Unique Yankee of Maine Inn - Damariscotta Oyster Story

Oysters From the Damariscotta

By Janice Lindsay

They're Unique, They're plentiful, and they're an intrinsic part of life in, and along this pristine estuary.

People who love oysters will appreciate the way enthusiasts describe the unique Damariscotta River oyster: plump, tangy, a little salty, with a sweet aftertaste, and a robust shell that makes it easy to shuck.
Even people who don’t love oysters can appreciate the quiet, clean, oyster farming industry, which fits in so well with all the many ways people use the beautiful Damariscotta.
  We all call the Damariscotta a river, but it’s actually an estuary, a waterway where ocean tides mingle with a river’s current. Oysters love estuaries, and this one is ideal: clean water; water temperatures in the 70s for summer growing, in the 40s for winter hibernating; and a steady, plentiful flow of phytoplankton (microscopic plants) for their all-natural diet.
  Oysters raised for commercial distribution spend their adult lives on 97 underwater acres between the mouth of the Damariscotta and the Newcastle/Damariscotta bridge.
  They’re tended by about 50 employees of 11 companies, who lease the sites from the state to farm Eastern Oysters (or, technically, Crassostrea virginica). These are shipped to customers and wholesalers throughout North America.
Damariscotta River oyster: plump, tangy, a little salty, with a sweet aftertaste, and a robust shell that makes it easy to shuck.
  Even people who don’t love oysters can appreciate the quiet, clean, oyster farming industry, which fits in so well with all the many ways people use the beautiful Damariscotta.
  We all call the Damariscotta a river, but it’s actually an estuary, a waterway where ocean tides mingle with a river’s current. Oysters love estuaries, and this one is ideal: clean water; water temperatures in the 70s for summer growing, in the 40s for winter hibernating; and a steady, plentiful flow of phytoplankton (microscopic plants) for their all-natural diet.
  Oysters raised for commercial distribution spend their adult lives on 97 underwater acres between the mouth of the Damariscotta and the Newcastle/Damariscotta bridge.
  They’re tended by about 50 employees of 11 companies, who lease the sites from the state to farm Eastern Oysters (or, technically, Crassostrea virginica). These are shipped to customers and wholesalers throughout North America.

  Last year, Maine’s oyster farmers shipped about four million oysters. A majority of those were from the Damariscotta, where about two additional acres are leased for private and educational oyster farms.
  Although Maine’s oysters farmers usually don’t ship directly overseas (too expensive, for one reason), that doesn’t mean foreign oyster-lovers never get to try them.
  “Someone e-mailed me from Australia saying he loved our oysters that he had eaten at an oyster festival in Sydney,” said Barbara Scully, owner of Glidden Point Oyster Sea Farm in Edgecomb. “Another time, visitors who were attending a wedding in Maine stopped to tell me they had eaten our oysters in Hawaii.”
  Last year, Scully harvested and sold 72.6 tons of oysters.
  Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association, takes a family vacation in France every few years, and visits oyster growers there. “People in France would love to be able to buy Damariscotta River oysters,” he says. “We’ve met growers who know immediately where we’re from. They visit Maine and enjoy the oysters.”
  If oysters could understand the concept of “pleasant,” they would probably agree that their life is pleasant in the Damariscotta estuary.

Three of the local oyster farms -- Muscongus Bay Aquaculture, Pemaquid Oyster Company, and Mook Sea Farms -- run hatcheries and provide “seed” for themselves and others.

The tiny oysters, which resemble grains of sand, generally spend their first spring in upwellers, long rafts designed to circulate the tidal waters among the growing babies.
  When they’re big enough -- a little under half an inch in length -- they’re moved to nursery bags, mesh bags that float, where they spend the summer months eating. In the fall or early winter, when they’ve reach the size of inch or so , they’re placed on the bottom of the river -- usually dropped from a boat.The oysters then attach themselves to the bottom of the river.
  They hibernate in the winter, normally spawn as the water grows warm, and by September, the first month with an “R” in it, they’re at their succulent best.
  (Contrary to traditional belief, they’re tasty and safe to eat in the no-R months, but they grow sweeter as water temperatures begin to cool.)
  It takes about two and a half years to grow a perfect Damariscotta River oyster. Oysters are usually harvested by farmers using small draggers, and sometimes by hand with SCUBA divers.

Oysters once grew wild in the estuary. Discarded oyster shells found at Dodge Point have been dated to 5,000 years ago. The middens (piles of shells) in Newcastle and Damariscotta are probably 2,000 years old.
No one knows why the wild oysters disappeared -- perhaps over-fishing, or a slight cooling in water temperature, or runoff from saw mills, shipyards, and brick-making operations that once dotted the shorelines. But in the last few decades, communities along the estuary have been working to clean up the river, which is now safe for a variety of creatures, including people. Companies have been farming oysters here for about 20 years.
And wild oysters are back. Whether these are from wild spawn, or spawn from the lease sites, no one can tell. But there they are, clinging to rocks and safe to eat.

By doing what comes naturally -- processing phytoplankton -- oysters act as a filter to help keep the river clean, according to Dana Morse, extension associate for the Maine Sea Grant Program and the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.

“The Damariscotta is a well-used river -- for commercial and recreational fishing, divers, draggers, clam-diggers, sail boaters, and birdwatchers. Oyster farming is a use among the others,” Morse said. “Aquaculture is sometimes in the news as being new and intrusive, but that’s not the case here. It has grown up with the other uses. Sometimes conflicts arise, which is natural, but oyster farming exists in harmony with the many other uses people have for the river.”
On Sun., Sept. 30 oyster-lovers and river-lovers will celebrate marine conservation, the working waterfront, and the oysters themselves, at the 7th annual Pemaquid Oyster Festival in Damariscotta.
Held at Schooner Landing Restaurant and Marina on Main Street, the festival will feature entertainment, exhibits, and food, including thousands of oysters fresh from the river.

Chris Davis, who originated the festival, is co-owner of Pemaquid Oyster Company. His company provides the oysters for the event and is a major sponsor among many other local businesses who help cover expenses.
  Proceeds from the festival support the Edward A. Myers Marine Conservation Fund. Myers, says Davis, was the father of Maine aquaculture. He farmed mussels on the lower Damariscotta for 30 years, and was a strong environmentalist who also believed in working waterfronts. When Myers died a few years ago, friends started the fund in his name to support marine and aquaculture education and research.
  “We schedule the festival for late in the season because that’s when the oysters are prime,” says Davis. Last year, festival-goers consumed more than 8,000 oysters.
  “This year we’ll have 12,000 oysters on hand,” Davis said with a smile, “And we don’t want to take any of them home.”
  (Special thanks to Schooner Landing, Pemaquid Oyster Co., and Glidden Point Oyster Company for their contributions to the photography in this article and on the cover.)

Top Photo: Pete Smith of the Pemaquid Oyster Co. tends to oysters in wire mesh floats at their oyster farm on the Damariscotta River. (Special thanks to Jim "The Silver Surfer" Morkeski who piloted the photo boat.)

Top of Page