The good news: I see people being vulnerable and relying on others out of necessity. When you are faced with a complex problem or a series of related problems, it requires thinking from across many domains of expertise. Within days of acknowledging the local impacts of the pandemic, towns began meeting in new ways that cut across all services. School leaders, healthcare officials, town managers, and transportation providers are meeting weekly to trouble shoot new challenges.

Consider the extremes of how islands are portrayed in literature, film, and on TV. The island setting often is used to show how the very best of community values can thrive, or how the very worst of human nature can fester.

Island and coastal communities, and the people who care about them near and far, must pull together right now.

The Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association has won a $5,000 grant to promote mental health awareness in the commercial fishing industry.

People may capture their truth in abstract or realist watercolors…

The tiny northeastern seacoast island of Nantucket, 43 square miles, and the giant, “Upper 49th” state of Alaska, 663,237 square miles, are about as dissimilar as could be.

The community’s leaders, who work collaboratively in the face of these challenges, were honored with the Island Institute’s Community Champion award at the Institute’s Waypoints Forum in Portland on Feb. 7.

“We’re it. There’s no mutual aid. There’s no other truck from another town that’s going to show up…”

The Isle au Haut Community Development Corporation recently closed on the purchase of a three-bedroom home, making it the fourth home in ICDC's rental stock.