Alwives

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THE ALEWIFE AND DAMARISCOTTA MILLS

Known by many other names – sawbelly, wall-eyed herring, big-eyed herring, spring herring, ellwife, buckie, and cat-thrasher – the alewife has long been seen as an important natural resource.  The name “Damariscotta” derives from a Native American word meaning “place of an abundance of alewives,” a testimony to the significance of the annual migration in this area since prehistoric times.

Since 1741, legislation has protected the alewives’ access to their spawning grounds in the freshwater streams and lakes all over what is now the East Coast of the United States.  Locally, legislation was passed in 1807 appointing a three person committee from the towns of Nobleboro and Newcastle, to keep a passage open between the Damariscotta River and the New River Stream for use by the alewives on their annual inland run from the ocean to their fresh water spawning grounds in Damariscotta Lake.  Legislation was even passed which guaranteed a portion of the catch to widows and the poor in the towns of Nobleboro and Newcastle.  Certainly, the alewife run is an important part of the historical and cultural heritage of the Damariscotta region.

Beginning in the early 1800s, the alewives had been harvested each year with hand nets and a thriving enterprise developed of catching and either smoking or pickling them for year-round consumption both locally and around the world.  To increase the harvest, in the late 1940s, Nelson Hancock built the mechanical dippers with electric hoists which still stand at the base of the fish ladder.  With the decline in demand for use as food for either humans or pets in recent years, most of the alewives caught are used as lobster bait.  Since 1950, the catch has continuously dwindled, from 18,000 bushels to just 303 bushels caught in 1992.  Alarmed by the drop in the alewife population, the towns of Nobleboro and Newcastle legislated an eight year moratorium on catching or disturbing the alewives in any way during their inland spawning run each spring.  The moratorium helped increase the fish to healthier populations today. 

THE FISH LADDER

Construction of the original fishway (“…the passage between the Damariscotta River and the New River Stream for use by the alewives…”) was begun in 1807 by John Perkins and Ephraim Rollins.  Since then, the fish ladder has evolved to its present configuration.  Over time, many of the rocks that make up the walls of the fish ladder had either fallen into the resting pools or partially blocked the flow of water.  In other places, leaks had developed in the walls, which confuse the fish, who need a single, strong current to swim against.

To help make the 42 foot vertical ascent from the Great Salt Bay to Damariscotta Lake as easy as possible for the alewives, members of the Friends of the Alewives, Damariscotta Lake Watershed Association and the Damariscotta River Association joined together to restore the fish ladder.  With local donations of time, talent, and money, and with the encouragement and generous financial support of prominent naturalist and author John Hay, a summer resident of Bremen, work on restoring the fish ladder began in the fall of 1995.

Historical information was used to restore sections of the fish ladder as close as possible to their former configurations.  A local stone mason, Charlie Hyson, used the original stones to rebuild the resting pool walls.  Just as was done when the original fish ladder was built, Mr. Hyson set the first course of stone in gray clay to provide to a solid footing for the walls.  Several of the resting pools were dug out to provide deeper, larger places for the alewives to rest as they make their way to the Lake.  The leaks were plugged using Gunnite (the same sticky cement material used to make inground swimming pools for humans).

The majority of the restoration has been completed; however, each spring repairs must be made to continue to provide a safe, easily navigated passage for the alewives to use on their journey from the ocean to their final destination on Damariscotta Lake.

THE ALEWIFE…

(Alosa pseudoharengus)

The alewife belongs to the same family as the herring and shad.  They are anadromous, that is, they grow in salt water, but spawn (reproduce) in fresh water.  They are 10 to 12 inches in length, and the female is slightly larger than the male.  Males are identified by their lighter color.

The alewife spends most of its life in the ocean, in large schools, some of which number in the hundreds of thousands.  Although hard to prove, it is believed that most alewives stay in coastal waters near the fresh waters where they were hatched; some are found at great distances from shore, at great depths.  The alewife feeds primarily on plankton, although it will sometimes eat shrimp, small fish or young eels.  It possesses no teeth; particle of food are strained through gill rakers – hairlike growths – located on its gill arches, on which its gills are also attached.  The gill rakes acts like a filter or sieve to catch the minute plankton, which it then swallows. 

No one knows exactly how the alewives “know” which stream or river to swim up to return to the fresh water pond or lake in which they were born.  Many theories exist, each attributing special abilities to the alewife to detect currents, pressures, salinity, or position (by using the sun to navigate).  No evidence of special sensory organs has been discovered, nor has any theory provided an adequate explanation.  What is known, is at the sexual maturity, at 3-4 years, some new force drives the alewives to return to the place of their birth in mid-spring to spawn. 

CONTACTS

• Dale Wright: Representative for the Towns of Nobleboro and Newcastle,

563-8921

• Al Railsback: Damariscotta Lake Watershed Assoc., 549-3836
• Mark DesMeules: Damariscotta River Assoc., 563-1393
• Russ Williams:  Neighbor, 563-5992
• Julie Isbill:  National Park Service, 725-5028

LINKS AND OTHER RESOURCES

©2002 Damariscotta Lake Watershed Association
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