Jesse Ellison

1 month ago | downeast.com | Jesse Ellison

On a bright, blustery afternoonlast spring, six women rowers gathered next to a shingled equipment shed on Belfast Harbor and began putting on sweatbands and slim, inflatable life jackets. They talked and laughed with the easy, jocular cadence of a group that had been practicing together three times a week for the past 10 months. But once the members had lowered themselves into their creaky wooden craft, known as a Cornish pilot gig, all conversation ceased.

Nov 26, 2024 | midcoastvillager.com | Jesse Ellison

As a kid growing up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, the absolute highlight of every month for Craig Olson was when the bookmobile came to town. Most of the time, his reading options were limited to the handful of books his family had in the house, or the local library, which was so small it shared space with the fire department. When the bookmobile came, the whole world opened up.

Oct 17, 2024 | downeast.com | Jesse Ellison

To understand why Justin and Samantha Juray felt they had no choice other than the hardest choice, it’s important to understand that their business, Just-In-Time Recreation, in Lewiston, is more than a bowling alley. “A family within a family” is how Samantha described it one recent afternoon, during a rare moment when she was able to take a break from her endless to-do list to sit down and talk.

May 22, 2024 | downeast.com | Jesse Ellison

It was the middle of October and Cobbosseecontee Lake was perfectly still, a mirror reflecting a sky thick with billowing clouds. Em Russell was standing on the stern of a little motorboat, wearing three wetsuits, one layered atop another, his face creased from the press of his scuba mask. He scanned the water, searching for a tiny sprig of green he thought he had glimpsed, a fragment of invasive Eurasian watermilfoil.

Apr 18, 2024 | downeast.com | Jesse Ellison

Spending even a brief time with Amy Manning on her three-acre property in Nobleboro, just off Route 1, will produce the impression that she is lousy at sitting still. Manning, by her own admission, constantly bounces from project to project, and she has, over the last several years, almost single-handedly transformed the rocky, sloping, scrubby backyard of the home where she lives with her husband and daughter into something that looks straight out of a fairytale.