By Paul Sylvain

The Machiasport Selectboard gave the thumbs up, at their Oct. 28 meeting, to build a truck turnaround on town-owned land just above the Bucks Harbor fishing pier and fishermen’s parking lot on Pettegrow Point Road.

By Paul Sylvain

Looking ahead, Machiasport, like many other small, rural towns in the state, is likely going to have to take over management and care of the town’s cemeteries. There are at least nine known cemeteries in town, but discussion at the selectboard’s Oct. 28 meeting hinted that there may be many more.

By Paul Sylvain

On Aug. 3, scores of family members, friends, and even strangers, packed the Rose M. Gaffney gymnasium in record numbers for a fundraiser to help Jennifer Lee (Green) Fenney in her courageous battle against cancer. Just a short 85 days later — on Oct. 27 — many of those same people filled the Bay Ridge school gym in Cutler to celebrate the life of a much-loved woman, taken much too soon on Oct. 23. She was 49.

Dedmon Sets Sights on Permanently Filling Vacant Town Manager’s Job

By Paul Sylvain

Sarah Craighead Dedmon can add the position of interim operations manager for the town of Machias to an already impressive and growing resumé, following a decision by the town’s selectboard on Oct. 23.

By Will Tuell

Down East Community Hospital bid an emotional farewell to one of its own last week. Brenda Wood, of the Hadley Lake district of East Machias, notified hospital officials earlier this month that she would be stepping down from her position in DECH, after nearly five decades serving patients at the Machias hospital.

By Will Tuell

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, or ASMFC, which oversees most commercial fishing activity from Maine to Florida, backed off a plan to require lobstermen release bigger lobsters after a year of intense lobbying by fishing industry trade groups, the state’s congressional delegation, and Maine’s Department of Marine Resources, in a vote Oct. 21. That plan, originally set to go into effect in June 2024 was delayed to Jan. 1, 2025, and has now been pushed back again to July 1, 2025. 

By Wayne Smith

Richard Bedard is the volunteer librarian at Too Good to Toss Thrift Shop in Columbia Falls. I caught up with him and a few other people who volunteer there earlier this fall to talk about some of the great things you can find without having to go out of your way. 

By Paul Sylvain

As he posted in his own words at the start of a weeklong moose hunt on Oct. 13, Stephen J. Smith is “Off the grid.”

Better known to most people simply as “Smitty,” the long-time, well-known, and often colorful owner of Smitty’s Trading Post and former Machias selectman, died unexpectedly on Oct. 19, shortly after returning from that northern Maine moose hunt. He was 70.

By Nancy Beal

Jonesport selectmen spent much of their Oct. 21 meeting discussing two parcels of land on which the town had been invited to make an offer. The first was the so-called “Dow property,” a large clapboarded structure on Main Street in front of the Jonesport Fire Department and adjacent easterly to Paul Farnsworth’s car repair business.

By Paul Sylvain

Most visitors traveling to Maine think of the seacoast in terms of Bar Harbor or the beaches in York and Cumberland counties. Many leave Maine not knowing that some of the most picturesque coastal towns and villages in places like Washington County make their living from the sea and not from tourism.