The lobster processing business is vital to the Maine economy. Port Clyde's prominent business is fishing, including lobster. Local fishermen, however, have been shipping their catch to Canadian processing plants. Salt students Jessie Wright-Mendoza, Katrina Roi, Wolfgang Daniel, and Gillian Fish paid a visit to Port Clyde and interviewed two processors: Kyle Murdock and Linda Bean, the granddaughter of the famous L.L. Bean, are both are attempting to bring this important industry back to the local community.

Port Clyde has been sending fishermen to sea for generations, the products of their fathers' and grandfather's legacies. The community takes a great deal of pride in its fishing past, and its role sustaining and protecting the culture of fishing livelihoods in the Northeast. But with these traditional livelihoods come sacrifices for fishermen and their families.

On February 18, The New York Times ran a story about how Maine’s Own Organic Milk, a collective of 10 Maine dairy farms that formed in early 2010, is struggling to stay viable selling its slow-pasteurized, organic milk.

On a rainy Sunday in March, the heavy doors of Portland's New Church welcomed the boisterous sounds of shape note singing. The tradition originated in New England and is now experiencing a regional resurgence, having been sung mostly in the American South for the past century. Rachel James spent the afternoon speaking with folks at the New Church.

The Longfellow Chorus in Portland sponsors an annual festival that celebrates poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's birthday. On February 26, the festival kicked off with the inaugural "February Frostbite" road race. Sixty runners joined the event, possibly the shortest and coldest race in Maine. Ali Kuzmickas was at the starting line, asking runners and costumed Longfellow look-alikes why they were racing.

Salt students Nic Tanner and Pierce McCleary attended the Maine Restaurant Week kick-off event on Monday night at the Masonic Temple in Portland and brought back these amazing photos and sounds. Enjoy the party, and make sure you participate in Maine Restaurant week which is running now through March 12.

In Saco, along a stream that empties into a tidal marsh, there is a rectangular stand of woods. The woods are flanked by the following: to the west, the marsh; to the north, a golf course; to the east, a quiet highway and summer homes; and to the south, the Atlantic Ocean. Inside these woods, crammed in by humanity and the sea, spring has begun.

On a cold February night, Portland's newly re-opened State Theater screened the classic film Casablanca. About 600 people attended the screening, many of them dressed up in 1940s garb. When the movie was over, the Portland Jazz Orchestra played live 1940s music. Rachel James and Sharon Mashihi spent the evening at the theater, talking to some of the movie-goers.

Portland has transitioned from a gritty pub town to hub for the arts, but a new Maine Arts Commission study found that in Maine most people who visit art museums are tourists. Salt Student Andrea Muraskin hit the streets in Portland to ask locals what they think about the arts.

With snow falling in unlikely places like Seattle this past week, it's clear that winter is upon us. Salt student and radio producer Scott Ladley went to see what winter meant to Maine farmers. Stumbling upon Meadowcroft Farm in Washington, Maine he found the seasons to not just be about the temperature. "I find one of the hard things about winter, my ritual, my routines, just the things that need to get done every day," said farmer Nanne Kennedy.