For two months every year, Canada’s Magdalen Islands are transformed into a hive of activity as lobster fishers set out with their boats for the summer season. The work is hard and sleep is scarce, but the rewards are high.
Hard work, high reward
Rush hour comes at 3 am on Grande Entree Island. In early summer, the sun is already starting to rise and trucks line the port.
Men walk energetically towards fishing boats and shovel ice onto the fish in boxes on board. It’s cold – it gets frosty at night, even in summer, in eastern Canada.
The men don’t mind. They are about to travel a half hour or more out of the port, the biggest in the Magdalen Islands archipelago, though they won’t reveal exactly where.
They’re collecting the traps they use to catch lobster out of the Gulf of St Lawrence. “We’re allowed to fish for lobster for 10 weeks,” says John Gee, who is setting off with his captain. The season begins in mid-May.
Every night, the fishermen set off into the gulf, which lies between the province of Quebec, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.
The gulf is the outlet of the North American Great Lakes. It flows into the Atlantic and the water is as salty as the sea.
This is the third biggest river by discharge in North America. Until it gets to Quebec City, it is a freshwater river, turning brackish at the Ile d’Orleans and then finally becoming salt water.
While the lobster fishers prepare their boats, a larger vessel docks nearby. Its captain has been out catching snow crabs, but isn’t particularly happy with his catch.
“Every day is different,” says John Clark. He doesn’t say much but he’s friendly, something that could be said for most Madelinots, as the islanders are known. He doesn’t have a lot of time — he’s setting off for the lobster traps later.
“The season is exhausting for the fishermen,” says Gilles Lapierre, who has lived in the small archipelago since he was a child and can trace his French ancestors back nine generations.
“The lobster and crab seasons overlap and some boats fish for both.”
Sleep is a fleeting thing during the season. Clark will have a quick lie-down of two hours before setting off again.
Lobsters and crabs are a lucrative source of income, and fishing licences are hard to get. “Mostly they’re passed on in families,” says Lapierre. “To the son, sometimes to the daughter.”
If a permit comes up for sale it can cost up to US$370,000.
There’s a huge market for the lobsters within Canada and beyond because the water they come from is cold and clear, and they come in all kinds of sizes.
For a long time, there were no quotas and anyone could fish here however much and whenever they wanted. But eventually the traps started coming up empty because the waters were overfished.
“At the time lobsters weren’t even a delicacy,” says Lapierre, looking back on his childhood. “It was food for poor people.”
Today, lobster, cod and halibut are prized by the islands’ restaurants.
There’s also a smokehouse, Le Fumoir d’Antan, which prepares herring from the province of New Brunswick, as well as a cheese farm and a brewery, A l’Abri de la Tempete, set up by two women.
Elise Cornellier Bernier and Anne-Marie Lachance wanted to make a beer that didn’t just taste like all the other commercial beers. Their light beer is called Cale-Seche, made with sea salt and lemons. They also make various other kinds that might taste foreign to more traditional palates.
Six of the main islands are linked via road, while the seventh, the Ile d’Entree, is reachable only by ferry.
See-kayaking on the gulf is also a popular pastime and there are caves in the sandstone cliffs of the islands in which you can swim, as long as you wear a wetsuit and helmet.
The weather is quite cold even during the summer, and the currents in the caves can be strong. But if you decide to go for a paddle or lie on the beaches around the gulf, beware of the boats that continually motor past on their way to the lobster traps, only stopping in the early afternoon.
The only quiet day is Sunday and the season ends in July. – dpa
