♪ Ring the midnight bells at noon ♪ ♪ Baby I will be there soon ♪ ♪ The wind it sings a brand new tune ♪ ♪ For you ♪ ♪ For you ♪ ♪ Now the sun comes up ♪ ♪ From across the sound ♪ ♪ And the boats head off ♪ ♪ To the oyster grounds ♪ ♪ Ring the midnight bells at noon ♪ (indistinct chatter) - Oh, thank you for your help.

- Whooo!

Oyster Fest 2021, baby!

- It's just that they bring you such a connection to the sea.

It's that oyster when it, when it's harvested, a week later that shell is still closed, the animal's alive, and it's still living in that same water that it was harvested from.

So if it's coming from as far away from Florida or Canada, you are transporting that part of the world right to where you're eating it at that time.

- They're the ultimate fast food.

You know, they really are.

They, they come in their own package.

You know, you, you keep 'em cold.

They're, you know, they're, they're just perfect.

Yep.

- [Narrator] The southern New England coastline is heaven for oyster lovers and for the people who harvest the bivalves from the sea.

The protected Long Island Sound, the fresh flowing rivers, and the broad estuaries provide nearly ideal conditions for oysters to grow and multiply.

- Oystering is so important to Connecticut, both historically, and now.

It's part of our maritime heritage.

For many people, it's part of their culture and tradition.

We gather buckets of oysters.

It's just a really exciting part of who we are.

- [Narrator] People in Connecticut take oysters seriously.

Many love to eat them.

Restaurants and bars love to serve them.

And politicians love to brag about them.

- I love oystering because it's a feeling of freedom every morning.

When you leave the dock, you untie, you're floating.

You're, you're making your own way out there.

I just, I think it's the freedom of the job.

When you come upon a bed of shellfish, clams or oysters that you weren't expecting to find, those are the best days you could ever have on the water, I think.

- I like the boats and I like the fresh air and the water.

I don't like storms.

I like, I like water it's like, just a foot high.

- [Narrator] Oyster people love the oystering life, but it's not easy.

It brings hard labor, harsh winter conditions, storms, long days on the water.

And for the crew, in slack times, the paychecks can be skimpy.

There's a long history of oystering on the coast.

Before the arrival of the Europeans, oysters were a major source of sustenance for native Americans.

Evidence of oyster harvesting by them goes back at least 12,000 years.

- They actually collected by hand, or used simple tools, you know, like a, a wooden rake.

Not only did they eat them fresh, they put them in stews and soups and stuff, but they also dried them, and smoked them.

So they could have them during the starvation times which are late winter, early spring where there's very little fresh food around.

Oysters, oyster shells particularly, had more than an economic significance for native people.

There was a spiritual connection as well.

In fact, the, the characteristics of shells, in general, white, shiny, sometimes translucent, were metaphors for spiritual and social well-being.

- [Narrator] Settlers from Europe relied on oysters too.

They learned how to harvest them from the native Americans.

Small villages dedicated to oystering developed along the coast and the industry thrived in New Haven's Fair Haven and City Point, and in Norwalk, Stratford, Milford, and Mystic.

- So in the late 19th century, the oyster business boomed in Connecticut and Fair Haven, and Connecticut became central to the world for oystering.

The growth of the oyster industry in New Haven in the 19th century, coincided with technology, population growth, and the idea that the city itself was, was really a burgeoning place.

Really, really booming in a way that we don't, we can't quite comprehend.

And an instrumental person in that was H.C. Rowe.

H.C. Rowe was a man of his time, a man at the right place, kind of ruthless.

And, you know, someone who saw the big picture.

- Rowe was in the great tradition of business giants of his era.

He was a huge risk taker at a time when no one was planting in the deep waters of the Long Island Sound, it was regarded to be untenable, he started proving that you could, in fact, propagate oysters in the deep water and boy, he made it work and, and he then followed up by engaging in the purchase of steam powered dredges, which itself was a transformative part of the industry.

At one point, of the four largest oyster steam dredges in the world, Henry C. Rowe owned three of them.

- So in the early 20th century, the oyster industry went from being the largest in the world, and, and a leader, to declining rapidly.

There were several factors involved with this.

There's a growing city, massive industrial growth, the, the revolution behind it and zero environmental regulations meant you had filthy waterways.

You had filthy rivers, filthy harbors.

- The land and the water, at one point, had an enormous mutual prominence in America.

The water was understood to be a major source of transportation and a major source of food, but as urban America developed, and as our, all the progress enabled transportation to get food much further distances, much more quickly, we really began to start looking away from the water.

- The business itself just dropped.

The traditions changed and it, it almost disappeared by the mid-20th century - [Narrator] Over time, new environmental protections, controls on harvests, and restoration efforts, led to a revitalization of the industry.

- When we very first started, my uncle broke us in, it was in '73, that was gonna be a real good set he saw, in the river here, and he'd come out with us and show us how to throw the dredge, feel the, feel how it was tendin' bottom by holding the line with your hand when you first put it in, see if it was floatin' or grabbin'.

You catch the best when you're towing into the current in this river.

When the current's runnin' out, you tow into it.

We would use a hand line that at that particular time back then we didn't have those winders yet.

Well, once we got to, got the dredge to tend right, and we were hauling up the oysters, we had what they call a, a culling board so that we would dump the dredge if we could on the, on the culling board.

Or if we dumped it right in the boat then we'd shovel it up on the culling board.

And we'd pick out the oysters and push over the shell.

There'd be a bunch of boats that would come in at the same time years ago, and we'd help each other unload.

Well, the wintertime could ice, the river could ice over quite a bit, depending on how much snow we got, and ice, and how cold it got.

When we first started doing this we didn't have rubber gloves.

So we'd had to use canvas gloves, and we'd put Vaseline on our hands before he put the glove on.

Well, with my uncle's times, they used to have somebody called Oblagobla.

And they called him that because, a lot of times, they couldn't understand what he was sayin'.

(laughs) One time, my uncle called his house, true story, and they were good friends.

He says, so could I talk, I wanna talk to Oblagobla.

And she gives the guy's real name.

And my uncle says, no, I don't want talk to him, I wanna talk, he, I don't think he knew his real name, I wanna talk to Oblagobla.

She hung up on him.

- My father and uncle, they learned from a lot of the old timers and they, they had a vision.

They knew it would come back.

So in the late sixties, seventies, they started sailing you know, Bridgeport beds, catching oysters, sellin' 'em to the oystermen.

And then as they started buying up all these companies, and they put together a company called Tallmadge Brothers, and they turned it into a fairly large company.

- [Narrator] In 1973, a fire ripped through the Blooms' complex in Norwalk.

Employees took the lead in fighting the fire.

- Started Norm Bloom & Sons, probably around '94.

Small boat, started workin', my son, Jimmy, he was probably around 10 years old, he was workin' with me.

And a couple guys, and we started buildin' Norm Bloom & Sons, which we ended up building that where we had like eight boats and, and around 2001, and then that's when we started getting really big.

That's when we got the bigger boats.

And we got a bigger chunk of grounds and that's when we really started to, to take off.

- Yeah, I was practically born on the water.

I moved out to the Thimbles when I was four years old.

I guess, in many ways, that was the start of all this.

As a child I got into oystering mainly because the oyster industry, or the oyster business in town, E.S.

Ball & Company was, was still active, And I used to sit and watch these boats in, working in the, behind the island.

The oyster business had been here in the Thimbles for, since the 1700s.

You know, it was, it was a historic venture, and that interested me on another level that I was restoring and keeping alive a business that had been here for, you know, a couple hundred years.

Started in a, in a small scow, 24-foot scow that I built.

I guess we, I guess the biggest year we had was something like 15,000 bushel.

I had three boats working, there were three crews.

- [Narrator] Along the shoreline, oyster people have begun lifting their buildings ahead of climate change-caused sea level rise.

Jonathan Waters and his daughter, Emily, raised their shop 18 inches.

- So now that we've taken the floor out, you can see where the water has come up and you can kind of see that some of the high tide lines, so where these reeds are, there's sort of a couple lines of them, these are more recent high tides that we've had, which, you know, reinforces, that's not very far below the existing floor.

And so by raising it, hopefully, we're able to stave this off a little bit.

- By raising this building up 18 inches, we will be pretty much, with sea level rise, in 2050, we should, we should be pretty much about where we are right now.

Okay.

So that's, that'll work.

(indistinct conversation) - What a terrifying noise.

- It's probably at least a hundred years old.

I mean, at least.

You gotta remember that, you know, it wasn't that long ago that this, this area, Stony Creek and Peninsula, you know, it was it was quarrying, oysters, some fishing and farming.

Change, really, was sort of slow to come here, but it's been accelerating recently.

- [Narrator] In the early days, the European Americans harvested oysters from dugout canoes.

But eventually, craftsmen in new Haven began building sharpies, flat-bottomed sailboats that got into shallow water and held a lot of oysters.

- The sharpie is a long, skinny, and, most importantly, very shallow draft boat.

It can get to the grounds very easily where the oysters grow and in, in shallower water.

Using a biology analogy, a sharpie is a crustacean.

It has no skeleton.

Which makes it immensely easier to build.

All you're doing is building the shell, and then you're done.

- [Narrator] Jonathan and friends are restoring the Tiger, a weather-beaten, sandbagger sloop, which was modeled on boats used for oystering in the 19th century.

- The Tiger is a historic, sailing, oyster boat whose design is from the 1870s.

There are very few of these boats left.

I think that it's important to keep this in front of people's faces, because it's a large part of our history here.

You know, I think it's important to keep that present in people's consciousness.

- [Narrator] Jonathan has built all or part of several boats, including the Merlin, his current oyster boat, and the Emily, which he named after his daughter.

He does the work at his dock in Stony Creek.

- When I first got started, I ran a Brockway scow, and he was, he was notorious along the coast as a boat builder.

He just used AC plywood, knocked these things together with roofing tar and nails.

Earl was a bit of a character.

He had patches of roofing tar stuck to his bald head, He had on a blue terrycloth bathrobe, no shirt, pair of jeans, and two different kinds of shoes on.

In order to move the scow, he backed his old Cadillac up against the, this tall oak tree that was in the center of his yard, hooked up the, the cable to the rear bumper, ran the cable back over to the scow, hooked it up, and then proceeded to drag the scow through all the other boats that were in front of it.

- [Narrator] Norman Bloom pulls all of his wooden boats out of the water each August for repairs and maintenance.

A key element is caulking, using traditional methods and materials.

- What we do when we caulk a boat, well we call it quirking, we put in cotton first, long strands of cotton.

You tuck 'em up, and make little loops.

You tuck it up, you put it in the seam you drive it in tight.

Now the cotton is what really stops the leaks.

You put oakum on top of the cotton to protect the cotton, so it doesn't wash outta the seam.

Then you put regular flat white paint, wait for that to dry, you put the seam compound in, and she's good to go.

You're gonna have pictures on vases of Venetians, for like about 4- to 6,000 years ago, and they're pokin' the seams the same way that we do now.

So, really, essentially hasn't changed in 4,000 years at least.

- [Narrator] Flanigan Brothers Boatyard is one of the last places on the east coast that still repairs wooden oyster boats.

- We specialize in wooden oyster boats.

I like wooden oyster boats, mostly because you can go at it with a sledgehammer.

And if you're a frustrated person, just come to work with me.

I'll hand you a hammer and you can beat on stuff all day long.

- [Narrator] Right now, Brian is restoring the Grace P. Lowndes, a 90-year-old oyster boat that operates along the Connecticut coast.

- Well, that boat there's got a little history with us.

I mean, my father ran it.

I ran the boat.

My son Jimmy was running it.

And, like I say, the boat was built here in Connecticut so it kind of means something to us.

We really wanna keep that going.

- So the, on the Grace P, we started out with replacing the ribs, but we got about halfway down and I had to hold up the cabin and replace what held up the poop deck.

And then we continued replacing ribs until we got to the back end.

Then I had to rebuild the back end, the stern, and now we're puttin' planks on.

When I get the planks back on, and the deck is all done, then we have to put the whole inside of the boat back together.

We have to put the, all the tanks back in that we took out, all the bulkheads back in all, the sealing back in.

Then we have to finish the cabin.

So it's been a big job.

I mean, it's been a pretty big job.

I've been working here 24 years, 23 years, and I think I'm the last one.

My kids aren't really into it.

I don't know.

I might have to find somebody to train up.

Pop says you have to grow your own help, but it hasn't worked out for me yet.

I haven't grown any that want to take over.

I don't think they're buildin' any more wooden oyster boats.

I've been being told my whole life it's the end of an era, but I'm still at work.

- Now, am I gonna be a fisherman the rest of my life?

You know, I'm really not sure.

I could be; I could be.

Now, I am, in a way, in love with this job, but it's kind of like a bad girlfriend.

And, you know, you kind of want to get away from her, but you love her.

Do I want to do something else?

I mean, there's a lot of things I want to do.

I, you know, I'm not educated but, but I know a lot of things, and there's a lot of things I would like to do.

It's, you know, money's always an obstacle.

The real, the reality is, is that, you know, I probably will end up be out here.

- So, traditionally, oyster farmers will put out cultch and collect wild set.

And so the purpose of the hatchery is to supplement that wild set.

So if, for some reason, we don't get a large natural set, we always have something reliable with hatchery seed.

So we bring in brood stock from our market products.

So we bring in the oysters with the best traits that we want to perpetuate into the next generation.

So it's all our algae, we got starter cultures from various different places, and, essentially, what you're doing is you're just perpetuating that culture.

They'll fill 'em with water, put the algae in, and then, essentially, give them all the things they need.

They need light, they need nutrients, they need water.

So they've got the water, we put lights behind them.

They're just small plants.

And we give them the nutrients they need and they will grow exponentially.

And when they're dark enough we'll feed them to the oysters - Really trying to set this up for, you know, the next 20 or 30 years.

And so that it'll, it'll continue after I, after I've gone.

I mean, there are lobster pots here, there is a railway, there's boats are being, are up.

There's a Viking boat being built by guys cutting it out of live oak.

You know, there're boats being restored.

There, you know, fishing is going on and off of the dock.

This shop and dock and the rail and the boats and the activity are iconic to this area and are very important to this area.

- My son, who is five, about to be six is taking an interest in the business.

He, he comes out with us on the boat and loves doin' it.

He loves bein' on the boat and doin' the work.

I, I hope he takes on the family business and, and follows in my family's footsteps.

I, I'm a third generation so my son will be four generations.

♪ Gloria, won't you land upon the bow and lead us home ♪ ♪ Gloria, won't you stand up on the bow and lead us home ♪ ♪ Lead us home ♪ ♪ Lead us home ♪ ♪ Lead us home ♪ ♪ Lead us ♪ (instrumental music continues) (synth music)