This book tells how highly entrepreneurial and innovative people are developing a virtually new industry by growing, with the help of science, what may well be the world’s finest oysters along the gorgeous but challenging Maine Coast. They are doing it even as environmental changes present new hurdles and new opportunities. Then there are such unforeseen events as COVID-19, which has forced big changes in the oyster sales network.

This book is for food lovers, for people drawn to stories about the trials and triumphs of small business, for folks following the challenges of global warming, and for anyone who wants to learn more about the culture and history of one of the world’s most storied coasts. 

Oysters, of course, have been among the most sought-after food for thousands of years because they are a delicious source of protein, among other reasons, including the idea or hope that they’re aphrodisiacs. And while they have usually been harvested in the wild, they have also long been cultivated. Such aquaculture has greatly expanded in recent decades, in Maine and elsewhere.

Oyster farmers come from a wide range of backgrounds – some are from Maine and some “From Away.” Some come from generations on Maine fishermen; some are highly educated;

some have years of practical experience of working on the water; some are relatively new to this sort of farming. They all share a passion for growing oysters of such quality that they’re sought around America. The business tends to evoke growers’ rock-ribbed integrity and often surprising ingenuity as they strive to meet the challenges of environmental and economic change. These farmers have a passion for protecting their beautiful coast and a strong desire for personal economic independence, usually coupled with a deep sense of responsibility to local communities, most of which are hundreds of years old.

They want to work on the water even in the face of the effects of fossil-fuel emissions, effects that include the rapid warming of the oceans, sea-level rise, and ocean acidification. They also face new and old diseases and high-end coastal development, with its associated Nimbyism, and considerable public misinformation about what happens when you raise oysters (they actually clean the water.) Then, of course, there is bad weather, broken equipment, and other routine problems.

The warming of the Gulf of Maine, nearly the fastest of any salt-water body in the world, has already damaged many traditional fish stocks in the region, and the remaining mainstay – lobsters – is now threatened as the waters warm. The oyster aquaculturists (some of them past or present lobstermen) see their bivalve crop as offering them a way to make a living in places they love, even as other ocean harvests disappear because of climate change, overfishing, and, for some species such as clams, competition from invasive species like green crabs. Oyster aquaculture offers much potential as a growing and sustainable source of high-quality protein that actually improves the environment that the shellfish grow in. And it’s attractive to many animal-rights proponents because shellfish are about as close to vegetables as animals can get.

“When the survival of your family is tied to the natural world, sustainability isn’t a marketing ploy. It is a lifeline you grasp with both hands.

-- Monique Coombs, Maine Coast Fishermen's Association

The oyster farmers in this book display great pluck and the willingness to do hard research, to experiment with new equipment, harvesting methods, locations and hatchery technology, and to take big risks. Again and again, they show the resilience to bounce back from set backs, most of which are caused by forces outside their control.

So it became a story about how people of different backgrounds came together and, over five decades, created a thriving new industry, which now produces what many think are the world’s best oysters. The center of the industry is the Damariscotta River, whose clean, nutrient-rich water is ideal for growing shellfish. 

 By mid-century, the oyster stocks on the Atlantic Seaboard had crashed and were becoming a fond memory. However, during the 1970s, Rutgers University and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science created, through selective breeding, a disease-resistant oyster at Rutgers’s Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory, in Port Norris, N.J. 

 In the mid-to-late ‘90s Bill Mook, of Mook Sea Farm, began introducing that variety into his hatchery, in Walpole, Maine, on the Damariscotta River.

The central story of the Pine Tree State’s oysters begins on the Damariscotta River, which is really mostly an estuary and which for millennia has been a superb source of oysters. The Wabanaki Indians left huge piles (aka “middens’’) of oyster shells, some as high as 30 feet,  that can still be seen on the banks of the Damariscotta.  It might be the best environment in which to grow oysters on the planet.