Casco Bay, the working waterfront, the people, the shopping, the art. We took a day and fanned out across downtown Portland to find stories to tell.
These are those stories.
Casco Bay: The Waterfont
By Nevaeh Mason
My group and I traveled to Portland, Maine, to explore our chosen theme, Life on the Waterfront. Using our very little knowledge about the city and its life, we started our adventure along its cold waters. We started by working near the ferry terminals, which then sparked our interest in nothing other than the water taxis. We learned about how these water taxis transport people all along the water, to and from the islands, using their small and large boats.
The Fogg’s water taxi company has 7 boats, which are all built by the company, Foggs Boat Works. All of the boats are all-aluminum vessels. Some of their boats include their Joseph F Kennedy historical boat, which is also a utility boat and holds 49 passengers. After we concluded the interview, we learned that Elaina usually doesn't do the interviews about the business, but to be honest, you could never tell. Elaina told us all that we needed to know about the business and gave us some insight into the water taxi industry.
Once we were all done exploring the travel side of the waterfront, we decided to explore the business side of things. Although we could not get an interview, we found a very cool place called Seabags, which is a store that repurposes sailcloth to reduce landfill waste and promote a more sustainable future, delighting customers with a durable product made in the USA. We also visited an antique store, which sold very old parts of boats, antique signs, and even submarine diving equipment! This trip was nothing short of wonderful, as we learned about the waterfront in many ways.
Photo by Kaitlin Methany
Story by Kaylynn Humphrey, Nevaeh Mason, Joseph Dow, and Jaxson Cotnoir
Portland Stories
What brings ME to Portland?
By Lillian Gordon
My team was given the opportunity to to travel to Portland for the day in order to investigate our theme of People in Portland. While roaming the streets of Maine's biggest city, we met people from North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. With one question in mind; what brings you to Portland? We learnt about the lives of strangers that on an average day we wouldn’t even spare a second glimpse for.
With this being our first experience interviewing, we were excited, yet nervous. We faced rejection, technical difficulties. But at the same time, we experienced acceptance, and we learnt along the way. For my team, the most challenging part of this assignment was working up the courage to talk to strangers.
Our first interview, with Debbie Sherman, we were debating at first if we should even interview her. We hesitated before asking her, and as it turns out she gave us the most interesting story of the day. After a successful first interview, we attempted to interview another street vendor in the area, who quickly turned us away. However we didn't let this falter our determination, and we managed to get another three interviews by the end of the day.
Around the time of our last interview, we noticed our camera settings were not where they should have been. Specifically, our shutter speed was extremely low, making our videos appear choppy. Thankfully, we caught this before filming the interview. Unfortunately, we lost some of our B-roll footage due to this. Overall, my team had a successful and productive time in Portland.
Package by Lillian Gordon, Veronica Hoffman, and Logan Reid.
Working on the Waterfront
When we first arrived in Portland there was a lot to cover that we had written down. We had four to six places we definitely wanted to check out to see what we could get from them.
After getting settled in and chatting with each other on what to do first, since we only had 2 hours, we decided to go to the first place, we didn't even have it written down. But it looked fun and the people looked very friendly.
The company name is ‘Bangs Island Mussels.’ As soon as we walked down the alleyway, they immediately noticed us, and as we walked around with the cameras in the bag and a big tripod, we were hard to miss.
Vanessa, who was doing photography and the interview questions, peeked her head in. They immediately welcomed us and started making jokes with us. We asked if we could go in and maybe take pictures and videos of their shop and the fish they had out along with the mussels. Once they said okay we all went in, and one of the first things they asked was “wanna see our pet seal?” We said yes and we went out back to go see. What we saw shocked us, there was the head of a seal popping out of the water waiting. They threw the seal some food and the seal almost immediately swam closer to us to grab it.
Once we talked a bit and such, we walked outside where we asked the woman there, Annie Simpson, if we could interview her. She agreed. After the interview we got a tour. She had told us before the interview, that she had just been interviewed by National Geographic.
When we said our goodbyes and thank you's she explained if we kept walking down the alley we could get an amazing view of the water and boats!
Once we got some b-roll of the ocean and of some other things like people walking, seagulls, fish, water and such we had about 30 minutes left. We ended up going to a restaurant called Boone's Fish House & Oyster Room. We asked if maybe they had a dish to fit our theme of working on the waterfront. Once the manager talked to the chefs and such they came out with this beautiful oyster dish. We then took photos and videos and such, after this they said we could eat it. After talking to them we left and started heading back to our team.
We got on the bus and said our goodbyes to Portland.
Story package by Kayleigh Ouellet, Rhy Kennedy, Vanessa Sparrow and Noah Drouin-Bryant
Shopping the Old Port
