Robert G. Adlam and Michael Carey

Department of AnthropologyMount Allison University

Traps of Contention: Moral Dilemmas in an East Coast Lobster Fishery

Source: Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 2004

“People used to chat at the wharf and chat coming off the wharf. Now you pretty near run to your boat ...no time to talk to anybody. More business-like, well you’re financed more”

“They had areas where they fished and more or less respected one another’s area but the lack of lobster … inside the Bay … they had to go outside to catch fish in the other guy’s traditional area. This is what’s creating unrest.”

“They think they can go where ever they want to go, all along the coast there hasn’t been any trouble because the fishermen have their lines and if the other guy slips down over the line, he’d get dealt with and that was it. …but now the younger fishermen don’t respect anything and they just think that they can get away with doing whatever they want.”

Source: Miramichi Leader 2005Source: Miramichi Leader 2005

2001

“…he got in a racket here and a fellow took a gun to him, going to shoot him and he was pointing the gun right at him and he said, ‘shoot, shoot’. He said, ‘you haven’t got the guts to shoot, pass the gun over to me, I’ll fire it’. I asked his son, ‘what happened to your father in that racket there’, and he said, ‘oh, you know dad, not scared of anybody and little crazy besides”.

“…and then the police call me, ‘do you need protection?’ I said, ‘I don’t need the protection you want to give me, go out there and protect my traps that are fishing’. ‘I can physically take care of myself’”.

Patrolling the buffer zone, summer 2005“They would sit there, like they would come down 7am in the morning, 8am they’d stay there, nothing going on, nothing, no cutting. The dirty work was done at 3am and 4am in the morning. That’s where the boat should have been … just a farce”.

“At one time you could set on a reef and someone set there with you, they’d give you some distance. Now, its dog eat dog. They set all over the top of you… And there’s no principles or morals left in it.”

It’s just like everything else in the world, the old values and principles and morals are down the tubes in my books. And I tell you in my time when I was a young man on the wharf people drank on the wharf just like they do now. And I remember if you walked onto the wharf with your wife and two kids – the fishermen having a few beer and his language wasn’t up to snuff – you’d get 15 fishermen saying “hey, watch your language, there’s children!” Now you walk out and they’d use every bit of filthy talk they could.”