To the editor: I always enjoy your paper. This time my hat is off to Bill Terra — builder of the 30-foot model of the German battleship Graf Spee (WWF April 2008). Too bad the Rockland boat show didn’t let him display it. Heck, I’d have paid money to see it! Frank FergusonBrookline, MA
Grey seals proliferate along the Northeast coast, alarming fishermen
“They’re not spawning, they’re fleeing,” said Denny Morrow, Executive Director of the Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association, describing fish trying to avoid being eaten by grey seals that attack tight spawning schools. We all look for seals when on the water. Their sleek heads and big brown eyes emerging above the waves or the entire
Writing on Stone: Scenes from a Maine Island Life
In December 1991, Christina Marsden Gillis and her husband, John, suffered two parents’ greatest sorrow: the death of a child. Their son Ben, 26 years old, was killed in Kenya while flying eight European tourists from Mombassa to Little Governors Camp in the Masai Mara game preserve. A large bird flew through the windscreen of
Opposition
In a marine ecosystem often referred to as “the Saudi Arabia of wind,” where generation of unlimited amounts of this clean renewable energy are believed possible, some would-be ratepayers seem to care much as much about what’s on their horizons as their utility bills. Such thinking is evident on Nantucket Sound, where Cape Wind Associates
More on Pilots
To the editor: I for one, (not from Maine) have been searching for Pilot crackers for over a year now. Wherever I travel, I “case out” food stores looking for these crackers, to no avail. I read the recent article in Working Waterfront this a.m. written by Sandy Oliver and at least I now understand
A Coastal Companion: A Year in the Gulf Of Maine, From Cape Cod to Canada
It is mid-April as I write this, flipping pages through this enchanting book, arranged to take us on an ecological, environmental, perceptive creature-journey of a year, from January 1 to December 31, a path touching the rise and receding of seasons and the living forces that harbor planet earth as home. I must watch, I
Small World
John Higgins was enjoying breakfast at the Cocomar Restaurant in the Dominican Republic last February when he noticed something from home. It was a buoy hanging on the wall, and on the buoy was written the word “Vinalhaven.” Higgins, a member of the Island Institute board of trustees, took photos of the buoy and sent
Wicked Good
To the editor: Thanks for your article on the Crown Pilot cracker “problem” (WWF April 2008). Although I’m from “away” and have never eaten or made chowder with them, they top my list for crackers. That comes from a “cracker freak.” These crackers are always in my cupboard with a back-up box ready at hand.
Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner and a Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail
In 1740 a British fleet under the command of Commodore George Anson sailed for the Pacific with instructions to attack a Spanish treasure galleon carrying silver from Acapulco to the Philippines. England and Spain had gone to war in 1739 over “trade rights” and capture of the treasure ship would strike at the heart of
Navigating wakes and shoals, an association protects a river and its resources
Barnaby Porter, who has lived on the Damariscotta River for close to 40 years, tells the story of a day when he, his son and naturalists from the Chewonki Foundation tried to return an young osprey to the nest on a navigational marker that the bird had fallen from. “We pretty much knew it was