Seaweed Harvesting
Posted by Elliott on February 4, 2008
Orion Magazine takes a look at how one Maine resident is getting by.
During his lifetime John has been an orchard pruner, fisherman, lobsterman, apple picker, log roller, sawyer, and logger, and for more than forty years he has harvested seaweed on the coast of Maine. He started by renting a dory and rake for a dollar a day, and since then has retired several skiffs of his own. While rockweed—his present quarry—is certainly plentiful, it is not in great demand; it is used almost exclusively for animal supplements, a growing but still small market.
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In 2007, the mechanical harvesters, now redesigned, reappeared but were equally inefficient. That was good for John, who was offered work; that year the processor had to have weed. Because it had not been picked the previous year, the rockweed had proliferated. The price was up too, to three cents a pound.
The mechanical harvesters are being redesigned again for 2008, when John will be eighty years old. Whether the machines will work in the coming year, and whether John’s boat and fortitude will last one more season, will be determined in the spring.
