North Haven’s normal fifth through twelfth grade school population of 39 students tripled when their counterparts from Vinalhaven joined them for the Fox Islands Arts Festival May 29. Fencing on the ball field, choral music at the church, transformations (3-D art from trash) at the Legion Hall and granite-cutting behind Waterman’s Community Center were four
Venturing
Sail yourself from the Virgin Islands to Bermuda and you’ll encounter a number of working waterfront outposts, places where dedicated individuals provide the services that make this sort of travel possible. Aboard a 44-foot sloop the trip takes a little over six days. In our case it required the services of a commercial marina and
The Long View: Islands are the Canaries in the Oil Patch
While the rest of the United States is feeling the pain of rapidly increased fuel prices, rural Maine is in far more desperate shape and island Maine is in the most vulnerable predicament of all American communities outside perhaps of Alaska. On Maine islands, fuel prices have already exceeded $5 a gallon for heating and
Cranberry Report
On June 11, the Islesford community met at the Neighborhood House for a pot luck dinner and a celebration of Ben Stevens’ graduation from the Islesford School. Ben’s mom, Sally Rowan, had gathered slides of Ben to show after the supper. Ben’s dad, Skip Stevens, gathered his wife and musical friends, Bill McGuinness, Hugh Smallwood,
A Visual Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast
This very straightforward guide incorporates reduced-scale NOAA charts, brief navigation descriptions and aerial photographs to provide clear instructions on how to enter or leave several dozen Maine harbors. It’s readable and straightforward, with the spiral binding that cruising sailors always yearn for as they struggle with their books and charts at the tiller, wheel or
It’s Your Paper Now
Time to go. Been at this job for 16 years, more or less, since we started The Working Waterfront in the early 1990s. All that time I’ve been the editor, but now we’ve got a new one so I get to say goodbye by writing him a letter. We started small – the first issue
Two Portland islands could lose polling places
When the City of Portland’s fiscal year ends on June 30 it could mark the end of polling places on Cliff Island and Great Diamond Island. This is part of a $15,000 cost savings effort that will be voted on by the Portland City Council on July 21. The proposal to reduce the number of
…this just in, from our Chebeague correspondent:
I have had multiple calls and emails since the Times article and a Portland PR firm has volunteered to help pro bono! A food scientist at Penn State is interested in determining the recipe for small bakeries and home bakers. New England Cable News and Port City Magazine have called as well! Kraft needs to
The Wildest Country: Exploring Thoreau’s Maine
In the mini-woods where my small house sits, with a glimmering dawn diminishing the dark in early a.m. hours these days, I wonder where David Henry – or Henry David, as he preferred to be called – was when he jotted in his journal, “the sun is but a morning star…” Was he in Emerson’s
Still More on Pilots
To the editor: Please add sour grapes to those crackers, from a reader who grew up in northern Maine and lived in Bangor, without ever hearing of Crown Pilot crackers till the April issue of WWF arrived. The two letters in the May issue and one in June moved me to write this one. The