March 4, 2026 — I grew up fishing these waters down here just like everyone down in Shell Beach,” says Brad Robin, whose family has lived here for generations. “We never had a bike ride in the streets. We had a pirogue battle in the canals,” he says, referring to the lightweight canoes used to navigate the marshlands here.
Like many of those who live in and around Shell Beach, a small fishing community 30 miles southeast of New Orleans, Robin’s ancestors were immigrants from the Canary Islands. Between 1778 and 1783, an estimated 2,000 Canary Islanders arrived in New Orleans, receiving land, a home, and a monthly stipend from Spain. Over time, these immigrants settled in the coastal towns of St. Bernard Parish, including Shell Beach, where they developed their own cultural identity as “Isleños.”
For over 200 years, the Isleños have provided for themselves by catching shrimp, fish, and oysters in the coastal wetlands of southeast Louisiana, passing their vocation on to their descendants and creating a way of life that follows the ever-changing tides of the Gulf of Mexico. “The natural environment has shaped the cultural heritage and legacy of everyone who’s here,” says St. Bernard Parish historian and 11th-generation Isleño William Hyland.
Isleño culture is defined by a spirit of reciprocity, one that extends to the kitchen, where families spend hours transforming daily seafood catches into traditional communal meals. Some favorite dishes: Besugo al Horno (baked red snapper with potatoes), Stuffed Mirlitons (chayote squash filled with crabmeat) and Gambas al Ajillo (garlic shrimp).