Transport Canada has announced plans to update the Canada Shipping Act to “promote the safety and economic performance of the marine industry,” including fishing vessels. But fishermen all across Atlantic Canada maintain that the new provisions are short on common sense and long on cost — to the fishermen. The update includes “improvements to provisions
Franklin firm produces chips, other organic foods
Back in 1971, as their Downeast neighbors hung out laundry, Shep and Linette Erhart were hanging out seaweed to dry. Crazy? Not at all. It was the start of their Maine Coast Sea Vegetables business, now a fixture in quiet town of Franklin. The couple — she’s from Connecticut, he’s a college English major from
Away Happens
University Press of New England 138 pp. Softbound. $14.95 An Eye for the Details of Life Phil Crossman is the Dave Barry of the Maine islands — well, at least of the lobstering community of Vinalhaven, where he has lived since childhood (not long enough to be considered from “Here,” as he explains in the
Steel schooner takes shape in Sprucehead
Backyard boatbuilding projects are common enough, but a 70-foot steel schooner? That’s what retired teacher Adrian Hooydonk is welding together beside his small, coveside house in Sprucehead. At this stage the vessel is a jungle of steel frames, deck I-beams and the growing number of steel plates, from keel up, which define the hull. He
Industry, Ingenuity and Courage
Maine’s thriving mail-order business in live lobsters is an example of ingenuity in the marketplace that business schools and others should be watching. Instead of leaving themselves at the mercy of wholesalers and other big customers, a hardy band of entrepreneurs has taken advantage of improvements in communications and shipping (the Internet, FedEx) to go
Entanglements: The Intertwined Fates of Fish and Fishermen
University Press of Florida 289 pages. Dis-entangling whales from fishermen The College of the Atlantic has long taken an interest in the large marine mammal life of the Gulf of Maine. The institution is host of the research group Allied Whale, and offers a number of courses in whale biology and conservation. This is really
“Sustainable” Seafood – From the industry’s standpoint, it’s simply good business
Sustainable seafood has created such a buzz in the marketplace that it headlined this year’s Seafood Business Summit at the Boston Seafood Show. A panel of seafood buyers and fisheries experts shared their experience on procuring seafood that is sustainably harvested from plentiful stocks, or farmed without ecological impacts. All the panelists, from the large-volume
Ocean racer kept log for Maine marine lab
Solo ocean sailor Bruce Schwab is not a Mainer, but he made some Maine connections before racing nonstop around the world earlier this year. Schwab collaborated with the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in West Boothbay Harbor, recording oceanographic information and maintaining an online journal as he sailed some of the world’s more remote seas.
Journal of an Island Kitchen – Fresh
“Fresh” is an over-used food word these days. It sounds healthful, green and virtuous. It might even seem a little hard to come by on a Maine island this time of year. Restaurant menus say things like “we use only the finest, freshest ingredients,” as if everyone else, or even they themselves on a bad
Making Decisions
Most things in Maine have their seasons, and this time of year might be dubbed “government season.” Not a time to stir the soul, perhaps, but there’s plentiful evidence that this season is upon us: in Augusta, the legislature is in full swing, grappling for better or worse with matters that affect us all. And