Recent Posts

An Island Point of View, Nantucket Essays, Nantucket Voices

You’ll Need a Bookcase

I can’t buy a decent bookcase. If I want, I can get one on Wayfair or from Ikea that looks like a bookcase, but the shelves won’t hold anything heavier than a take out meal. I can find one created by a craftsman made of walnut and sturdy enough to hold the Harvard Library in leatherbond, but the bill is roughly what you would pay for a used Toyota. And it won’t buy the groceries.

lone star tick
Island Science

Ticks on the Hunt

I first encountered Lone Star ticks on Tuckernuck Island in 2015. I had one adult female hitchhike back to Nantucket on me, and I reported it to Tick Report. At the time, it was only the second report from Nantucket, with many more known from Tuckernuck Island. Of course, birds fly easily from one island to another, and deer swim. It was just a matter of time before Nantucket and all of its available habitat became the next place for Lone Star ticks to populate.

The Brotherhood of Thieves: Steak Frites
Featured Restaurants

Island Favorites & New Plates to Savor

We can think of no better place on Nantucket to gather with friends and family for lunch or dinner, a cold brew or a classy cocktail than The Brotherhood of Thieves.

Enter through the main entrance on Broad Street and step back in time to an 1840s Whaling Bar & Tavern, with brick walls, lanterns, fireplace, and beamed ceilings that harken back to when Nantucket Town was less refined.

Greg Hill with paintings
Nantucket Arts, Nantucket History & People

Looking Back

It was Nantucket whaling ships that brought artist G.S. Hill and his life and business partner Judi to our island nearly half a century ago. And this season, in his studio gallery on Straight Wharf, Greg is showing a special retrospective exhibit of these early works. G.S. Hill’s paintings brought […]

Nantucket Essays, Nantucket History & People

Spreading the Fishing Bug

Not every type of fishing involves rods and reels. Nantucket has an abundance of quahogs, hard shell clams that live in the shallow sandy areas around the island. When I was in my early teens, it seems that once or twice each summer I’d end up on a trip with Oscar Bunting, a commercial fisherman, to go with him and scratch up those tasty morsels. Oscar looked like he was from central casting’s selection for “The Old Man and the Sea.” He was a very strong guy with forearms that rivaled Popeye’s, a real-life Cap’n Quint. Oscar had a steely look in his eyes that told you he was a serious man but he softened that look with a frequent and wonderful deep laugh. I loved those quahog digging trips with him!

Island Science

Summer Magic

Ladybug season is upon us! As May rolls into June, we are at peak observation time for our myriad of ladybug species—when the larvae change into the adult stage we know and love. And even though it’s not unusual to see a ladybug around the island, it’s still a bit of summer magic to spot one.

An Island Point of View, Nantucket Events

From the Stage

To know the future, know the graduates.

Nantucket High School, for most of its recent past, puts its graduates on stage for the family and for friends. They sit there, arrayed in the ceremonial cap and gown, and present themselves to the town. Neither the superintendent, nor the faculty, nor the school committee present them to the public wrapped in blue and white. Instead, they present themselves. “Here we are,” they say, “for better or for worse, we are the best this community could do. You have committed the future to us.”

Plein Air Nantucket
Nantucket Arts, Nantucket Events

Painting across the Isle

Don’t be surprised on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 11 and 12, if you see many artists painting, sketching, and drawing downtown, along the docks, and at Nantucket beaches. It’s the start of the 13th annual Plein Air Nantucket. Artists on Nantucket look forward to participating in this popular festival organized […]

Theatre Workshop of Nantucket Cast of Sense & Sensibility on cobblestone street
Nantucket Arts, Nantucket Events

TWN Opens Its 68th Season

Theatre Workshop of Nantucket opens their 68th season with a playful new adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved novel, Sense & Sensibility. The tale the fortunes (and misfortunes) of the Dashwood sisters after their father’s sudden death leaves them financially destitute and socially vulnerable. Set in gossipy late 18thcentury England, with […]