On a lobster boat, bologna was bad luck. So was wearing corduroy, or failing to wear a lucky fishing hat. So was renaming a boat, or whistling.
So were women.
For centuries, Grand Manan Island, baubled in a string of small islands off the coast of New Brunswick, has been forged by the fishing industry. Birch trunks of herring weirs spearing through the Atlantic and new trucks roar on the coastal roads sprouting with new homes, financed by the recent lobster boom. Lobster fishing, the main season which spans from November to June, is lucrative, now especially soa year on the sea can yield over $120,000.
But it’s a payoff for a dangerous game: A Globe and Mail investigation found that fishing has the single highest fatality rate of any sector in the country. In the past 20 years, there have been around 200 reported deaths in the industry.
Today, there are between five and 10 full-time fisherwomen, with upwards of 30 working part-time when the lobster fishing begins. Every second Tuesday in November, the water is glutted with boats, docks made labyrinthine by lobster traps, and crews fleshed out by female chefs, storeowners, paramedics, and mothers on leave from their jobs for the lucrative first few weeks of the seasonthis alone can net around $20,000.