgets of three Penobscot Bay island communities? So far, not badly, say town managers in Vinalhaven, North Haven, and Islesboro. Housing starts, excise taxes, property tax payment, appeals for general assistance, and local business activity are all indicators of economic weakness, and so far, nothing dramatic has
Lobster licenses key to survival of Maine’s year-round islands
Column: Parallel 44
Destroying the candidates’ paper trail Ever wonder if your local elected official is being influenced by contributions from special interests? I do. But then, I live in Portland, where the governor’s brother, Bob Baldacci, and his fellow real estate developers helped defeat the mayor (who was opposed to their $100-plus million project to “rescue” a
Maine coast loses two independent bookstores
For the past 16 years, Port In A Storm bookstore was a literary fixture in the Mount Desert Island village of Sommesville. Housed in a building once used to re-supply Atlantic sailing cargo ships, it sat across the dam from the Sommesville Library; the two buildings served as literary bookends in the heart of the
Andrew Wyeth 1917–2009
(Andrew Wyeth died quietly at his home in Chadds Ford, Penn. January 16, 2009) Andrew Wyeth, along with his wife Betsy, were the very first founding members of the Island Institute. Their vision, which they never stopped supporting, respected the islands as traditional outposts of a self-sufficient way of life, even as Maine’s islands began