It’s no secret to islanders that Kim MacIsaac knows her way around. As Executive Director of the Fifth Maine Regiment Museum, she shares her insights into the cast of characters from Portland harbor’s history with the thousands of tourists who ride the ferry annually to visit the museum. With her husband, Steve, Kim also operates Island Tours, a business that treats visitors to historical and architectural tours of the island’s neighborhoods and historic sites by golf cart.

Not only does Kim’s knowledge of local history stem from spending her childhood on Peaks Island, but she’s also an alumna of the University of Southern Maine’s American and New England Studies graduate program. Kim’s exhaustive master’s research pulled together the historical details about the golden age of steamboats and amusements parks on Peaks Island – “The Coney Island of Maine.”

What most people don’t realize is that Kim is also a published author. She was approached by Arcadia Publishing to produce a new, more thoroughly-researched edition of The Casco Bay Islands 1850-2000. Kim organized and annotated a collection of more than 200 historic images from several historical societies, as well as her own private collection. The book was published in 2004.

Kim MacIsaac at Norlands Living History Center

As if Kim wasn’t busy enough, now that the sesquicentennial commemoration of the Civil War has started she’s organizing Maine’s Civil War history trail. In what little spare time remains, Kim is working on another book manuscript – a history of Peaks Island. When she finishes, this book will join two other recent works on island history A Glimpse of Old Peaks Island and For the Love of Peaks.