Kathryn Moore repairs a rope, while Annie Featherstone tosses a lobster into the sea aboard the Nellie Row. Captain Gail Atkinson and deckhand Gina Peters round out the all-female crew of the lobster boat.Photography by Meagan Hancock/The Globe and Mail
More below • The state of Canada’s lobster industry, in charts
The Nellie Row was making her return to Lunenburg, N.S., after a long night at sea, loaded with another haul of lobster, when captain Gail Atkinson lost sight of one of her crew members.
When that happens, a fisherman’s mind instantly goes to dark places – out here, off the southern coast of Nova Scotia, a novice deckhand can easily be knocked off their feet, swept overboard and swallowed up by the endless black sea. Ms. Atkinson, skipper of Canada’s first all-female lobster crew, didn’t know her new employee had just gone up on top of the boat’s wheelhouse to get the docking lines ready.
“I just freaked out and lost my mind,” she said. “On my boat, I need to know where everyone is at all times. I told her, ‘I’m 57 years old. You almost killed me right now.’”
Ms. Atkinson, at right with Ms. Featherstone, is wary of the risk lobster fishers are taking to cash in on higher prices.
Commercial fishing has always been dangerous work, and the people who earn a living on the ocean need little reminder of that. In Lunenburg, a memorial near the town’s historic waterfront lists the names of more than 600 fishermen – the preferred term for both women and men in the industry – who have lost their lives at sea since 1890.
As a trailblazer in an industry still dominated by men, Ms. Atkinson is changing old stereotypes about lobster fishermen as saltwater cowboys who regularly risk their lives for their prized catch. On the Nellie Row, she has strict rules for moving around on the deck, always monitoring her crew on cameras – and even wants them to let her know when they’re going on bathrooms breaks.
But Ms. Atkinson says Atlantic Canada’s lobster fishermen are also under increased pressure to push themselves to the limit and cash in on unprecedented demand for the lucrative seafood. Canadian lobster exports topped $3.2-billion last year, a historic record and a $700-million increase over prepandemic levels, according to new trade data.
Prices are soaring at a time of record harvests. Canadian inshore fishermen caught an estimated 103,087 tonnes of lobster in 2021, according to the Lobster Council of Canada – a new industry peak that’s more than twice the amount landed just 15 years ago.
Historically high prices are motivating some fishermen to take bigger risks, Ms. Atkinson said. They’re going out to sea longer, in rougher weather and on little sleep. That financial incentive, and the growing debt loads for many new fishermen who are buying increasingly expensive licences and boats, is also hurting efforts by the federal government and fishing associations to improve safety and training in the industry.
“I feel like we’re taking bigger and bigger risks,” Ms. Atkinson said. “We’re putting ourselves out there way more than our grandfathers and fathers would have ever done. We’re going harder and harder, for the money.”
The price of lobster has rebounded dramatically, as global demand has soared in recent months as the pandemic ebbs, particularly among U.S. retailers buying frozen lobster products. Harvesters along Nova Scotia’s South Shore who were paid $7 a pound two years ago by seafood wholesale buyers are getting $17 a pound or more this spring, Ms. Atkinson said. “I tried to bank on this insane situation. But I never could have foreseen these prices,” she said.
Ms. Atkinson heads out for another day on the water in Lunenburg.
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Work in the commercial fisheries remains one of the most dangerous jobs there is. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada says there were around 45 fishing-related fatalities in the country between 2018 and 2020, the worst three-year period in two decades. There is roughly one death in the fishing sector, on average, nearly every month – fatalities that often go unpublicized.
A Globe and Mail investigation in 2017 revealed that being a deckhand is 14 times more deadly than being a police officer, yet this hazardous job receives a fraction of the attention. While fishing is a relatively small sector, accounting for less than half of one per cent of the Canadian work force, it is responsible for a disproportionate share of on-the-job deaths.
Matthew Duffy, executive director of Fish Safe NS, an industry association that promotes safety training for the commercial fishing sector, says financial stress is a factor for a lot of fishermen who make riskier decisions. It can cost a fisherman more than $1-million to buy a lobster licence and a boat, he said, debt that can put pressure on some to go out fishing on days when it’s not advisable.
“When we’re looking at record-high prices, there are circumstances where some folks will push the envelope more than they would in the past,” he said. “For someone who’s 27, 30 years old, that’s a lot of financial stress to take on. And the way you pay it off is hoping there’s something in your traps.”
But he insists the safety culture is changing within the industry. Young fishermen don’t question wearing life jackets in the way older generations used to, he said. Workers’ compensation claims for injuries have also been dropping among fish harvesters in recent years, proof he says that training and improved protocols are working.
“We really don’t face any resistance any more when it comes to talking about safety,” Mr. Duffy said. “It’s still a fine balance. But we need people to understand the risks when they decide to go out in bad weather. It’s not just the loss of a catch, it could be the loss of life.”
Ms. Atkinson knows that danger will always remain an inherent part of the job and feels personally responsible for the safety of the women who work for her.
Two days before she spoke with The Globe, a fisherman had died of hypothermia after a boat he was working on sank in the unforgiving waters off eastern Nova Scotia. The man had spent five hours in the water before he was found by the Coast Guard, and died despite wearing an immersion suit designed to keep him afloat and protect against the cold.
“A captain’s worst nightmare is to lose someone at sea,” she said. “The burden of someone else’s life is huge. From the time I get in my car and drive to the wharf, that burden is always on my head.”
As she works to change the culture around safety in her industry, she’s also helping to change the kind of people attracted to the job. One in five workers in the fishery are now women, based on income tax data, and Ms. Atkinson says she is seeing more women entering the sector all the time. More than half of those women, nearly 58 per cent, are self-employed.
In order for the industry’s gender balance to change, more women still need to see people like her doing work that for generations was associated with rugged, seagoing men, she said. She shares the Nellie Row’s story on social media, and poses for photos with tourists’ daughters, including some who say they’ve never seen a female lobster boat captain before.
“Fishermen’s wives are no longer packing their husband’s lunches. They’re actually out there, going fishing,” she said. “I’ve seen what women can do on the water, but too often in the commercial fishery, they’ve been put on the sidelines.”
Ms. Atkinson navigates the Nellie Row, named after a grandmother who worked in boatbuilding.
Ms. Atkinson grew up in Cape Sable Island, N.S., “tied to the tide,” as she likes to say. But when she was a young girl, women didn’t work on boats. They stayed on shore and played supporting roles, tending to gear and nets. Since her father hired her to join his tuna fishing crew in 1993, she has started seeing more women take on bigger and bigger jobs in the industry.
In 2015, she “begged and borrowed” enough money to buy her own boat and lobster licence. She called the red-hulled vessel the Nellie Row, in honour of her grandmother, a pioneering boat builder on Cape Sable.
“I knew I’d found a place for myself, where I felt at home,” she said. “I just fell in love with it.”
Four years later, she assembled what’s believed to be the first all-female commercial fishing crew in the country. Today, she still plies the waters off Nova South’s South Shore with her wife and business partner, Kathryn Moore, first mate Annie Featherstone and deckhand Gina Peters.
With each venture out to sea, Ms. Atkinson said, she’s proving something to herself, and to those people who believe a woman’s place is on the shore.
“Women have to believe they can do the job. Some of them may think fishing is some kind of magical thing, but it’s not. If you’re smart about it, and you really want it, you can do it,” she said. “We’re showing these guys that women can do this work, too. And it means everything to me.”
The state of Canada’s lobster industry, in charts
Proportion of women in commercial fishing
Commercial fish harvesters and crew in the Atlantic region, 2019
Male
Female
78.9%
21.1%
57.9%
42.1%
Self-employed
Wage-earners
SOURCE: Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Total Canadian domestic exports of lobster
In billions of dollars
$3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
SOURCE: STATSCAN DATA RETRIEVED FROM AFC
Canada inshore lobster landings
In thousands of tonnes
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
2016
2018
2020
SOURCE: LOBSTER COUNCIL OF CANADA
American lobster
Head
Thorax
Homarus americanus
Abdomen
Crusher
claw
About: Large, hard-shelled
crustacean found in northwest
Atlantic waters. Can live up
to 50 years
Tail fin
Habitat: Ocean bottom, in
rocky areas where it can hide
Swimmerets
Walking legs
Diet: Varied selection of
mollusks, crabs, shrimp and
small fish
Pincer claw
Up to: 60cm
the globe and mail, SOURCE: noaa; parl.ns.ca;
tastelobster.ca
Proportion of women in commercial fishing
Commercial fish harvesters and crew in the Atlantic region, 2019
Male
Female
78.9%
21.1%
57.9%
42.1%
Self-employed
Wage-earners
SOURCE: Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Total Canadian domestic exports of lobster
In billions of dollars
$3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
SOURCE: STATSCAN DATA RETRIEVED FROM AFC
Canada inshore lobster landings
In thousands of tonnes
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
2016
2018
2020
SOURCE: LOBSTER COUNCIL OF CANADA
American lobster
Head
Thorax
Homarus americanus
Abdomen
Crusher
claw
About: Large, hard-shelled
crustacean found in northwest
Atlantic waters. Can live up
to 50 years
Tail fin
Habitat: Ocean bottom, in
rocky areas where it can hide
Swimmerets
Walking legs
Diet: Varied selection of
mollusks, crabs, shrimp and
small fish
Pincer claw
Up to: 60cm
the globe and mail, SOURCE: noaa; parl.ns.ca;
tastelobster.ca
Proportion of women in commercial fishing
Commercial fish harvesters and crew in the Atlantic region, 2019
Male
Female
78.9%
21.1%
57.9%
42.1%
Self-employed
Wage-earners
SOURCE: Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Total Canadian domestic exports of lobster
In billions of dollars
$3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
SOURCE: STATSCAN DATA RETRIEVED FROM AFC
Canada inshore lobster landings
In thousands of tonnes
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
2016
2018
2020
SOURCE: LOBSTER COUNCIL OF CANADA
American lobster
Head
Thorax
Homarus americanus
Abdomen
Crusher
claw
About: Large, hard-shelled
crustacean found in northwest
Atlantic waters. Can live up
to 50 years
Tail fin
Habitat: Ocean bottom, in
rocky areas where it can hide
Swimmerets
Diet: Varied selection of
mollusks, crabs, shrimp and
small fish
Walking legs
Pincer claw
Up to: 60cm
the globe and mail, SOURCE: noaa; parl.ns.ca tastelobster.ca
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Greg Mercer