Rising Tides - Adapting to Coastal Maine's Future
Rising Tides: Adapting to Coastal Maine’s Future captures the voices of people living and working along Maine’s changing coast. Through long-form conversations with oyster farmers and other aquaculturalists, fishermen, scientists, and community leaders, the series explores how environmental, economic, and cultural forces are reshaping the working waterfront.
Maine’s coast sits on the frontlines of global change. Warming waters, shifting fisheries, new industries, and increasing pressure on access and infrastructure are transforming ways of life that have endured for generations. Rather than focusing on headlines or ideology, Rising Tides listens closely to lived experience – how people are adapting, what is being lost, and what might still be preserved.
These are local stories with global relevance, told thoughtfully and without haste, offering insight into the challenges and possibilities facing coastal communities in Maine and beyond.
Rising Tides - Adapting to Coastal Maine's Future
Maine Oyster Aquaculture: Upstream Trucking - with George Parr
George Parr has been in the seafood business for four decades. He has been instrumental in creating the reputation of Maine oysters. George takes a firm stand when buyers “From Away” come to Maine and try to drive down oyster prices rather than pay a fair price for what many consider to be among the world’s best oysters. His sense of fairness has benefited not just his clients but all of Maine’s oyster growers. George came to Maine from New York City He is candid, funny, and direct. To say George is an interesting character would be an understatement.
I quickly realized He has encyclopedic knowledge that he easily draws from. George has probably forgotten more than many people know about the business.
He, like his partner Dana Street, has been a significant influence in creating Portland’s well-deserved reputation as one of the best food towns in the U.S. Dana Street has a prestigious portfolio of some of Portland’s best restaurants, Street and Company; Fore Street, with Sam Hayward; Standard Bakery, with Alison Pray, and the Scales Restaurant, on the Maine Wharf next to Upstream Trucking. Upstream Trucking is a seafood-wholesaling business that George runs and That’s where I met George.
Perna Content's Rising Tides explores how coastal Maine is adapting to environmental, economic, and cultural change through long-form conversations with people working on and alongside the water. New episodes are released fortnightly.
The podcast accompanies the book Rising Tides: Adapting to Maine’s Coastal Future, available at www.pernacontent.com/publishing