by Wayne Smith

Women for Healthy Rural Living (WHRL) and Maine Outdoor School, L3C have expanded their OWL: Outdoor Women Lead offerings. A free women’s outing club will begin this spring and a free day camp for girls will occur twice this summer.

OWL started in 2020 as a series of videos, blog posts, and interactive activities that taught outdoor and naturalist skills. The goal of OWL is to strengthen women and girls’ confidence outside because everyone deserves to feel comfortable and empowered in the outdoors.

by Sarah Craighead Dedmon

Maine has moved from a vaccine schedule based on age, occupation, and health conditions to one based strictly on age. Governor Janet Mills announced the change on Friday, Feb. 26 to take effect this week.

“A review of recent data by the Maine CDC indicates that age is a significant predictor of whether someone will become seriously sick or is more likely to die if they contract COVID-19,” said Mills in a written statement.

by Nancy Beal

Lobstermen on the coast of Maine got the chance last week to express their displeasure with proposed federal guidelines that would impose expensive gear changes, limit fishing practices and territories, and potentially threaten the industry’s existence and the viability of the communities they live in.

by Praise Moore

Tony Maker, principal of Elm Street School, started teaching in 1989. When asked what the most challenging thing about teaching is, he replied, “If we could pretend the whole COVID situation didn’t exist, even in a normal classroom setting, the challenge with kids is to keep their attention,” says Maker. Those challenges are more pronounced today, especially, he says. There are so many things demanding student’s attention that having kids sit, listen, and discuss is difficult and according to Maker, even more difficult in an online classroom.

by Celia Cummiskey

Earle Faulkingham’s Chevy Silverado and neon pink sign declaring “Earle’s Fresh Seafood'' are a familiar sight on the Machias dike. Faulkingham sells fresh seafood from large coolers in the back of his truck, with customers rolling through drive-through style or parking to stop for a chat.

by Sarah Craighead Dedmon

In late fall and early winter, Route 1 motorists see trucks overflowing with balsam tips pulling into Whitney Wreath, then pulling out loaded with Christmas wreaths. CEO David Whitney’s wreathing business keeps his Whitneyville factory hopping at the end of the year. Recently, however, Whitney has expanded his companies’ offerings to keep the factory humming all year long.

“We haven’t taken the focus off of balsam, but we had to take the blinders off and broaden our view,” Whitney says.

by Sarah Craighead Dedmon

A bill to give Hancock and Washington Counties their own district attorneys last week passed Maine’s Joint Standing Committee on Judiciary 11-0. The two counties currently share one district attorney as members of Maine’s Prosecutorial District 7.

by Jonathan Reisman

Last week I poked the green hornets’ nest by testifying in support of LD 324, An Act to Limit Public Land Ownership in Maine. The environmental left was outraged that any such sentiment would even be considered and suggested that the legislation was unneeded, counterproductive, overly broad, a burden on democracy, local governance, and efforts to confront the climate apocalypse.

by Hazel Stark

by Sarah Craighead Dedmon

Machias Town Manager Christina Therrien will resign her position effective June 30, according to a letter she submitted to the board of selectmen Wednesday, March 9.

Therrien emailed the letter to board chairman Joshua Rolfe during the “other business” portion of the board’s bi-monthly meeting, which fell earlier than usual in the evening due to a planned adult-use marijuana workshop session.

With Therrien’s permission, Rolfe read the resignation aloud.

by Sarah Craighead Dedmon

A state public hearing set for March 22 will take feedback on proposed changes to Maine’s medical marijuana program, changes local businesses believe will put them at a competitive disadvantage, especially against large corporations.

“They’re going to shut down the small businesses in Maine,” says David Finlay, owner of Indian Trail Farms in Machias, who is not alone in his frustration. Last week, several dozen people marched outside the Augusta Civic Center to protest the proposed changes.

by Praise Moore

by Alan Kryszak

You don’t ask inventive artist/musicians like Stephen Copel why his dog pictures are in classic artistic settings, or why he wears a horsey mask on shopping day. You don’t ask Little Seavey Lake’s master guitarist and troubadour with way too many stories why his voice sounds like it floated off of a 1970s blues album and his guitar sounds like the lost Allman brother.

by Joseph Horn

by Nancy Beal

Principals in Kingfish Maine, a Dutch company that proposes to build a $100 million land-based fish farm in Jonesport on Chandler Bay, were in town last week to hold an informational meeting, a requirement on their quest for three permits needed to build and operate the facility they hope to create. They brought with them architectural renderings of what the plant and associated outbuildings would look like—from the ground and from the air.

by Praise Moore

Lisa Bartlett is the art teacher of Elm Street Elementary School in East Machias. When asked how she started teaching, she answered: “For a job I feel I was destined to do — I love it so much, I really do — I didn’t start until I was forty.” After she and her husband moved from Wales

by Jayna Smith

March 20 marked one year since the closure of the U.S./Canada border in an effort to minimize the spread of COVID-19, and the order has been extended every month since. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested in a news conference last week a reopening date is not in sight.

“We’re all eager to be able to travel again, but I think we’re all going to wait patiently until such time as the health situation allows us to loosen border restrictions internationally. That’ll be eventually, but not for today,” Trudeau said.

by Sarah Craighead Dedmon

There are nearly 20 ways to engineer a reconstruction of the Machias dike, and the Maine Department of Transportation will present all of them via an online public hearing, available beginning March 29.

by Ruth Leubecker

Fifteen years ago, John Baldacci was governor and the Dirigo health plan was struggling with spiraling costs. But the hot-button issue was high-speed Internet.

All these years later, a new governor deals with issues never dreamed of back then and health costs are still scaling new heights. But the hot-button issue is still high-speed Internet.

by Nancy Beal

Earlier this month, Jonesport Selectman Billy Milliken was asked by an out-of-towner to bring a resolution supportive of the Second Amendment before his board. The towns of Steuben and Harrington have already approved such a resolution, he said, which affirms the right of citizens to bear arms.

Harry Fish said he supported the amendment but would not commit to the resolution without the support of the townspeople and suggested that the select board table the motion. “We could be stepping into a quagmire,” he said.

by Jayna Smith

Last week, Ian Pratt, of Pratt Family Dealership, presented a $500 donation to Barbara Barnett, Director of Volunteer Services at Down East Hospice Volunteers (DEHV).  The donation is for sponsorship of the Cobscook Bay Races - Challenge 2021.

Porter Memorial Library in Machias will offer discounted online viewings of a new film, Entangled, which chronicles efforts to protect North Atlantic right whales from extinction, the impacts of those efforts on the lobster industry, and how the National Marine Fisheries Service has struggled to balance the vying interests.

by Joseph Horn