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Alewives
What is an Alewife? It’s a fish! I’d never heard of them either until we moved to Maine. I’d probably not ever heard of them until I discovered a gem of a quilt shop called Alewives Fabric and Gifts in Damariscotta Mills (about 45 minutes south of me). Because they are set back a couple of miles from Route 1, and I’m always racing to somewhere, I’d never been there until my dear friend Kathy invited me along one day. As I’ve said before, that store is a serious Visa accident waiting to happen! (and I’ll be totally wicked and tell you that they now have batiks and Amy Butler and Kaffe Fassett and and and for sale online!) But this is about the fish…and they run in early May (yes, I’m late writing this up!… I knew they were running because a month ago on a trip south I saw a roadside sign and truck selling smoked alewives!)
Kathy did this quilt of the Alewives, who return from the sea, travel up the Great Salt Bay and head upriver at Damariscotta Mills, telling me about the fish ladder. (Kathy blogged about the quilt, I think, but her blog doesn’t have a search box on it so couldn’t find a picture…sorry!) A fish ladder? yep…. as you approach the area, you see the area in the above photo. You can tell the fish are running thanks to a generous supply of cormorants and seagulls lurking for an easy meal.
Then you see the pen used to harvest some of the fish, which are about 10 inches long I’d guess. The fish are used for lobster trap bait and used to be used as a foodsource. On the information plaques, it says that for over 200 years it has been a tradition to give widows alewives (salted and cured I’d think….).
The lower portion of the fish ladder…which is basically a stream 24 inches wide or less (about .65 metres) with rocky small falls, rivulets and pools progressing up the hill to the Mills pond and lake at the top of the run…..was wall-to-wall fish:
If you look carefully, you can see both the shadow of the railing (lower right) and all those dark curvy things are alewives.
The next three pictures are close-ups of the information sign. If you click on the photo it should (?) open up larger so maybe you can read the text.
I was lucky that someone came to purchase some alewives while I was there. The fish are plentiful, so there is no risk to the fish stocks in harvesting them, and the proceeds from the sales are used for renovations and upkeep of the fish ladder.
First, the guy who works there gets a helper, and they use a sturdy mesh frame attached to two long poles to herd/sweep the wall-to-wall fish into a pen. As you can see on the right, there is a lot of late-spring runoff water tumbling down!
Next: you see the fish splashing up next to the screen/sweeper:
This shot shows a fair number of the soon-to-be-bait alewives:
Then, the workers crank the pen which tips up. The fish slide down into the hopper:
Talk about a thundering roar as all those flopping fish thump and twitch their way down the metal ramp/tilt/whatever it is!
And then there are MORE:
Finally, they stop flopping, having spent too long in the air. They are then scooped into a crate for the waiting lobsterman.
And that’s my fish tale for today! I love living in a place where people have lived for over 200 years. For those of you in Europe, it is no big deal, but in the US it means we are among the oldest European-origin communities around. Cool.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
This was amazing to see and read. Thanks for the interesting photos and explanation.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:32 am
In medieval times over here an alewife was the lady who ran the tavern. She would have been either the wife of the innkeeper or a widow. Whatever, she would have made her own beer. You could tell a tavern by the bundle of twigs over the door! Just thought you might be interested! Oh yes, I think there might have been one in the Canterbury Tales by Chaucer but it’s so long since I read them that I have forgotten! Val
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Hi Sarah,
This was SUCH a great post about the Alewives!