Jesse Ellison

3 weeks ago | midcoastvillager.com | Jesse Ellison

It’s easy to overlook one of the most singular dishes currently being served at Sammy’s Deluxe in Rockland. “Lightly cured alewife,” the menu reads, “with cucumber, onion and dill. The seasonal delicacy of delicacies.” It’s a $13 dish, and it comes in a small portion on a small plate, meant to be shared. Served in bite-sized pieces, so delicately treated and with such simple accompaniments, it begs to be savored like a fine piece of sashimi: just placed in one’s mouth, where it melts.

1 month ago | midcoastvillager.com | Jesse Ellison

Getting to work at the Dark Harbor Boat Yard on 700 Acre Island is not your average commute. Dotted with vacation estates and just the one year-round business, 700 Acre sits slightly closer to Lincolnville than Islesboro, but it isn’t serviced by the state ferries. So every morning General Manager Curt Speed and his employees gather on the dock in Lincolnville to board Bellwether, the 38-foot power boat that takes them across the channel.

1 month ago | midcoastvillager.com | Jesse Ellison

Getting to work at the Dark Harbor Boat Yard on 700 Acre Island is not your average commute. Dotted with vacation estates and just the one year-round business, 700 Acre sits slightly closer to Lincolnville than Islesboro, but it isn’t serviced by the state ferries. So every morning General Manager Curt Speed and his employees gather on the dock in Lincolnville to board Bellwether, the 38-foot power boat that takes them across the channel.

1 month ago | downeast.com | Jesse Ellison

Lynn Karlin seems to hardly ever sit down. On a late-fall afternoon in the whitewashed photography studio behind her Belfast home, she was up and down, making coffee and tea, offering crackers and cookies. She moved in and out of a prop room and the large sun-drenched space where she shoots still lifes. She darted between a table where she’d recently staged a portrait of pastel-colored pumpkins and striped squashes atop peeling wooden pedestals and the computer where she edits images.

Mar 7, 2025 | 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.