[00:00:00.0]

 

MF: Tell me your name.

 

CL: Chad Libby Junior.

 

MF: Where do you live?

 

CL: Jonesport Beals.

 

MF: And what do you do?

 

CL: I am a lobster fisherman.

 

MF: How old are you?

 

CL: 17.

 

MF: How long have you been lobster fishing?

 

CL: Far back as I can remembers. I have always been on the boat my entire life, pretty much.

 

MF: Does it run in your family?

 

CL: Yes. Even more so it is boat building.

 

MF: Oh really?

 

CL: Going back to my great grandfather. He started as a young man working with the Young Brothers.

 

MF: Who are they?

 

CL: I don’t know too much about them but I know they were a partner, a business partner.

 

MF: And do boat building?

 

CL: Yes. He helped with designing their hulls and then used that hull to further change and make what is now the Libby hull.

 

MF: And it is now pretty famous?

 

CL: It is known, I don’t know if it is famous. I see less people down towards Deer Isle and Southwest Harbor. Around here you will see, you will hear about them every once in a while, but I don’t recall if people ever knowing too much about em, about the Libby Hull.

 

MF: How did you get your start. What did you first do when you first?

 

CL: As a kid I kinda just played around.

 

MF: So you re on the boat even before you could actually do any work?

 

CL: Yes

 

MF: And then after you started, you were a sternman?

 

CL: After, yeah, I was a sternman, I still am, with my dad. I work with my Dad most of the time.

 

MF: What about when you are not fishing, what do you do?

 

CL: When I am not fishing, well this year I am looking to go clamming and worming, or, one or the other.

 

MF: And do you go to school?

 

CL: Yes

 

[0:02:06.6]

 

MF: Where do you go to school?

 

CL: Jonesport Beals High School.

 

MF: What grade are you in?

 

CL: 11th

 

MF: And what do you study?

 

CL: What do I study for my classes right now? I take sociology, US history, English 11. I take a shop class, marine science, and integrated geometry, or just geometry.

 

MF: What is a class you like?

 

CL: The class I like the most is my shop class.

 

MF: What do you like about it?

 

CL: You get to make, build things, pretty much, use machine tools, use, pretty much build with my hands. I am a very tactile person, I always like to work with my hands, always have been, always will be.

 

MF: What kinds of things do you like to build?

 

CL: Things that are, that have a value, somethings that have a use. I don’t like to make something just to look at it.

 

MF: Like tools, or?

 

CL: What for making? Or to make tools?

 

MF: Yea.

 

CL: I have never really made a tool. I suppose I could but using tools yes.

 

MF: What do you like about Jonesport?

 

CL: There’s a lot of nice people. Um, open areas, a lot of just, a lot of beauty to the area.

 

MF: Do you think you will stay?

 

CL: Yes.

 

MF: What are your plans for what you are going to do?

 

CL: Well I am looking to go to college because I will probably will need to, because I am still a student lobster fishermen, so I might need to go to college next year, to get a years to get that going and finished up, but what I am going to do is go for automotive, so my Dad or I don’t have to pay for somebody to fix our engines.

 

[0:04:20.3]

 

MF: Engines on the Boat?

 

CL: Yes. And if my family needs me to work on a car or whatever.

 

MF: Snd do you think that you are unusual among your classmates in wanting to stay?

 

CL: I don’t think I am unusual, no. I would say that I fit in well to the community.

 

MF: But do your high school classmates also want to stay in Jonesport, in the community?

 

CL: I imagine a number of them in my class would stay but I don’t know about all of them.

 

MF: And are they also a lot of them fishermen?

 

C+L: Yes. Yes. At least half.

 

MF: Is that because that is what most people do there?

 

CL: Yes it is one of the most common occupations there, careers.

 

MF: What are you, if anything, are you concerned of things changing, between now and ten years [inaudible]

 

CL: I am worried about regulations, increasing. Or just when there’s more development in a town, then comes more tourists and where there’s more tourists, there’s more new people. And then sometimes they will have things like an accent change or there’s just. And new growth can, yea it has its benefits but also people don’t want to change. I think that the way it is right now should the be the way it should always will be. Because where I live you tend to develop

 

[0:06:21.3]

 

a work ethic that not a whole lot of people nowadays have, especially these newer generations in the cities. You know, it is the more rural areas, not as well developed areas that have, I feel more. The ones that are more developed are less work ethic and more entitlement, while the rural ones are more work ethic and less entitlement.

 

MF: What about things like access to [inaudible]

 

CL: No access to the water is extremely beneficial. Extremely.

 

MF: But is there less [inaudible]

 

CL: No, it is about the same, it is about the same.

 

MF: I know some places where there is more development…

 

CL: Yea, cuz people are buying off and privatizing docks and wharves or landings.

 

MF: [Inaudible]

 

CL: There are stories about how boats are built, but those are more my parents, more in the marine history class back when I was in junior high. I still hear stories, My great grandfather Earnest Libby Jr., he,

 

[0:08:03.2]

 

well, he used to own the Thoroughbred, which was a torpedo stern boat, which was more of a, more common in Jonesport design, in Jonesport, but I was on the Beals side of the Reach, so the south side. He didn’t like it really that that much, it rolled more than he thought it would. But they were fast boats back in the day. The Thoroughbred’s sister boat, the Redwing, that was a fast boat too, they both the fastest ones. But my great grandfather, he worked with the Young Brothers and he helped design molds with them, different sizes, etc.

 

MF: Do you feel a sense of pride in having that family connection?

 

CL: Yes, always.

 

MF: What about if you had kids yourself [inaudible]

 

CL: Well, it more depends on their interests, but if I have children which I hope I do, yes, I would want to make sure they had a good work ethics and they appreciate what they have, not feel, not spoil them and make them think everything is going to be given to them which it is not.

 

MF: [inaudible]

 

CL: I don’t know but I am pretty sure that some of these people would agree with me, that I think hard work should be, should be, more of a thing than laziness, so to speak.

 

[0:10:00.5]

 

MF: Do you ever feel like [inaudible]

 

CL: Well, yes and no. No because I always take pride in my work, and I am always willing to work as hard as I can, as much as I can. I am a workaholic, always have been my whole life but. And then, no because I am going to continue working. But like, as it comes to it, there is laziness in it because the job is tough to maintain, because you gotta keep track of where traps are, or makes you lose traps to the tide or whatever. Cuz sometimes they will sink or whatever, but um, then you also gotta take the trap, you can leave traps out in the ocean during the winter time, and fish year round, but that’s also how you lose gear too, because you get those big tides and uh, when things get frozen they sorta become more brittle and all that so rope can break and that is not good.

 

MF: What do you do for fun? Do you have [inaudible]

 

CL: I try to hang out with my friends as much as possible, then staying cooped up in a house. I hate being lazy. I hate lazing around.

 

MF: [inaudible]

 

CL: Ride around, go places. Sometimes we’ll actually go on the boat, sometimes we’ll go with my cousin or friends.

 

[0:12:03.3]

 

MF: Who is your cousin?

 

CL: He is a lobster fishermen.

 

MF: Are most of your friends lobster fishermen?

 

CL: Yes.

 

MF: And do you think they have that same work ethic?

 

CL: To a degree.

 

MF: Do you believe you have it to a greater extent?

 

CL: I believe I have it to where I love it. I don’t know if people have a greater work ethic than I do, or less of a work ethic. But they are who they are and I am who I am, and I am going to leave it like that.

 

MF: Is it something instilled in you by your parents.

 

CL: I think it is essence and genes, part of it.

 

MF: So like it runs in your family.

 

CL: Yes. I mean these generations always built on work, so.

 

MF: And do you think that, do you think that the lobster industry will keep going? Do you think it will decline? What is the future?

 

CL: That is not entirely sure. I am not entirely sure about that, and I don’t want to start predicting and guessing, because that is when you get karma.

 

MF: You see the older folks who talk about the way things used to be, do you have sense of whether it is going up, or going down.

 

CL: Well if it goes up or goes down it all depends on how nature goes. It is not about how people say, it is more of how it just works in the natural state. People have their opinions, people say it is in decline, people say it is in deep, it is an incline or decline, that does not matter to me. All I know is that there’s lobsters to catch, there’s money to be made, so that I can live a life and not be in poverty, I guess.

 

[0:14:02.5]

 

MF: What would you do differently, if it turned out they were in decline, and there were not as many to catch?

 

LC: I ‘d still fish em out, I’d still fish em, not as many, not as many gear in the water, but I would cuz there is always an alternative, you can dig the tide, you can dig clams, worms, you can go scalloping, quahoging,

 

MF: So you’d find some other species to go fish?

 

CL: Yes

 

MF: Any other things on your mind? Issues that worry you or?

 

CL: I don’t know, because I tend to misplace the issues with the beauty of what I do.

 

MF: Well tell me about the beauty.

 

CL: Well, it is just that you are out in nature, you are there to embrace it every day pretty much. There is nothing quite like it. I am pretty sure that I am, I know that there are people that’s out with nature every day in a different way, but they are also missing the link to what I do too. They have a different link to nature, whether it is inland Alaska or you know, where they don’t have, or they are not accessible to the ocean, but they have their own work ethic and their own ability to work hard.

 

MF: Is there part of the day [inaudible]

 

[sounds of a group gathering up]

 

CL: I gotta go.

 

MF: Alright. Can I get your verbal release that we can use this recording for Voices of the Maine Fishermen’s Forum.

 

CL: Yes, yes sure.

 

MF: Alright, thank you very much.

 

CL: I want to make sure that at least my word is part of it.

 

MF: Thanks for your time.

 

CL: You are welcome.

 

MF: Thank you.

 

 

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