In Downeast Maine, an innovative attempt to save U.S. Atlantic salmon

Buffeted by dams, loss of habitat, commercial fishing off Greenland, and climate change, U.S. runs of Atlantic salmon are threatened with extinction and their numbers have been trending in the wrong direction.

In this week's Maine Sunday Telegram I write about an innovative, Icelandic-funded project in eastern Maine that hopes to turn the tide. Here's a taste:

The approach, which turned a blighted river on the Scotland-England border into one of the greatest salmon angling locations in the British Isles, focuses on growing fitter fish. Pioneered over four decades by the late Peter Gray, the Scottish manager of a hatchery on the River Tyne, it hatches and raises baby fish in on-river hatcheries using local, unfiltered water and a variety of techniques that more closely mimic the natural environment of early life-stage salmon.

For more background on the problems facing Atlantic salmon in the U.S. and the Canadian Maritimes, please read this article from "Mayday", my recent six-part Press Herald series on climate change in the Gulf of Maine.

ABC News.com interview on Tea Party, Globalist excerpt on Greenland

My feature in the current issue of Washington Monthly argues that the Tea Party is doomed to failure in large swaths of the country, due to the underlying regional values I've identified in American Nations. Since the piece appeared in mid-October (the Monthly is no longer monthly), various polls have showed declining support for the movement, which experienced setbacks in November's off-year election.

ABC News interviewed me yesterday for their digital story on these developments -- "Is the Party Over?" -- which you can read here.

Meanwhile, The Globalist -- the online magazine on global culture, politics, and economics -- published an excerpt today from the book's epilogue describing the (re)emergence of what I call First Nation, with special focus on Greenland, a nearly-independent nation I reported from in 2007.

A couple of scheduling notes: I'll be doing a live webinar at Global Post on Tuesday mid-day, a lecture in Damariscotta, Maine on Thursday morning, and a signing in Boothbay Harbor on the evening of Dec. 21. Perhaps will see some of you at one of these events.

American Nations webinar at Global Post, Dec. 13

I'm Colin Woodard and I endorse this message:

Free Webinar: American Nations — The Eleven Rival Cultures of North America

Join us for a Webinar on December 13 Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/424625350 GlobalPost is pleased to invite you to a Webinar with Colin Woodard, author of the best-selling "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America." On the cusp of the 2012 election year, few books provide more insight into the complex riot of American politics than American Nations, which delves into the country's entrenched regional cultural mosaic. Newsweek calls Woodard's book "a triumph," and the Washington Post hails it as "compelling and informative ... a bracing corrective to an accepted national narrative that too often overlooks regional variations to tell a simpler and more reassuring story. " Woodard is a writer, historian, award-winning journalist and occasional contributor to GlobalPost. He will be interviewed by GlobalPost Senior Editor David Case, and will take questions from the audience. Space is limited, and priority for this call will be granted to GlobalPost members. To ensure your attendance, you can join GlobalPost for less than $3 per month, at www.globalpost.com/members/information. (Important note: Everyone — including members — must register for the call at least two hours before it begins.) Title: Free Webinar: American Nations — The Eleven Rival Cultures of North America Date: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 Time: 12:00 PM - 12:30 PM EST After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. System Requirements PC-based attendees Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server Macintosh®-based attendees Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

Arctic news hounds rejoice!

Ever since traveling to Antarctica while writing Ocean's End, I've been something of a polar news addict. After all, the poles are where climate change effects are most obvious and alarming, and the international governance of both regions is very much in flux, what with all the cruise ships getting themselves in trouble in the Antarctic and oil prospectors crawling around Greenland. Following polar developments is very much keeping ones hand on the planetary pulse.

But tracking polar news is extraordinarily difficult. Nobody really lives in Antarctica and the Arctic region is divided among several countries with different languages, agendas, and internal awareness of their Far North. Even the Inuit have a hard time keeping in touch with one another.

Fortunately, my colleagues Kieran Cooke and John Bennett are putting together a free weekly news digest called Arctic Monitor, which allows for one stop shopping on the latest developments in the High North. No plans for an Antarctic edition, but you can still learn a fair bit about the Southern Continent by following the news feed at the Antarctica and Southern Ocean Coalition and the official newspaper of the US Antarctic Program, the Antarctic Sun. (The latter, oddly enough, was once edited at McMurdo Station by Portland, Maine's own Jeff Inglis.)

Two other Arctic resources to check out: the Arctic Focus news service (which loads very slowly from New England at least) and Canada's Aboriginal People's Television Network, which has more regular coverage of far northern issues than most. (For example, this piece on ongoing polar "land" grab.)

Photo (c) 1998-2010 Colin Woodard. All rights reserved.

Antarctica: Sinking of the MS Explorer update

In late 2007, I reported on the sinking of the cruise ship M/S Explorer off the coast of Antarctica for The Christian Science Monitor, with a follow up on how the facts as they had been presented did not add up. Since then we've been waiting for the government of Liberia -- where the Canadian-owned vessel was flagged -- to release the results of their investigation.

Sunday the London Independent reported on the leaked contents of that report, which apparently suggest that the Explorer's captain was responsible for plowing into what one passenger called a "wall of ice." The leak comes at an uncomfortable time for the Antarctic cruise ship industry, as it comes in the midst of a major annual meeting of the parties to the Antarctica Treaty, who are considering tighter restrictions on cruise ships there.

I saw the M/S Explorer in Greenland a few months before her final voyage. The vessel I was on at the time -- while covering the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople's efforts to draw attention to climate change -- also suffered a serious accident in Antarctica later that season.

I visited the Antarctic for six weeks in 1998 while writing my first book, Ocean's End: Travels Through Endangered Seas, and happened to pass through the straits in which the Explorer went down. As you'd expect, it's a cold and forbidding, not the sort of place you'd want to face in an open lifeboat.

Photograph (c) 2008 Colin S Woodard.