Our readings of James Acheson’s Cycles describes a typical year as a lobster fisherman, and all the highs and lows that go along with it. Each fisherman has a general outline of space that is his or hers in the water, and throughout the course of a year, this space changes, affecting their lives and how they go about their daily work. Weather is the obvious and overarching factor that causes change. The days that fishermen actually go out and fish is drastically lower during the winter months. Connected to the weather and seasons is the behavior of the lobsters themselves, who typically shed their shells during the mid summer and go into hiding, causing production to go down. A third factor that influences the fishermen’s lives, which is a bit more intangible, yet just as significant, is the consumption and price of lobster.
This reading made me think about the idea proposed by Cresswell in The Geneology of Place, which said that place is not a motionless thing in time, but something that is constantly changing and evolving. To the lobster fishermen off the coast of Maine, the area that they set their traps and fish everyday is not a space, but a place. They know the intricacies of the water and the ocean floor below, allowing them to place their traps in the ideal locations. This place of theirs not only changes on a linear scale, over long periods of time, but it also changes on a cyclical scale with the seasons. Their lives are reliant on the deep understanding of their individual place and the way it changes over the course of a year. On top of that, they must have an understanding of the demand for lobster around them, fueled by tourism and supply. To a normal person, one stretch of Mid-Maine coast is just a space, which looks the exact same as another, yet for a lobster fisherman, it is his or her place. That stretch of sea and its change over the course of a year is that fisherman’s job and life.