Features
Troubled Waters
Poland Spring’s expansion plans have driven a wedge through western Maine.
- By: Virginia Wright
Grand Lake Dream
A million acres along the New Brunswick border have been protected for posterity. So how come no one noticed?
- By: Wayne Curtis
- Photography by: Benjamin Magro
The Wild West End
Life goes on, but my old Portland neighborhood defies progress.
- By: Elizabeth Peavey
Madame Chief Justice
Leigh Saufley thought she was going to law school to learn how to change the world. Instead, she is changing the world of law.
- By: Jeff Clark
- Photography by: David A. Rodgers
A Legacy of Lilacs
One whiff of these living antiques is all it takes to recapture the past.
- By: Rebecca Sawyer-Fay
- Photography by: Lynn Karlin
The Ten-Mile Extension Cord
Maintaining a traditional way of life on Vinalhaven requires a modern connection to the mainland.
- By: Joshua F. Moore
- Photography by: Kip Brundage
A Path of Fish
The alewife runs in Patten Stream are a shadow of what they once were, but they still have the power to awe.
- By: Susan Hand Shetterly
Departments
Where in Maine?
If history had taken just a slightly different course, school kids might have been learning Dutch in this pretty coastal town — or more likely French. This small burg, built on a peninsula shaped like an ax, was at the center of the century-long war between the French and English over control of…
North by East
Opinions, advisories, and musings from the length and breadth of Maine
Bath’s New Urban Pioneers
Will the City of Ships become the City of Condos?
- By: Jeff Clark
Editor’s Note
When I took over as editor in chief of Down East last summer, I inherited things expected and unexpected. Having worked at the magazine for six years, I knew I’d be moving into a spacious and sunlit third-floor office. What I didn’t anticipate was finding a grass hula skirt and coconut bra left behind…
- By: Paul Doiron
Getting Outside in May
Mainers can enjoy the return of fair weather in any number of ways.
Rethinking the Civic Center
Portland Press Herald It simply would be nice to fix the place up a bit. Portland Mayor James Cohen and members of the Cumberland County Civic Center board of trustees both make valid points about the facility’s renovation.Cohen sees an aging and outdated building and thinks the city should get involved…
A Soldier’s Son
That spring we all lived in the shadow of a distant, but approaching, conflict.
- By: John E. Hodgkins
Inside Maine
Hot Tip: Brown Bagging It – There’s nothing worse than arriving at your summer rental after a long journey only to have to turn right around and head to the grocery store to stock up on provisions for your stay. (Okay, so maybe it’d be worse not to come to Maine at all.) That’s where Blueberry Acres (207-594-9797)…
- By: Paul Doiron
Ironclad Defense
During the Spanish-American War the U.S. Navy did indeed remember Maine.