How time flies! We can’t believe this weekend marks the 40th year of Boothbay Harbor’s Fishermen’s Festival. It started out small, with just a few contests, and attracted mostly fishermen, their families and fish dealers.

Nobody could have guessed that it would gain in popularity, attracting not only year-round and summer residents, but complete strangers who heard it was a genuine, small-town celebration focusing attention on Maine’s fishing industry and the families who make their living from the sea.

Different events have been added or changed over the years, but the goal is still to celebrate fishing as a way of life, and reminding everyone that it continues to be one of the most dangerous careers.

Boothbay Harbor itself has changed a great deal since that first festival. Shrimp fishing was in its heyday, and many men and women made their living aboard boats, on the docks, or in the packing and processing plants.

Being unemployed in the winter months was by choice, not necessity, because the shrimp processing facilities were always in need of a new pair of hands. Unlike this winter, when shrimp were as scarce as hen’s teeth, shrimp were plentiful back then, and boats were on quotas, coming in early every day and unloading their catch.

Money, too, flowed throughout the community, unlike the lean winter months of late. Fishermen were paid daily for their catch, and sometimes appeared to spend it almost as fast.

The Thistle Inn, which was theplace to gather, was jam-packed every afternoon and evening – elbow-to-elbow. Only a few early birds got a seat

We’ve never forgotten sitting down at a small table one afternoon and discovering a wallet on the floor between the table and wall. It was stuffed with money; so much so that it wasn’t even partially closed.  It belonged to a shrimp fisherman. We turned it in at the bar, where the owner retrieved it the next day. He thanked us, and said rather nonchalantly that he had over $1,000 in it. He didn’t act like he’d been worried at all about its whereabouts. Talk about different times!

Back when the Fishermen’s Festival first started, Gloucester boats were regular visitors in town, fueling up, filling their holds with ice, and “grubbing up’’ at Carbone’s Boothbay Fruit Company, which delivered to the boats.

Several of them participated in the fish contests that first year at Jimmy Juliano’s Bay Fish Company, later headquarters for Malpeque shrimp processing operations and now Sea Pier. Other than draggers, purse seiners also tied up at local docks on a regular basis. Most of the available wharves had large fishing vessels tied up.

Many of the fish stocks so plentiful then are nearly depleted, and we have hardly any draggers or seiners based here. The services they needed – dockage, ice, fuel, etc. – are in short supply, catering mostly to pleasure boats and visiting yachts today.  

Fortunately for us, the lobster fishery has remained stable, although every year we’re seeing more and more lobstermen get out of the fishery and come ashore.

Enjoy Fishermen’s Festival this weekend: Miss Shrimp Princess pageant Friday night; contests throughout the morning Saturday followed by a fish fry; and Sunday’s Memorial Service and Blessing of the Fleet, along with many other events. Remember, we are celebrating our proud heritage as a fishing community.