We’re pleased to announce that the 2026 Lamppost Sponsorship Campaign is now launched! We invite you to help us make Camden beautiful, and now is your chance to participate.

Most people know that flower baskets have been hung on our downtown lampposts for as long as anyone remembers, but do you know the whole story? Here’s what really happened: In 1925, Edward Bok, husband of Mary Louise Curtis Bok, returned to Camden from a trip to Europe. While he was there, he noticed flower baskets hanging from street lamps in many towns and was very impressed with the beauty they created at or above eye

I support Clint Collamore to represent the communities of House District 45. He listens. He is honest. He cares. He is present in the community and will be in Augusta as well.

Yes, there was a Clean Elections mix-up the last time he ran, but he didn’t personally benefit from that error. There was no negative intent, He took $5 donations at the lobster boat races and filled in the form with the donor info instead of them doing it themselves. Clint won that election so, clearly, his constituents understood what happened.  He made the decision to step down so as not to negatively impact others

Girl Scouts of Maine (GSME) is thrilled to introduce "Girl Scout Cookies Now!"—an innovative program designed to enhance the cookie-selling experience. This initiative allows Girl Scouts to sell cookies directly with inventory in hand, making sales immediate and satisfying for customers. Online sales will start on March 1st, followed by in-person and booth sales from March 15th to May 3rd, 2026. 

Adding to the excitement, the 2026 cookie lineup will debut the Exploremores™—a rocky road ice cream-inspired sandwich cookie brimming with chocolate, marshmallow, and toasted almond-flavored crème

A bright and very cold recent Saturday found the Scouts from BSA Troop 200 in full winter gear, hauling packed sleds across the snowy trails of Castine’s Witherle Woods Preserve. They had come to compete with more than a hundred and fifty other scouts from across the region in the 54th Klondike Derby, hosted by Maine Maritime Academy (MMA).

The Klondike Derby is a traditional scouting event dating back to 1949, modeled after the late 19th century Gold Rush to the Klondike River in Yukon Territory. Then, early gold prospectors used dog sleds to haul their food and gear through wintry

So far this school year has seen the Scouts from BSA Troop 200 outdoors in almost any weather: rafting the Kennebec River’s whitewater rapids, camping alongside the Penobscot Bay, exploring the nooks and crannies of Camp Hinds, serving as end note to the Christmas By the Sea Parade, helping build the Lincolnville Beach Bonfire, winter camping and ice fishing at Camp Roosevelt, and most recently racing gear-laden sleds through the snowy trails of Witherle Woods across from Maine Maritime Academy.

All the while Scouts were leading their fellow Scouts — youth leading each other and working

In the Clint Eastwood movie, “Pale Rider,” a group of independent gold prospectors live and pan for gold in a picturesque canyon rimmed with tall fir trees in northern California. The number of miners increases, and eventually some of the miners find gold, and this gets the attention of the wealthy owner of a large, industrial mining company operating upstream who uses his men to try to intimidate the prospectors to get them to give up their mining claims and leave.

Spoiler alert: Clint Eastwood’s dusty, leather-clad, tough, loner character shows up, beats up the bad guys, and dynamites

I’m sitting next to a flat field near Lake Arthur, Louisiana. Either they’re growing water or rice. There’s water everywhere, which is what you would expect of Louisiana, but there's always more.

I entered from the north, from Arkansas. In Arkansas and Louisiana I’ve seen more lumber mills than I expected. More than Maine. Miles of southern long needle pine and miles of board feet of lumber. As I moved south through the state the trees have changed and now I’m seeing more live oaks, pecans, and even cypress. And cane fields.

My GPS has been filtered to keep me off of freeways and it’s not

Waldo Community Action Partners is poised to continue as the premiere transportation provider in Maine’s MidCoast region despite a recent Maine Supreme Court decision that effectively awards the MDOT Region 5 Non-Emergency Medical Transportation Brokerage to an out-of-state based provider.

MidCoast Connector, a program of Waldo Community Action Partners, has been the trusted Non-Emergency Medical Transportation broker in MDOT Region 5 for more than a decade, providing a critical service for people who lack transportation to medical appointments throughout our rural region in Midcoast Maine. In

On February 5, 2026, Bartlett Woods Retirement Community was transformed into a scene straight out of the Roaring Twenties as residents donned feathers, pearls, fedoras, and bow ties to take part in a lively 1920s-themed murder mystery event.

The immersive evening invited residents to step into character, bringing to life a cast of colorful suspects and sleuths. From flapper dresses adorned with fringe and beads to sharp vests and bowler hats, the attention to detail reflected both creativity and enthusiasm. Each participant embraced a role, complete with character names, backstories, and

According to American Legion customs, when a comrade passes, the Post Everlasting ceremony is one of honor. The memory of the departed Legion member is enrolled for perpetuity and sustained by their pride in their service to the nation.

"Post Everlasting is the final resting place for members of the American Legion, where departed comrades are called for duty by the Supreme Commander," said Jeff Sukeforth, Legion District 6 Commander. "The ceremony remembers deceased post members and gratitude for their contribution and service to our country, community, and the post, and their transfer of

MaineHealth Pen Bay and Waldo Hospitals are making meaningful operational changes to reduce waste, lower greenhouse gas emissions and protect the environment in the communities they serve. In addition to eight energy conservation projects completed over the last 12 months, ranging from air handler efficiency upgrades to weatherization and building envelope improvements, the hospitals continue to expand sustainability efforts, including zero-sort recycling and composting, with plans underway for a community garden this spring.

A key focus area in recent years has been food waste reduction. In

There is a bookshelf in my kitchen, full to bursting with cookbooks. Old standards — Fanny Farmer, The Joy of Cooking, The Silver Palate, The Betty Crocker Cookie Book — alongside specific ethnic cuisines, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Indian. Several by Australian author Donna Hay (love her food photograghy!), books for cooking with small children, books inspired by the cuisine of fictional universes, a bunch of vintage books from the 60s and 70s, featuring such culinary delights as tuna encased in Jello, and oh so many canapés.

If you ever need a gift idea for me, a strange new cookbook is

It was winter of 1996. The David Cup and McIlroy Award birding competitions were in full swing in the Ithaca, New York, area where Cornell University and its famous Lab of Ornithology are located. We were in the midst of it all, along with our birders colleagues, scouring the landscape to find new species to add to our 1996 lists—the David Cup, within the confines of the Cayuga Lake Basin, and the McIlroy Award keeping to the boundaries of the City of Ithaca boundaries.

In that part of New York state, bohemian waxwings were quite rare and occurred very irregularly. We had been living in

Finding Our Voices survivors from four areas of Maine provided future doctors with training on how to save and soothe lives of domestic abuse victims at a presentation to second-year students at Tufts Medical School in Portland. 

The three-hour presentation to 40 obstetrics and gynecology students was given by domestic abuse survivors Laudan Ghayebi from Falmouth, Mary Lou Smith from Scarborough, Patrisha McLean and Mary Kamradt from Midcoast Maine, and Noel Richardson from Fryeburg.  

Ghayebi presented an original data-driven slideshow examining domestic abuse as a critical public health

Super Bowl Sunday, the great American secular holiday. A chance to gather with friends and family and watch what is typically a pretty mediocre football game. For many of us, the game isn’t really the point. It is about a shared experience, the commercials, complaining about the halftime show. For me, it is planning elaborate snacks that will cover as dinner. My wife and boys love the game, though, as they make their pleasure and/or displeasure known with extremely loud vocalizing which startles the dogs. And possibly the neighbors, half a mile through the woods.

The fact that the game

When I crossed the bridge from Memphis into Arkansas it was different. The rolling white fenced pastures of Tennessee gave way low lying flat fields of a river delta. The highest elevations were the levees keeping the river out of the fields. There were no more stately plantation houses, just sheet metal silos and a boat and a 4-wheeler in the yard. The fields were lined with irrigation ditches and the fallow rice fields were filled with snow geese getting fat for Christmas.

 I chose to hang close to the river and head north. While looking at the map I noticed that parts of Tennessee bumped

Birds fly south in the winter and north in the spring. That’s probably how most people in the U.S. would describe the phenomenon of bird migration.

And it’s broadly and generally true. A great mass of billions of individual birds make a migratory trek to be in northern landscapes when those places are warm and full of food and mirror that movement to escape back south when the weather turns cold and food is unavailable. 

Individual birds that stray from the north-south pattern are what stoke the fires of many a birder’s passion. Here in Maine this winter, birders have excitedly traveled to

It is a balmy 8 degrees as I sit down to write this. The first of February in Lincolnville, Maine, the ground blanketed with a nice thick cover of snow. It seems like there have been too many years recently when the lakes barely froze over, and I like seeing the snowmobile trails being used, people out on cross-country skis, and ice fishing shacks set up.

Many of us lifelong and/or yearlong Mainers can get a bit smug about being here in February. February is when it gets real. Christmas is a memory, spring is a far off dream. The cold hurts your face when you force yourself to go outside