August 16, 2021 — It’s not yet 5 a.m., and the landing at the Spruce Head Fishermen’s Co-op is shrouded in predawn fog that obscures the waters beyond. It’s time to go to work, and Virginia Oliver and her son Max approach the dock in the dark in a 30-foot lobster boat.
They tie up under the stark, mist-speckled glare from an overhead light. Bait is brought aboard, equipment adjusted, and Max peers into the gloom as he eases the boat into Penobscot Bay.
In the world of Maine lobstering, it’s a scene that is repeated countless times up and down the state’s rugged coast. But here’s the difference: No other boat has a 101-year-old lobsterwoman aboard, and a fully working one at that.
“I grew up with this,” said Virginia Oliver, a Rockland woman who began lobstering when she was 8, just before the Great Depression. “It’s not hard work for me. It might be for somebody else, but not me.”
Oliver moved deliberately but confidently about the boat, which is named Virginia, for her. She smiled and laughed readily, walked with only a slight stoop, and bent to her work with no-nonsense attention to detail and not a word of complaint.
The fog began to burn off shortly before 7 a.m., and the Olivers pointed out landmarks that have been embedded in family lore for well over a century. Fat seals lay perched on seaweed-covered rocks. Max pointed out a “sweet spot” for lobstering among the many small, rocky islands.
His mother came to work this day with a bit of makeup on her face, her blue eyes and a pair of small earrings twinkling in the hazy dawn.