Maine Lobster Festival Ready for 67th

The 67th annual Maine Lobster Festival
will be held in Rockland July 30 through Aug. 3.

Maine Lobster Festival ca. 1950. Today 100,000 people visit the festival and thousands of pounds of lobster are served. Rockland Historical Society photo

The family festival has grown in popularity and drawn the attention of national media, including the Food Network and Gourmet Magazine. This year’s theme is Fishing Families. Nearly all lobster in Maine is caught and handled by family-owned and operated small businesses. Lobster fishing is the foundation of the Maine coastal economy. The thousands of Maine families who fish create the economy that supports the communities, culture and life along the coast. Fishing families were the original settlers and they remain the essential foundation for an important and unique way of life.

Fishing families started the festival in Camden in 1947 when the surge of early lobster called for a new way to market them. The Following year the festival moved to Rockland where it has remained for 66 years. Over those years, it has varied in attendance and activities. It continues to evolve today.

Alice Knight, an organizer and attendee of every one of the Maine Lobster Festivals and who has been described as the doyenne of the festival, said, “In the early days, people drove down to the public landing. Lobster crates were used for tables, and there were a few booths and games for the kids. At one time, early lobster was so cheap, one year, it was all you can eat for $1.” Knight, whose family is connected to the fishing industry by Knight’s Marine Service in Rockland, recalled the number of people who attended was impressive when she went to the first festival at age 13. The format was the same, with a ball, parade, events and music. But the scale and variety have increased over the years.

Lobster crate race.

Many people pointed out the festival is produced entirely with volunteer labor. It always has been, said Knight, “even back when I started, when volunteering was not common at all.” There are people who spend their summer vacations donating time to the festival. Companies in the area also now send employees over to work at the festival. Knight, who taught school for 32 years, said it was especially impressive and important to note that all the work, from organizing to cooking to clean-up, is done by volunteers. After establishing the budget for the next year’s festival, all proceeds go to area communities for a range of public services that include things like paving the public landing, fire trucks, ambulances, equipment for the county rescue squad, decking the public wharf, etc. The local high school has community service volunteering as a graduation requirement.

“Volunteering changes kids,” said Knight. “They seem much more friendly after community service. They are empowered by it. People who volunteer get a whole new view of life.”

Chuck Kruger has worked on the festival for 29 years. He said the festival has evolved with the local economy. That economy has been coming out of a slump over the last decade or so, and reflects the influence of other events, such as the annual Rockland Blues Festival, the Maine Boats, Homes, and Harbors Show, and the activities of the Farnsworth Art Museum, galleries and a wide range of many new restaurants.

The local fresh-food movement may have something to do with increased interest in the festival. The Food Network’s Best Food Festivals in the Country featured the MLF in 2006. These days, very fresh oysters, clams, scallops and fish are also served. Another indication of the festival’s newfound status is in an essay in Gourmet Magazine in 2004: “And part of the overall spectacle of the Maine Lobster Festival is that you can see actual lobstermen’s vessels docking at the wharves along the northeast grounds and unloading fresh-caught product, which is transferred by hand or cart 150 yards to the great clear tanks stacked up around the festival’s cooker.”

The festival takes place both in the context of a seaport and a fishing port. Historically a fishing town, Rockland boats for centuries brought in cod, herring, mackerel and lobster. Rockland was also a port that shipped granite, lumber and lime along the East Coast. Most fishing and shipping has changed, and with it Rockland. But Rockland is still a fishing town, and a town in transition in the 21st century. Today, there are new businesses in the shops that formerly may have sold fishing supplies, household supplies for island-dwelling families, or fresh fish. Many of those stores were vacant for years before the awakening of a new economy that moved into an enduring place.

The crowned Sea Goddess before returning to the sea. Glenn Bitt photo

As the festival changes, it remains a family event organized and produced by families. The crowning of the Sea Goddess, with costumed characters, is an event that may appear camp to some, but has deep roots in community reverence for food. The event – with its image of Neptune bringing the Sea Goddess to land to be crowned, then returning her to the sea – has ancient roots in human food celebrations. Societies around the world picked up this relationship to food and celebration. In Boston’s North End, this year’s 88th annual July Feast of Saint Joseph is a food festival.

The Festival now features cooking contests, storytelling, musical performances, book signings, marine exhibits, crafts and art. A large commercial tent has Maine-made products. Maine has the largest number of new small farms of any state the U.S. Along with local foods, there are many local makers of traditional handmade items and new technology built in Maine.

But the MLA continues its family-favorite traditional events. The crate race is both popular and unique to the lobster industry. Contestants, mostly the young, compete in running atop wood crates strung together and floating in the bay. Other events include toddlers competing in a crawling race, a road race, a marine tent, a parade through town on Saturday, a Rock and Blues Festival on Saturday night and, of course, lots of fresh lobster.

The specialty restaurants, art galleries, tourism gear shops, yacht moorings and hotels are indications of new economic activity. This activity exists, in part, because of the fishing industry and the culture it has maintained – for the beauty of a coast like no other, but also for the fishing communities and the fishing families whose working and independent lives are like few others today.

From Consider the Lobster, by David Foster Wallace, Gourmet Magazine, August 2004.