We first adopted Drupal in 2014, at a time when it seemed a sturdy and sensible vessel for our work. Over the years, however, familiarity gave way to friction: updates became troublesome, passwords unruly, and subscriptions less obedient than one might reasonably hope. Eventually, prudence—rather than novelty—required an upgrade to modern code compatible with today’s secure web browsers. Since our reporting has hit a nerve, we have been under constant attacks to a level that is very targetted and required a more rebust defence.
In the process, we have also chosen to retire Facebook login. Not out of hostility, but from a desire to regain a modest measure of independence. We are implementing our own login system—simpler, more efficient, and less beholden to the shifting terms and conditions of Meta. For the inconvenience of one more username and password, we offer our apologies; modern life seems determined to test the limits of human memory. However, we do not use passwords! We use an email verification code sent to your inbox. Once signed in, you will remain so for up to 6 months. No need entering pesky username and passwords all the time. Alleluhia.
The result, we trust, will be a site that works comfortably and reliably across 99% of the current generation of web browsers—quietly doing its job, which is all any technology should ever be asked to do.
Our History
The Calais Advertiser, an award winning newspaper and news organization, stands among Maine’s oldest surviving newspapers. Its newsroom established in 1836, has endured wars, depressions, and the passing fashions of opinion, it has remained rooted in the life of its community.
A subscription today grants full access to our website by purchasing the printed mailed edition or the digital version. As a subscriber, free or paid member, you are opted automatically into our thoughtfully curated weekly email newsletters with headlines notifying you important news.
A paid subscription is more than a transaction. It is the surest compliment one can offer, and a clear declaration that independent journalism—rooted in real places and real people—still has meaning and value. It is an act of confidence not only in our work, but in the community we exist to serve. Without this support, we can not survive.
By subscribing, you gain full access to our complete online archive, encompassing everything published digitally since 2017, as well as all that is yet to be written. Prior years, 2017 to 2024 still being implimented. Earlier editions, reaching back to our founding in 1836, may be searched in person at the Calais Public Library, where the long memory of this town is carefully preserved.
Weekly Email News Digest - Fresh content, delivered to your email inbox
New work may be delivered directly to your inbox, without the interference of algorithms, feeds, or the unseen hands that now decide what is worthy of notice. What you receive is what we publish—nothing more, nothing less.
We issue a single email each week. No barrage, no clutter. We respect your attention and your time, and therefore your inbox.
Email list is open free to all. You may unsubscribe at any moment, and should you wish, you may later choose to support the work by converting to a paid membership—entirely at your discretion which unlocks premium content and the PDF digital versions.
Meet people like you - Our Community
Join a community of other subscribers and businesses advertising and participating with local community members. A newspaper is where the local business, with community members learns itself—its habits and hopes, its small triumphs and sometimes stubborn failures, its memory of what it has been and its argument about what it ought to become. It's the glue that keeps us together.
By subscribing, you take part in the quiet, unglamorous, and necessary work of holding and serving a place—and its people—together, long after the noise of social media has moved on.