"Ol' Soakah"
Pamela Perkins

   My knees jostle on the ride back from the harbor driving Bob's '88 Chevy. My new rubber boots at my side, my face already feeling weather worn and salty. From what seems like a deep concentration Bob looks up and says, "So's about Thursde we can go as far as Ol' Soakah and haul back through." I've never heard of a place called Ol' Soakah, but then I haven't heard of most of the places that stretch from Seal Harbor to Sand Beach where Bob and I have set, over the last three days, our 160 traps. "Ol' Soakah?" I repeat, trying my best to pronounce it just the way I had heard. "Ayuh, Ol' Soakah," Bob confirms. My mind rattles off the possible spelling of this place, the pronunciations. I try again, "It's called Old Soaker?" He stares back suspiciously and says again, "Ayuh" as if there had been no change in what I'd said. The subtleties of the Maine accent were lost on Bob. I'm sure he's not aware of the thickness with which he speaks. The humble slur of his words sound no different to him than the practiced and homogenized diction common among the new generation of Maine children. I chuckled silently to myself and kept driving. This was my first lesson in lobster culture. There would be many more to come.

   Over the following weeks I came to enjoy the morning ride to Seal Harbor with Bob. I would sit quietly on the passenger side of the old truck and listen to him gossip about locals, tell me stories about growing up in Otter Creek or reminisce about his days working for the Bar Harbor water company. I was intensely curious about how Bob saw the world and about the things he could teach me from the past. These things would materialize for me over the following months in slow spurts during the twenty-minute drive from Bob's house to the town dock in Seal Harbor where my workday began.

   Bob would get out in the little dinghy, strapped tight in his ancient lifejacket, which served as his only protection from drowning in the five-minute motor from the dock to where his 22' foot lobster boat, Comfort, sat in the harbor. Bob would often joke with me about spending his whole life on the water, but never learning how to swim. It turned out that this was a common joke among the other men who fished out of the same dock. Most of these muscled, wise old men had never actually been in the waters they fished. The ways in which they joked about their inability to keep afloat communicated a humble fear of the water among some of the toughest men I had ever met.

   My comfort in the water served as another way in which I was the odd girl out. Sternwomen are rare, the ones that exist are often the wives of lobster boat captains who have been recruited by their husbands to fill in for absent sternmen or lend an extra hand during the busiest of the lobster season. Having a female, twenty-something year-old college student share the space at the dock was a novelty that took some getting used to. I did my best to match their sharp wit and often foul language and found myself lugging more than was necessary up and down the ramp in an attempt to prove my strength, endurance and commitment. I would lug five-gallon buckets of fish bait with bravado while the flock of sternmen looked on.

   They knew better than to offer me a hand, but often well-meaning tourists who had come to get a glimpse of real Maine life at the dock would run to try to grab a handle, or attempt to carry our hundred-pound coolers of lobsters up the ramp back to the truck.

   It seemed they thought this to be penance for the many pictures they would take of Bob and I, covered in sea slime, smelling of herring and sun burnt. The onlookers were not just gathered at the docks, but all along the shore. It seemed that every time I looked up another picture was being taken by families gathered along the rocky shore. They were fascinated by this age-old activity and had traveled hundreds of miles to watch us fish. It was during these times that my mind would wander and I would question the ethics of what I was doing. I was caught between loving the physical work of hauling traps, the excitement of finding a myriad of creatures appear onboard with every haul and the stark realization that what seemed like the honest work of harvesting food to feed hungry mouths was in reality a commodified tourist attraction.

   To be honest, I couldn't blame these onlookers. I loved every second I spent on the water and I reveled in being a part of a quintessential Maine attraction. After three weeks I began to rethink my plans for the future. I was about to enter my senior year of college, graduate and begin a life as an elementary school teacher. Teaching is what I had decided I wanted to do. I was excited to begin and I had worked really hard to get there. As I fell more and more in love with the art of fishing I thought of a phrase I had heard fisherman say, "fishing was in my blood," it was something they had to do. After just three weeks on the water, I could relate. Lobstering felt natural; it seemed like what I was meant to do. Maybe lobstering was in my blood too.

   To come to the realization that I wanted nothing more than to pursue a career in lobsters after spending four years in pursuit of a degree in Human Ecology just wasn't settling right. I felt like I wouldn't be doing my degree and my academic efforts justice. Most of all, how could I simultaneously hold a passion for the laborious task of lobstering and for Human Ecology? The two seemed to be diametricaly opposed.

   And then, out on the water hauling traps, it occurred to me that lobstering would honor my human ecology degree in the best ways possible. Human Ecology isn't about any particular career path; it's about a mindset. Much of what I've gained as a student of Human Ecology is the ability to find the words to describe what is often inherent understanding. It's my study of Human Ecology that gives me the words to describe, to think about, to understand and communicate lobstering in a way otherwise impossible. It's because of Human Ecology that lobstering resonates so completely. I am able to see the beauty of the Maine landscape, the history and a culture of a rugged set of people, to appreciate the strides lobstermen take toward sustainability, to be a part of a food system, and observe an ecological system that works in amazing harmony with people. Best of all, I understand how all these things are connected. Human Ecology doesn't make the traps I haul off the little island I now easily recognize as Ol' Soakah any easier or fill them with any more lobsters. Instead it allows me to see that island in a greater social, political and environmental network, which broadens my experience of the world. So do I dishonor my degree by undertaking a career in the lobster industry? It's certainly true that I could lobster with or without a degree in Human Ecology but it is through the lens of Human Ecology that lobstering makes the most sense.