Lobsters are most abundant off the coasts of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Maine. They’re harvested and processed in the three Maritime provinces, Newfoundland and Quebec. Landings peak twice a year, once from April to June, when the spring season opens, and again in December, after the winter fishery starts in southwestern Nova Scotia.

Atlantic Canada’s staggered fishing seasons are designed to protect the stock, and the waters are divided into 41 lobster fishing areas, each with its own season varying in length from eight weeks to eight months. This seasonal effort is complemented by new and innovative holding and processing techniques. Most of the lobster fishery takes place fairly close to shore, but a few vessels fish the deep basins and outer banks off southwestern Nova Scotia. Five provinces participate in the catch, with Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island accounting for 90 per cent of lobster landings and Quebec and Newfoundland making up the remaining 10 per cent. Currently, there are about 9,000 licensed lobster fishermen, of which nearly 3,000 are in Nova Scotia.

Licensed lobster fishermen-usually a captain and two or three crew members-set their traps from small boats, heading out on the water in the early hours of the morning and staying out for up to 12 hours. The brightly coloured buoys mark the areas where they leave their traps. They return several hours later to haul up the wooden-frame or plastic-coated steel-mesh traps from the sea floor.

In Prince Edward Island, lobster has been the mainstay of the economy since the fishery began in the mid-1870s, although it almost died in its infancy. In the mid-1880s-only 10 years after the boom began-over-fishing drove the stocks to dangerously low levels, and the fishery faced ruin. It was saved by a combination of regulation, co-operation and luck.

Commercial canning helped the lobster fishery flourish in all parts of the Maritimes. The first known cannery opened on Prince Edward Island in 1858. Within 25 years, thanks to the lobster fishery, the number of Island canneries had risen to more than 100, and the lobster fishery accounted for 25 per cent of the province’s income. Without canning, the lobster would never have found its way to lucrative markets in Great Britain and the United States, where it was considered a delicacy.