Tag Archives: Deer Isle

Down East seafood harvesters struggle to access health care, according to survey

Unless she needs to be stitched up, Deer Isle lobsterman Julie Eaton probably isn’t going to the hospital. She’d have to dock her boat in Stonington and drive up to the hospital in Blue Hill, nearly a 45-minute ride away. Not only will she lose out on a fishing day, but when she does get there, it’ll probably cost an arm and a leg, because Eaton, like many lobstermen, doesn’t have insurance. “Health care is a challenge,” she said. “I don’t have insurance. I don’t go unless I’m bleeding.” It’s a common refrain in the industry and one backed up by the results of a recent survey of more than 100 Down East lobstermen and shellfish harvesters. >click to read< 21:43

‘We have no market, but lots of lobsters’: a Maine lobsterwoman fights for her livelihood

“If I’m not fishing, I’m working on gear or my boat. Or meetings involving fishing. It’s what I eat, sleep and breathe,” lobsterwoman Julie Eaton tells me.,, I ask her what it’s like to start lobster season. “How do I even begin to tell you what it feels like?” she says, sighing. “It feels like I’ve held my breath all winter. Finally, when I turn the key to my boat and I’m going across the bay, my lungs fill with air for the first time in months. All of a sudden I feel alive.,,, “The pandemic is killing us,” Julie Eaton tells me. “It’s a terrible thing. We have no market, but lots of lobsters. We’re safe to fish on our boats. On my boat, it’s just me and my stern-woman. But I have no place to sell my catch! >click to read<  08:44

Fishing community plans tribute to “Uncle” Andy Gove

Andrew Gove began lobstering in the waters around Deer Isle as a boy of 7, fishing with his grandfather off Eagle Island in Penobscot Bay. Last year, at the age of 89, the lobsterman universally known as “Uncle” hauled his gear for the last time and retired to his home on Stonington Harbor with his wife of 73 years, Rose. Gove died late last month and now the lobster fishing community is planning a tribute to the man who was a respected patriarch of the lobster fishing industry. Plans call for a fleet of boats to gather off Greenhead at the western end of the Deer Island Thorofare at noon on Sunday, July 12,,, >click to read< 18:15

In a small marine community in Maine, Lobsters Are Keeping Students in School

Three hours from Portland, Maine, and two hours from the state capital of Augusta, picturesque Deer Isle has two towns on it (Deer Isle and Stonington), a combined year-round population of about 2,500 people, and not a single fast-food chain—or any chain store for that matter. Those who live beyond the narrow, turquoise suspension bridge connecting Deer Isle to the mainland are called PFAs (“people from away”), even if they work or attend school on the island. At the southern end of the predominantly middle-class, overwhelmingly white island lies a small but bustling harbor. In 2015, Stonington port brought in $63.8 million worth of lobster, landing it the title of Maine’s no. 1 commercial fishing port. The influence of maritime culture is evident at every turn: The local convenience store opens at 3:30 a.m. in the summers to accommodate early-to-rise fishermen.,,But getting young people to stay in school is another story. At the island’s only high school, Deer Isle-Stonington High School (DISHS), there has been a sense among some students that school is just standing in the way of going off and making money, and some of their parents see school as basically a lousy babysitter. Read the story here 14:38