Maine is a paragon of serene, pristine natural beauty, but has also been affected by pollution and other environmental harm. Lizzy Kaplan ’23 honors Maine’s environmental history—and celebrates 50 years of environmental studies at the College—in her exhibit “Woods, Water, and World: Environmental Studies at Bowdoin College.”
Though Bowdoin’s environmental studies department was founded in 1972, the College’s relationship with the environment dates much further back.
What was once another eyesore on Pleasant Street has recently been recycled into a new business that offers alternatives to plastic products, allowing Brunswick residents to skip the recycling bin altogether. Opened in November, GoGo Refill encourages a low-waste lifestyle by selling reusable, refillable or compostable products, all with the goal of replacing everyday plastic purchases that often end up in the landfill.
Every Sunday before sunrise, Jeremy Kratzer is hard at work putting bagels into a wood-fired pizza oven to prepare for a morning serving customers that travel from near and far.
Kratzer and his wife Marina started operating Dutchman’s, a bagel pop-up housed in Nomad Pizza’s cafe space, in November of 2022.
As December begins—and the sun sets at 4:03 p.m.—winter is here. Maine’s harsh winters can be difficult for both new and experienced residents. Compiled below are voices of the Bowdoin Community speaking on some of their favorite parts of the season.
The midterm elections on November 8 will decide the next governor of Maine, as well as who will assume the first congressional district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, the 23rd state senatorial district seat and 100th state house district seat, with many other races being uncontended.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, students hurry across the quad to class, passing by a comparatively less stressful scene—a group of community members practicing Tai Chi.
The classes are taught by Bowdoin alumnus Ken Ryan ’71. Ryan started these classes 20 years ago, and since then they have grown every year.
Nomad Pizza, a business that originated in New Jersey, officially opened its brick and mortar restaurant in the Fort Andross Mill earlier this month. For the past year, Nomad operated as a food truck, serving pizza, homemade pasta and salads in Belfast, Monmouth and Portland, among other cities and towns in Maine.
Students from Assistant Professor of Government Ángel Saavedra Cisneros’s Campaigns and Elections class hosted local representatives this week to discuss their positions in anticipation of the midterm elections.
On Monday, the class hosted Town Councilor Dan Ankeles.
The Butchers & Bakers, a gluten-free artisan bakery and butcher shop located in downtown Brunswick’s Tontine Mall, permanently closed its doors on Sunday. Since its grand opening earlier this year, the establishment has garnered praise for its friendly atmosphere, commitment to sustainability and entirely gluten-free product selection.
The employees of Little Dog by the MET who announced their intention to unionize last month have been continuing their work toward achieving a fair contract. To this end, the union will be holding an official election on October 29 to determine its ability to act as the employee’s collective bargaining representative.
When Kaitlin Weiss ’25 saw the leaked Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision last May, she was frustrated that there was seemingly nowhere for her to direct her passion for reproductive rights on campus.
In response to the leak, she, along with Luisa Wolcott-Breen ’25 and Cambron Wade ’24, revived the Bowdoin Reproductive Justice Coalition (BRJC).
For over twenty years, Finestkind Vinyl Haven has offered the Brunswick community a more immersive way to listen to music. Located off Maine Street, the store sells ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, classic rock, straight-ahead jazz, funk soul, world music and psych vinyl.
Editor’s Note October 14, 2022 at 10:05 a.m.: An earlier version of this article mischaracterized Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s blockage of the construction of new artificial turf fields in public parks in Boston as a ban.
When you think of a forest, maybe you think of an ecosystem. A hierarchy, a function, a mechanism of inputs and outputs driven by competition. Maybe a million tiny elements working asynchronously, maybe a huge, labyrinthine conglomeration of life bound by rain and sunlight and soft dirt.
The Ben Bernier Memorial Foundation will host the first Ben Bernier Memorial Run, Walk and Toss at Pineland Farms next Saturday, October 9, in honor of Ben Bernier, who passed away in 2019, shocking the Brunswick community.
MAIZ, a popular Colombian street food restaurant in Portland, recently opened a location on Pleasant Street in Brunswick. The space is the owners’ third culinary venture, the first of which was a food truck called La Fritanga which serves a similar set of dishes to both of their restaurants.
On Wednesday evening at the Curtis Memorial Library, the Midcoast Indigenous Awareness Group (MIAG) hosted a panel discussion entitled “Many Voices: Who Gets to Tell the Story?” The panelists discussed the often erased history of the Wabanaki people and how to acknowledge their continued role in the Brunswick community.
Update: Tuesday, September 27 at 3:37 PM:
According to a report from the Portland Press Herald, remains recovered by Maine Marine Patrol have been identified as missing person Theo Ferrara’s by Jean Skorapa, Regional School Unit 5 Superintendant.
Inside the Brunswick Business Center at 18 Pleasant Street, the Points of View Art Gallery can be found. Artwork by Maine-based artists adorn the walls between office spaces for community members, mimicking the interconnected nature of Brunswick itself.
June, July, August. They run together in my head: traversing mountaintops, skipping towards a yawning sunset, the electric shock to my system stepping into the snowmelt creek. Dry air and heavy head against my pillow.
For eleven weeks, I worked at a summer camp in the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in Colorado.
“Grampa and Gramma called the outdoors ‘a garden of natural healing,’” reads the Grampa’s Garden Website.
From the moment you open the door to Grampa’s Garden Sensory Adventure Spa on Maine Street, it’s clear this place is unique.
Five years ago, Steven Campbell and Marissa Stahl-Hodgkins met while working at the bakery of the Whole Foods Market in Portland. Today, they have a place of their own: The Butchers & Bakers, a specialty market on Maine Street.
Chef Ali Waks Adams likens Willie and Chet’s, her pop-up restaurant, to the spontaneous, ephemeral excitement of having a crush.
“A good dinner can take away some of the outside bad stuff,” Waks Adams said. “It’s temporary, it’s a panacea—but it’s a beautiful one.
Tucked away alongside a consignment shop, hotel and Vietnamese restaurant, Flip, Maine Street’s new brunch spot, is open for business.
“What does Brunswick need? What does Brunswick want? It was breakfast!” owner Mike Jerome said. “There was no place to sit down and get a Bloody Mary and breakfast without having to go across the bridge to Topsham.”
The brunch bar opened on Christmas Eve of last year, taking the spot of Benchwarmers, a long-standing sports bar and pub.
For most students, breaking out of the Bowdoin bubble may mean hiking with the Bowdoin Outing Club or taking a weekend trip to Portland with friends. For Andrew Kaleigh ’24, however, it means something different: a foray into state politics.
Each Friday since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, a group of Brunswick residents gather on the town green on Pleasant and Maine Streets, armed with signs calling for world peace. Initially conceived of as a protest to urge the United States government not to retaliate in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the group has continued to convene every Friday at 5:00 p.m.
The Maine Referendum Election will be held next Tuesday, November 2. There are three statewide questions on the ballot, as well as local elections for Town Council and School Board. Bowdoin Votes will be running shuttles to the polls—located at Brunswick Junior High School—every 15 minutes from 7 a.m.
Rudolph “Rudy” Horowitz is a 92-year-old Holocaust survivor, architect and grandfather. This past week, I met Rudy at his home in a retirement community called The Highlands, which is just a fifteen-minute bike ride away from campus.
Brunswick’s Pleasant Street has a magical new addition: Raven & Crow, a metaphysical supply shop and espresso bar. The business opened its doors on August 23 and, almost two months later, has firmly established itself as a community center for pagan religious groups and magical practitioners.
For 89 years, the Frank J. Wood Bridge has traversed the Androscoggin River at the northern end of Maine Street in the Town of Brunswick. For the past five years, the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) has pushed for a plan to tear it down.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has limited Bowdoin students’ ability to form and foster connections in the Town of Brunswick, Saul Cuevas-Landeros ’23 is still determined to create opportunities for students to engage with the community.
This year, Cuevas-Landeros is co-leading Bowdoin Central Mentoring, a Joseph McKeen Center for the Common Good program dedicated to mentoring students in the Brunswick area.
Tucked away from the hustle and bustle of downtown on 15 Cushing Street, the Brunswick location of OTTO Pizza opened its doors September 7.
OTTO already has 17 locations in total, seven of which are in the greater Portland area, where the pizzeria was established in 2009 by New England entrepreneurs Anthony Allen and Mike Keon.
The Brunswick Hotel and Tavern has housed 47 first-year students this semester as part of Bowdoin’s plan to secure single rooms for all students needing on-campus housing this spring.
The students entered the semester with varying levels of connection to their neighbors: some had met over winter break, and some were core group mates from the fall.
The Lemont Block, a four-story historic brick building on the corner of Maine Street and Pleasant Street that has been an iconic part of the Brunswick skyline for over 150 years, is about to have a new chapter added to its storied history.
This spring, Oratorio Chorale—a midcoast Maine-based choral community—will continue holding music workshops in an entirely virtual format. While the Chorale traditionally holds these workshops in person, Artistic Director Emily Isaacson still sees the value in providing community members with opportunities to further or begin their education in music.
During the College’s two-day break, many Bowdoin students living on campus found a moment of refreshment while enjoying free smoothie bowls sponsored by the Bowdoin Student Government (BSG). More than 1,000 students picked up a bowl from the newly-opened Bay Bowls on March 21 and 22, and the store’s owners are excited to continue serving the Brunswick community.
On November 25, Wild Oats Bakery and Cafe closed its doors at the Tontine Mall for the last time. One week later on December 4, the popular eatery reopened to the public at its new location in Brunswick Landing, next to the Brunswick Executive Airport.
What is art worth without people to experience it? In what has been close to a 12-month period where Brunswick-based art galleries and local independent artists have been forced to curtail and restructure their operations, those in the industry have grappled with just that question—and found creative solutions to operate their businesses and safely bring their work to the world, even during the pandemic.
For James Giltner ’23, what started out as a search for how to fill his semester away from Bowdoin turned into a groundbreaking learning experience—one that culminated in a historic rocket launch.
Last fall, Giltner worked full-time at bluShift, a Brunswick-based company that launched a rocket from the Loring Commerce Center in Limestone, Maine, on January 31.
As businesses on Maine Street round off a fall unlike any other, many of them must quickly shift gears to plan for the upcoming winter—a season which will bring cold weather, holiday shoppers and the return of many Bowdoin students to Brunswick.
Among honks and cheers temporarily heard on Maine Street, Brooke Vahos ’21, who is living off campus, stood at the edge of the Brunswick Mall with a “Honk for Biden” sign in celebration of President-elect Joseph R.
Five days before what is likely to be the most contentious national election in recent history and as more than 345,000 Mainers have already cast their ballots, Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives and Democratic candidate for U.S.
Ranked-Choice Voting Explained: Maine voters will use ranked-choice voting for the Presidential, U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives elections.
Maine absentee ballots must be returned to your municipal clerk by 8 p.m. on Election Day, November 3.
Last Friday, local candidates for the Maine State Senate, Maine State House and Brunswick Town Council congregated on a Zoom screen to share their campaign platforms and address questions posed by Bowdoin students. The forum, sponsored by Bowdoin Votes, Bowdoin Democrats, Bowdoin Republicans and the Government and Legal Studies Department, was moderated by McKeen Center Associate Director for Service and Leadership Andrew Lardie and Bowdoin Votes fellow Wilder Short ’22.
Following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last Friday, the Bowdoin community is mourning her passing this week. A virtual celebration of her life as an icon and trailblazer for gender equality under the law, hosted by the Sexuality, Women and Gender Center (SWAG) and the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies (GSWS) Department, will take place tonight at 7:30 p.m.
The College is offering weekly COVID-19 testing to all students living off campus in Brunswick for the fall 2020 semester. The plan was announced in an August 26 email from Student Health Insurance Coordinator Cathy Hayes.
Most college students are fast asleep at 5 a.m. on a Saturday. However, on most weekends during his first year, Jasper Gordon ’21 would be in the Burnett House kitchen baking a fresh batch of bagels for friends.
Walking down Maine Street today is a different experience than many Bowdoin students may remember. Brunswick’s wide sidewalks now hold expanded outdoor dining alongside space for masked pedestrians to walk, but there is also another notable difference—there are few students grabbing gelato or biking to their favorite dinner spot.
President Clayton Rose went before the Brunswick Town Council via Zoom on Tuesday to express concern about racism in the Brunswick area, sharing news of two separate racist incidents that occurred in Brunswick during the last month.
When the initial surge of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in the United States led to the shutdown of public spaces nationwide, one of the first things that Brunswick-based singer/songwriter Pete Kilpatrick did was purchase recording equipment with hopes to continue making music.
Though the College has yet to announce an official decision about housing on campus over the summer as of Thursday, many students who planned to live and work on or near campus are expecting strict limits on the number of students Bowdoin will house.
On March 23, the staff of Wild Oats Bakery and Cafe had been preparing baked goods and soups since 4:30 a.m. when owner Becky Shepherd received a text saying that a shelter-in-place order had been announced for the Town of Brunswick.
Last week, Dog Bar Jim, a Brunswick coffee shop, received a donation from Bowdoin parents who wish to remain anonymous. According to owner Benjamin Gatchell, the benefactors donated $500 to provide coffee for first responders and medical workers at Mid Coast Hospital as well as for local police officers.
Heavy winds and snow knocked power out on the south campus loop on April 9. The power went out at around 10:30 p.m. that evening and was restored by 8:30 a.m. the following day.
Manager of Corporate Communications for Central Maine Power Catharine Hartnett said in a phone interview with the Orient that about 260,000 customers across the state lost power.
Four Bowdoin students will spend the duration of the spring semester living in the Brunswick Inn following the College’s transition to remote learning.
Eileen Hornor, the owner of the Brunswick Inn, is letting students stay at a cost similar to the amount students were refunded for room and board.
The Town of Brunswick declared a civil state of emergency Monday night in response to the growing coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, ordering all businesses to close except those included in the 29 types of sanctioned “essential businesses.” The order is in effect for seven days, after which it is expected to be renewed.
An equipment failure near the Androscoggin hydroelectric plant caused a power outage that left roughly 2,500 customers in Brunswick and parts of Bowdoin’s north campus in the dark last Saturday morning.
The outage occurred when a heedless squirrel damaged circuit equipment near Sea Dog Brewing in Topsham, according to Manager of Corporate Communications for Central Maine Power (CMP) Catharine Hartnett.
An eight-hour standoff Monday morning between Brunswick police and an armed man ended with the suspect surrendering after officers deployed tear gas to force him out of his residence, according to police.
Nick Christensen, 39, was arrested and charged with felony weapons possession, domestic violence assault, obstruction and creating a police standoff after the impasse ended around 8:20 a.m..
Two men have been jailed in connection with a string of burglaries last week that targeted four businesses and two churches in Brunswick, police say.
Jonathan West, 25, and Jarrod Sennstrom, 18, who live together at 71 Hennessy Avenue, were arrested on Thursday and charged with theft and burglary.
A Brunswick man was found dead in his sleeping bag by the train tracks on Federal Street on November 23. Russell Williams, 64, was reported missing on November 5.
The death is not considered suspicious, according to Brunswick Police Department (BPD) Commander Mark Waltz, though the official cause of death is not yet available.
“I’m excited for it … I’m free!” said Dan Bouthot, owner of Uncle Tom’s Market, as a sizeable grin emerged from underneath his unruly white beard. After 62 years and seven months, the market, located on the corner of Pleasant Street and Westminster Avenue, has closed its doors.
In the lead up to today’s climate rally, Bowdoin Climate Action (BCA) co-leaders Perrin Milliken ’22 and Leif Maynard ’23 stressed the importance of acknowledging the urgency of the climate crisis at Monday night’s Brunswick Town Council meeting.
The Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority (NNERPA) is currently exploring three projects to expand access to trains in midcoast and southern Maine. An open house at the Brunswick Hotel on Monday evening aimed to gauge community interest in the proposals.
In her 50 years living on Belmont Street, Bobbi Tucker has never had an issue with Bowdoin students. But this fall, when more students began parking on her street, it became difficult to back out of her driveway and she had to swerve more frequently around parked cars so as to avoid hitting pedestrians and bicyclists.
After waiting for three hours, seven members of Bowdoin Climate Action (BCA) spoke at the Brunswick Town Council meeting on Monday night. They urged the council to declare a climate emergency.
“We were here to start the conversation,” Perrin Milliken ’22, a leader of BCA, said during the meeting.
One man is dead following a shooting in a Federal Street apartment on Monday night. Another man was shot and injured at the scene.
The first man, Ali Fisher of Lisbon, broke into the apartment carrying a handgun, according to a release from the Maine State Police, and entered into an altercation with an occupant of the apartment, a 22-year-old woman.
Before the age of Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu, before tens of thousands of movies were available for our viewing pleasure at the tapping of a couple of keys and even before the first Blockbuster opened its doors, the Eveningstar Cinema shone brightly in the Tontine Mall of Maine Street, delivering small-studio indie movies to Brunswick’s most discerning fans.
REFERENDUM QUESTIONS
This year, the Maine ballot features one bond issue and one constitutional amendment. Following passage by a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate of the state legislature, bond issues and constitutional amendments in Maine must be approved by voters in order to take effect.
Four Bowdoin students received citations early Sunday morning at an off-campus residence for providing a space for minors to consume alcohol. Two of the students are members of the football team, and the other two are former players.
In mid-September, as Esther Fernandez Rosario ’23 waited for her train in the Brunswick transportation center, she double checked that she hadn’t forgotten anything in her dorm room. She had her toothbrush, her school work, a birthday card for her mom—she was prepared for a weekend back home in Boston.
Eight Bowdoin students were cited early Sunday morning for furnishing alcohol to minors at a party at the students’ off-campus residence. The party was held at 49 Pleasant Street, known by Bowdoin students as “Red Brick House.” All eight residents of the house are members of the men’s Ultimate Frisbee team.
After traveling between the same four buildings across one main quad for the first two weeks of school, it’s easy to forget that there’s a town beyond Bowdoin. Brunswick is home to over 20,000 residents who live, work and, sometimes, make art here.
Since five students were issued court summonses at a Helmreich House party by Brunswick Police Department (BPD) last April, Bowdoin students expressed concerns about hosting parties.
Concern grew into confusion after College House students met with BPD and Bowdoin Security officers during College House orientation.
Over the summer, just three miles from campus, nearly 60 asylum seekers were welcomed to the Brunswick community. The group is just a fraction of the 450 asylees who have journeyed from sub-Saharan Africa to Maine since June.
While seniors on campus update their LinkedIn profiles and rush to the Career Exploration and Development office, Jean Claude Kagame has crossed borders and oceans in search of work. He moved from Kigali, Rwanda to Brunswick, Maine in late June.
Brunswick has been home to a local cinema since 1908. The name and location of this theater have changed over the past century, but today, Eveningstar Cinema on Maine Street carries on the tradition as Brunswick’s go-to specialty box office.
This past Saturday, customers of all ages buzzed in and out of the trademark Brunswick store, Gulf of Maine Books, at its 40th anniversary celebration and sale. The Maine Street store has drawn readers and writers to Brunswick, from local high schoolers to best selling authors.
The Grand Orange Arts Center might be just the place for students looking for a way to explore their artistic sides off campus. Leslie Beattie opened the new studio space in the vacant apartment above her art supply store, The Mix, on Maine Street this summer.
Behind Hannaford, a five-minute walk from Bowdoin’s campus, sits the primary facility for Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program (MCHPP). The nonprofit, which handles over a million pounds of food each year, combats food insecurity—a perpetual and growing issue that affects over 200,000 Maine residents each year.
Four students have received court summons in the past two weeks for charges of jaywalking and possession of liquor by a minor. One of those summons resulted after the Brunswick Police Department (BPD) showed up at the annual Cold War party at MacMillan and Quinby Houses last weekend, while the remaining three were issued the previous weekend.
This month, poet and co-owner of Gulf of Maine Books Gary Lawless will once again don his Henry Wadsworth Longfellow costume and roam the town reciting poetry to passersby.
This tradition is just one aspect of Longfellow Days, a series of events now in its 14th year, which spans Longfellow’s birth month and involves members of both the Brunswick and Bowdoin communities.
Two op-eds by Brunswick residents published this month in local newspapers expressed that the College should make a greater financial contribution to the town.
In a letter to the editor published on November 14 in the Coastal Journal, Brunswick resident Jean Powers called for the town to request a greater gift-in-kind from the College.
At a town meeting on the evening of Monday, November 20, Brunswick residents commented on Bowdoin’s proposed plan to discontinue Pine Street in order to build a new athletic facility. If accepted, this plan would mean discontinuing the portion of Pine Street that runs between Bowker Street and Bath Road, adding a perpendicular extension between Pine Street and Bath Road through what is currently a wooded area.
At a hearing this coming Monday, the Brunswick Town Council will discuss a proposal introduced by the College to relocate the section of Pine Street that runs adjacent to Whittier Field and the Pine Grove Cemetery.
On Monday, the Brunswick Town Council voted 8-1 in favor of adopting “A Resolution to Acknowledge Maine’s Indigenous Cultures.” In the Town of Brunswick, the second Monday of October will be recognized as both Columbus Day and, as of result of the vote, Indigenous People’s Day.
The Town of Brunswick recently concluded a three-and-a-half year project to renovate the town’s zoning ordinance to reflect changes in local policy over the past 22 years. The ordinance focused on reducing the number of total districts, catching up with Maine laws regarding signage and shorelands and rectifying the issues brought about by the 21-year-old ordinance’s failure to account for technological advances.
On August 24, the Metro BREEZ bus began regular commuter service between Brunswick and Portland. With $3 one-way tickets and a stop on Bath Road next to Pickard Theater, Bowdoin faculty and staff are already taking advantage of the new extended service.
A fire at a Hannaford warehouse in South Portland left a number of the supermarket chain’s Maine locations—including the store in Brunswick—short on refrigerated products this past weekend.
The Portland Press Herald reported on April 27 that the fire started in a truck’s refrigerator pump and then spread to the warehouse.
After town residents experienced persistent rashes and respiratory issues last summer, both the Brunswick Town Council and the College are seeking to mitigate the effects of browntail moths in the coming months. The moths inhabit the branches of oak trees across Midcoast Maine.
At its meeting on Monday, the Brunswick Town Council passed an amendment (8-1) to the town’s disorderly property ordinance that intends to crack down on repeat offenders of the ordinance. The amendment extends the “reset period” for disorderly homes from 60 to 270 days.
This weekend, the Brunswick-Trinidad Sister Association is hosting its 14th annual Cuba Week to recognize the connection between Brunswick and Trinidad, Cuba. Events focus on bringing the Cuban culture, food and history to the town of Brunswick.
The Brunswick Town Council voted 8-1 on Monday, March 20, to ban Brunswick retailers from providing single-use plastic bags. The ordinance will go into effect September 1. Most representatives supported the ban to limit the impact of single-use plastic bags on the environment.
The Metro BREEZ bus will extend its service to Brunswick this fall after receiving approval from the Brunswick Town Council for a two-year pilot program on March 8. Bowdoin has pledged to contribute $10,000 to the service for each of the next two years, approximately 20 percent of the program’s cost.
The College has acquired the funding necessary to renovate the Magee-Samuelson Track and Whittier Field facility after receiving a large donation over Spring Break that pushed the first phase of the project to meet its $4.5 million budget.
