Watching a champion lobsterman haul his traps is like watching the Olympics: the perfection of craft. There’s not one unnecessary move. Every movement counts because any unnecessary one wastes time. To many, Leroy Bridges is the thinking man’s lobsterman. He’s thinking all the time. One winter day, he said, “Being on land is boring.” You
Inside the 50-fathom Curve
The Maine Lobstermen’s Association is urging the National Marine Fisheries Service to exempt lobster fishermen inside the 50-fathom curve along the Maine coast from gear modifications proposed to protect right whales. In comments supporting the MLS’s position, the Island Institute’s Rob Snyder noted that sinking lines don’t work in rocky bottom areas and areas with
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
By Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver HarperCollins 2007 Growing, Cooking and Eating as a Family Project In a possible case of preaching to the choir, Barbara Kingsolver’s book on her family’s experience of eating food from their own garden and immediate area for a year may happily push some over the
The Zen of Fish
HarperCollins, 2007 Hardcover, $24.95 Looking Closely at the Folks in the White Coats Maine is a contributor to the world of sushi, as the source of two of the primary species that go into the cuisine. In the summer we export fantastically large and fantastically expensive bluefin tuna, and in the winter this contribution is
Mega ships arrive, bringing mega dollars
The white whale docked in Portland in late September. While it wasn’t Moby Dick — rather, it was Royal Caribbean Cruise Line’s Explorer of the Seas – the event marked the coming of the mega ship era in Maine. Onlookers marveled as the cumbersome 15-passenger-deck ever-so-delicately docked. “The ship had an unusual arrival,” notes Jeff
Kennebec River Initiative maps long range plans
In 2005, a group of Kennebec River enthusiasts decided to introduce Maine’s Conservation Commissioner Patrick McGowan and his assistant at the time, Karen Tilberg, to the section of the Kennebec between Waterville and Sidney. Neither McGowan nor Tilberg had ever seen that stretch, which runs through a fairly heavily settled urban area, but retains a
Winter Harbor hosts an international sculpture symposium
“His sculptures can be `read’ two different ways,” said artist, art teacher and Winter Harbor Sculpture Site Selection Committee member Mary Lou Weaver, of the stylized granite boat cleat by Round Pond sculptor Don Justin Meserve. She said the cleat also represents a safe harbor. The Cleat is one of seven massive sculptures made at
Friendship Homes
Rockland: Custom Museum Publishing, 2007. A Whole Town, In Print On July 28 of this year Friendship celebrated its bicentennial, an occasion for which this book was created. It has neither author nor editor listed on its cover, stating simply that it was “A collaborative community effort in Friendship, Maine.” Marguerite Sylvester, over 90 and
While Bar Harbor solves its mega ship problem, “mega berth” becomes embroiled in Portland’s waterfront debate
Last January, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines faced an unanticipated problem that required an inventive solution. The problem: The cruise line’s Voyager-class Explorer promised New England fall-foliage cruises, but while this mega ship was scheduled to drop anchor in Bar Harbor fully equipped with state-of-the-art amenities like oxygen therapy and kidney dialysis, it would not have
The Long View: Summer O-Seven
The island summer sets slowly in the mind, especially when late lasting Indian summer days linger well into October. Who, then, can resist the remembrance of the inestimably powerful number of glancing views through haloed fog on a wave-cut shoreline refracted from the deck of a passing ferry boat, mail boat, lobster boat, sloop, ketch