Maine History Online

Harvesting the Sea

Nowhere is Maine's northwest Atlantic location more significant than in its fishing industries. Food from the sea drew the Wabanaki to the coast in summer, and Europeans toward the shore decades before settling inland.

Localized trading aside, fishing represented the first truly commercial pursuit in the region, and, along with furs and lumber, ranked among the earliest and most profitable European economic activities in Maine.

Jamestown's erstwhile leader and habitual adventurer, John Smith, remarked in his 1614 Generall historie of Virginia, New England & the Summer Isles that it would be a poor man who could not feed himself on the coasts of Maine, and a poor nation that would be unwilling to avail itself of such profusion, where "the Salvages compare their store in the sea to the haires of their heads; and surely there are an incredible abundance upon this Coast."

Following the cod, European fleets had been competing for the coastal winter fisheries for decades by the time Smith made his observation, and native peoples had preceded them by millennia.

Adept at salt-water fishing, Maine's indigenous peoples also were consummate fishers of the inland waterways. The presence of massive shell middens along the coast testifies to their prodigious seasonal clamming practices. While fish of all kinds –– fresh, dried, or shell –– sustained Maine's native peoples, they did not expand beyond small-scale fishing and trading activities. Europeans behaved otherwise.

Fishery stations replaced annual voyages for the Europeans, and coastal trade supported fledgling settlements as stations grew into villages, and fishing became a sustainable economic activity along the coast of Maine by the 18th century. Cod, herring, and mackerel soon were joined by salmon and alewives from tidal rivers, and eventually by lobster, clams, periwinkles, sea urchins, and scallops as well. In the process of these expanding fisheries, Maine produced an archetype to rival that of the lumberman –– the New England lobsterman.

Lobsters once were seen as food for the poor, but changing tastes and marketing changed that. Urban seaboard restaurants and Maine resorts generated sufficient demand over the closing decades of the 19th century and the opening of the 20th to make commercial lobstering worth the physical and economic risks.

The lobster smack, a boat with sails especially suited to hauling and placing traps, made shipping live lobsters to regional markets possible, while canneries in Lubec and elsewhere facilitated nationwide shipping. Lobstermen from Eastport, to Vinalhaven and down the coast profited from the expanding enterprise.

Lobstering features a delicate balance of independence and cooperation, with lobstermen working ocean patches individually while coordinating larger activities in harbor-based groups. Skill, loyalty, and tradition are common values, but tensions, even hostilities, flare between individuals or "gangs" from competing harbors, or from resentment of tourists usurping precious coastal spaces.

Although popular in its more humble presentation –– the lobster boil or bake –– the lobster now ranks as haute cuisine around the world, and is among the pricier entrees on most menus.

Unlike most seafood that can be fresh frozen at capture, whole lobsters must be shipped live. That, in combination with volatile markets and competing international regulations regarding seasonal haul and lobster size, has made lobstering a risky venture.

Lobstermen have sought to mitigate the uncertainties of their industry through professionalization and self-regulation with some success. While the weather remains stubbornly unpredictable, and the Gulf of Maine ecosystem vulnerable to pollution, climate change, and over fishing, both lobster and ground fisheries remain important, and traditional, parts of Maine's economy.

Selling the Landscape

Logging the highlands, farming the rocky stretches, and fishing the waterways are customary and familiar means of making a living off the land. Selling the idea of Maine as a special and restorative place, however, is a relatively recent phenomenon, one with enormous significance for the state's reputation and financial wellbeing.

Beginning the first of his three trips to Maine in 1846, Henry David Thoreau took time to admire the landscape with its forest groves and "glorious river and lake scenery," but even so predicted, "It will be a long time before the tide of fashionable travel sets in."

Thoreau got it wrong. Maine's transformation as a tourist destination began in earnest after the Civil War and expanded rapidly into the 20th century with the professionalization of what had been known as the "summer trade," and the robust promotional efforts of the railroads as many attempted to capitalize on the growing demand for outdoor experiences by eastern urbanites.

Existing luxury accommodations were either expanded or new ones built in resort spots such as Poland, the southern coast, western mountains, and Cushing, Mount Desert and other islands.