Industry

“It’s the biggest paying industry in Winter Harbor, that’s for sure,” said Susan Soper of the Winter Harbor Lobster Co-op.

The co-operative, located a quarter mile from the center of town, has 27 members. It buys lobsters from the fishermen when they get off their boats in the evening and sells them to DC Air and Seafood, another Winter Harbor-based industry that disperses seafood from Boston to Canada.

Lobsterman Mike Faulkingham stands aboard his boat, taking a moment’s rest from the hard labor that comes with being a Maine lobsterman in the winter months.

Staff photo by Kimberley Pietz.

The co-op also provides lobstermen with bait, gear and parts for their boat.

“The main advantage of belonging to the co-op is that when a guy needs a part for his boat he can just come into the office and I’ll order it for him,” Soper said. “He doesn’t need to drive all the way to Ellsworth and spend a half day getting it.”

Reggie Knowles has been a member of the co-op since its conception in 1971.

“We just came together, the fishermen, I mean, and presented the owner with an offer, and he took it,” Knowles said.

The owner, Rudy Johnson, turned over the office and dock to the fishermen of Winter Harbor. Since that time, every young man and woman who wants to be a part of the Winter Harbor lobster market joins the co-operative with the exception of a few independent local fishermen.

“We have six other men out there right now who aren’t a part of the co-op,” said Soper. “We still will sell them bait and buy their lobsters, but if the bait situation gets tough, like it does sometimes in the spring, our guys come first.”

 Knowles, like many of the men in Winter Harbor, has been fishing for lobsters as long as he can remember.

“Like any kid, I dabbled around in traps growing up. After I graduated from high school in 1960, I went into the Army for a few years, and then naturally came back here and began fishing professionally,” he said.

 The reason he continues to fish after 48 years is the same reason that resounds among lobstermen throughout the bay.

“The best part of being a fisherman is being self-employed, being your own boss. Working when we want to work, not when a boss tells us to: not answering to the man,” he said.

 “These guys are honest and hardworking. They head out at four in the morning, and many nights, especially in the summer, don’t get back until five or six at night. They work six days a week,” Soper said.

“It gets rougher in the winter when they have to go much further out. Our biggest boat travels an hour-and-a-half before it touches its first trap,” she said.

The future of the fishing industry looks good in Winter Harbor, although the government has made it harder for young people interested in the industry to become involved.

“Kids have a hard time getting in now because they have to either get a license very young and keep it up for a number of years, or they have to serve a three-year apprenticeship on a boat,” Soper said. “Then, when they get their license, they have to fish two zones away from where they’re trained.

“One guy we have here, his son will never be able to fish in Winter Harbor. That makes it hard to keep the generational aspect of the industry going.”