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When the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport received a donation in 2012 of tens of thousands of images from the archive of Portland-based National Fisherman magazine, photo archivist Kevin Johnson got to work digitizing and organizing them all. The museum is nationally renowned for its photo archive, which spans subject matters but always ties back to the maritime history of Penobscot Bay.
Nearly a decade later, Johnson and longtime National Fisherman contributor Michael Crowley teamed up with Maine-based Islandport Press to shine a light on those images, which document the lives of fishermen and fishing communities in Maine and beyond.
“Working the Sea: Historic Images from National Fisherman,” published this week, takes readers on a journey from the turn of the 20th century, when three- and five-masted schooners still ruled the sea, to modern times with modern boats and technology.
It’s co-authored by Penobscot Marine Museum staff including Johnson, and Crowley, who prior to his writing career worked on fishing boats in Alaska. During the pandemic, Crowley poured through the tens of thousands of images in the National Fisherman archive to finally land on the 100 or so in the book. His deep knowledge of the fishing industry helps put the world depicted in the photos into context for everyone — seafarer and landlubber alike.
National Fisherman started life in 1921 as Atlantic Fisherman magazine, before it took its current title in 1954. In 1960, it merged with Maine Coast Fisherman, a Belfast-based publication that began in 1946, and in 1967 it absorbed Pacific Fishing, expanding its coverage to encompass the U.S. fishing industry on the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts, the Great Lakes and Alaska. It has been based in Maine for decades, and it’s traditionally billed itself as the “saltiest magazine on the newsstand.”
For longtime commercial fishermen, the photos showcase what life was like on the job in the last century, particularly in the post-war era, when new technologies were rapidly introduced, and the old way of doing things increasingly clashed with the new.
For those outside of the industry, however, it’s a fascinating glimpse into both the business and the culture of the men and women that make a living off the sea — much of it in Maine but also in coastal communities all across the country. It shows how deeply intertwined Maine’s seafaring tradition is with the rest of the fishing industry in North America.
“You really do see a lot of the whole lives of the fishing industry in Maine — not just the fishermen themselves, but the people who worked in the offices, the people in the communities,” Johnson said. “And while there’s lots from other states in there, there’s often a Maine connection, like the fact that so many boats were built here.”
Crowley takes a look at all the different types of boats and ships that fishermen have made use of over the years and where they were built, including at famed shipyards in towns like Rockland, Bath, Bristol, Milbridge, Thomaston, Friendship and Boothbay, as well as the various types of catch they fished for and sold. There are also snapshots of the fun side of life on the sea, from the famous lobster boat races in Jonesport to dinner on board a halibut fishing vessel.
And, there are photos of dramatic incidents at sea, from major storms, shipwrecks and rescues, to protests, shootings, raids and even mutinies. Despite ostensibly being a trade publication, National Fisherman often showcases stories and photos that go well beyond industry trends and other specifics.
“It really helps tell the story of how we got to the current state of our fisheries, and how more and better technology and other changes have, in many ways, led to the situations we now find ourselves in,” Johnson. “And it also shows the culture, and how it’s changed — or not changed.”
A book launch for “Working the Sea” is set for 1 p.m. Saturday at the Penobscot Marine Museum’s Old Vestry building in Searsport.
