Stories about the Maine State Ferry Service (MSFS) have gone high-profile recently, with rate hikes, parking policies, and service coming up for review in a number of local venues. As was the case with some of the other communities using the ferries (Swans, Frenchboro, North Haven), Vinalhaven residents recently had the opportunity to talk with
Eight New Island Fellows start work
The Island Institute will send eight new Island Fellows to a variety of projects on islands from Downeast to Casco Bay. They join four returning Fellows in bringing expertise, resources, and their vitally important “extra set of hands” to their hosting communities and organizations. This year’s group of Fellows comes from diverse backgrounds. Mary Terry
A solar ferry?
It’s been a rough summer for passenger ferries. With skyrocketing diesel fuel prices, ferry companies had to raise rates to keep up with the increased costs. The Maine State Ferry system enacted a 12.5 percent rate hike June 1. Casco Bay Lines imposed a 50-cent-per-ticket fuel surcharge May 1, which has been challenged with a
Venturing
About a year and a half ago, when I’d just become eligible for Social Security, I realized it was time to undertake one of those Big Things we all think about but usually don’t do. In my case, I’d recently come into possession of a wonderful sailboat, thanks to an insurance settlement following the wreck
Two new markets bring locally grown food to Charlottetown
Market gardens have been making solid inroads in the Prince Edward Island agriculture landscape for ten years or more. With an increase in farm gate sales, farm tourist homes, as well as organic farming on the rise, the cry to buy local has taken a strong foothold in the island’s red clay. This past summer,
Sunken sardine carrier going nowhere
Visitors to the Rockland breakwater might see a curious site at ebb tide. Not far from shore is the wheelhouse of a 65-foot fishing boat that sank some 18 months ago. The Lauren T., formerly known as the Novelty, sits on the bottom, neglected, a reminder of an era when sardines were big business and
Writers ‘discover’ Matinicus Island again, and again, and again…
“Go out and get me another ‘covered bridge’.” One of my summer bakery customers, a vacationing editor, told me once that this expression is (or was) common parlance in the offices of at least one major east-coast newspaper. If a high-ranking member of the editorial staff realized that column space looked plentiful in a middle
Otherworldly Maine
Don’t turn out the lights Otherworldliness writing is not my usual choice of genre, and yet I found myself unable to put Noreen Doyle’s collected stories aside, or go to sleep, reading it through one entire night. “Turn off the light,” a friend said, calling at some very late hour. She forgot. I never turn
Richard Russo recruits fellow-writers to tell stories of hospice
He was gone in an instant, slipping away quickly, slumping to the floor, releasing life…perhaps sensing in that last swift-ebbing consciousness, a distant ringing. I was calling my father back, telephoning to apologize for arbitrary nastiness, unwarranted temper, directed at him an hour before. He wanted to see his grandchild…”come with Laura for lunch…” he
Charlottetown builds mega-berth; visited by world’s largest cruise ship
An investment of $15.5 million to build a new pier and welcome center in Charlottetown harbor resulted in visits from the world’s largest cruise ship. The Prince Edward Island port renovated and lengthened its pier so the port could handle mega-cruise ships, something that the new Ocean gateway facility in Portland lacks. Royal Caribbean International’s