Women on the Tide
Edward Boches | Wellfleet, MA, USA, United States
Photographer: Edward Boches
Exhibit Title: Women on the Tide
Location: Wellfleet, MA, USA, United States
In Wellfleet, MA, arguably the oyster capital of North America, shellfishing and harvesting has been a way of life for centuries. The earliest occupants, the Wampanoags, settled here in part for the rich abundance of oysters and shellfish. As commercial shellfishing became more and more popular in the mid 1800s, the town set up a grant system to protect the harbor and prevent over harvesting. For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, most grants were licensed to men. But by the 1970s more and more women wanted in. Today, over 30 percent of Wellfleet's shellfishermen and wild harvesters are women.
The weather can be harsh, the winds frigid, the tides so early it’s hard to get out of bed. The work can also take a toll on the body. Lifting sledge hammers to pound hats into Chipman’s cove, hauling canoes piled high with gear, constantly culling oysters from grow bags that can weigh upwards of 50 pounds all call for strength and fitness. So it’s understandable that when most people picture the traditional oyster farmer they visualize a man.
But that just means they haven’t been to Wellfleet. According to the town's shellfish constable Nancy Civetta, more than 30 percent of Wellfleet's oyster farmers are women.
That wasn’t the case 70 years ago when a curious and outgoing eight-year-old named Peggy Jennings, on her first visit to Wellfleet, had the courage to ask Tony Oliver, the constable at that time, what the men were doing in the water off Mayo Beach. Oliver walked Peggy along the shore and explained that the men were oyster farming.
Back then virtually every oyster grower was a man. But that didn’t deter Jennings. “I decided then and there that’s what I wanted to do,” recalls Jennings, who can still be found working the grant she shares with her daughter Nora. “After that summer, while all my friends were reading Nancy Drew, but I only read books about the ocean, boats and fishing.”
Twenty three years later, in 1977, Jennings moved to Wellfleet permanently and started shellfishing. It wasn’t easy. She remembers encountering resistance from the Select Board as well as others in the community. But she persisted. And in 1985 she secured a grant on Indian Neck.
Having documented Wellfleet's oyster growers and the lives of one particular family in a project called By the Tide, I thought it would be interesting to explore new stories about a community I've come to know and admire. So in the summer of 2024, I made images of Wellfleet's women "oyster men."
edwardboches@gmail.com
Women on Tide
WomenMake Up 30 Percent of Wellfleet’s Oyster Farmers
by Edward Boches
The weather can be harsh, the winds frigid, the tides so early it’s hard to get out of bed. The work can also take a toll on the body. Lifting sledge hammers to pound hats into Chipman’s cove, hauling canoes piled high with gear, constantly culling oysters from grow bags that can weigh upwards of 50 pounds all call for strength and fitness. So it’s understandable that when most people picture the traditional oyster farmer they visualize a man.
But that just means they haven’t been to Wellfleet, where according to shellfish constable Nancy Civetta, over 30 percent of oyster farmers are women.
That wasn’t the case 70 years ago when a curious and outgoing eight-year-old girl named Peggy Jennings, on her very first visit to Wellfleet, had the courage to ask Tony Oliver, the constable at that time, what the men were doing in the water off Mayo Beach. Oliver was considerate enough to walk young Peggy along the shoreline and explain what was happening. The men were oyster farming.
Back then virtually every oyster grower was a man. But that didn’t deter Jennings. “I decided then and there that’s what I wanted to do,” recalls Jennings, who can still be found working the grant she shares with her daughter Nora. “After that summer, while all my friends were reading Nancy Drew, but I only read books about the ocean, boats and fishing.”
Twenty three years later, in 1977, Jennings moved to Wellfleet permanently and started shellfishing. It wasn’t easy. She remembers encountering resistance from the Select Board as well as others in the community. But she persisted. And in 1985 she secured a grant on Indian Neck.
A few grants down from Peggy, Barbara Austin, works her three-acre grant. Interested in marine biology from her time growing up by the beaches in Eastham, Austin went to work oyster farming immediately after graduating from high school in 1979, securing a grant the same year as Jennings. “It wasn’t a full-time job right away,” she explains. “By then I was married with a two-year old, working as a waitress at the Double Dragon, and raising kids. I did that for 20 years before I could make it a full-time job.”
Little did Jennings and Austin know they were among a few women oyster pioneers starting a trend. Now if you walk along Fields Point and Indian Neck, past the 11 oyster grants, you’ll see women lifting bags and culling oysters on at least half of them. Some were introduced to working the tide by a parent or a partner. But others, like Jennings and Austin, sought it out on their own, for reasons ranging from independence, to a love of the outdoors, to a passion for farming.
Katie Murphy, wearing cutoff jeans, a t-shirt and a pair of mucks, can be found on the grant she shares with her husband Mike Devasto every day. Joined by a crew of three and sometimes her six- year-old daughter Violet, she diligently hauls gear back to the tide from her yard in Wellfleet, culls and counts oysters, and loads bags of market-ready shellfish into coolers on the back of her pickup truck.
Despite having a Masters of Science in Natural Resources, an interest in ecological economics and experience working at a sustainable farm collective when she was studying at the University of Vermont, Murphy knew little about oysters until she met DeVasto, whose uncle had a grant. And like her peers along Fields Point, she fell in love with it.
“Co-owning and operating a small family oyster farm in Wellfleet is the dream job I never knew I wanted, “ she says. “There were times when the amount of labor and expense could make you doubt yourself but then you just look around at the beauty of the tide. The ecological beauty of it but also the social and cultural beauty. All the small farmers side by side, making a living with their hands, growing a delicious food product that also cleans the water, and selling it to our neighbors. I love every part of it and I’m grateful everyday to count myself amongst the strong and proud Wellfleet oystermen.”
On Loagy Bay, Casey Semple has her name on a grant with her stepfather Evan Bruinooge. She’s been growing oysters since she was a teenager. “This is the ideal job. You’re outdoors. It’s always beautiful. And you’re doing something that feels more meaningful than working in an office. You’re growing food. I’ve always needed a second or third job to supplement it but this is by far the most rewarding work I get to do.”
It’s apparent that more and more women are attracted to shellfishing, evident by the four young women working for the summer on Jim O’Connell’s Indian Neck grant. While the traditional seasonal job might be as a server, Clementine Malicoat Valtz, a recent college grad, and Mimi Malicoat Bois, Mayim Richman and Adi Richman, all still in college, unanimously declare their love for a job that is outdoors, on the tide, and demands real physical labor. “I wanted something other than working in a restaurant,” says Malicoat Bois, in her third summer of working on the grant.
Despite its appeal, a number of obstacles stand in the way of anyone wanting to make a living as a farmer. To qualify for a commercial license, allowing you to wild harvest, you have to live in Wellfleet for at least a year. And to apply for a grant, or have your name added to one, calls for three years of proven experience laboring on someone else’s grant.
But according to Karen Johnson, it’s worth it. After a 20-year career in enterprise software, Johnson decided she wanted something more physical and saw an ad on Craigslist for a job working on an oyster grant. She figured why not give that a try. “Within a month I had fallen in love with it,” she says. Despite growing up in Dennis, it wasn’t something that had ever been on her radar. “It had never dawned on me that you could actually make a living working on the beach.”
Still it took another 10 years to secure a grant. She garnered experience working for a number of farmers across the Cape and then took a job as farm manager at A.R.C., connecting her even more deeply to the oyster community. “Eventually I had a desire to move beyond working on other people's grants. I wanted to work for myself and I wanted to work in Wellfleet. But first I had to move to Wellfleet and live here for a year before I could qualify for a commercial license.”
The license let Johnson pick wild oysters and, along with her farming experience, qualified her to enter a rare lottery when a grant became available on Egg Island. She was fortunate enough to prevail. “It’s not at all lucrative,” she warns. “It took time and commitment. And despite having a grant, I’m still out there wild harvesting because I need to make enough money to pay for gear, seed and other startup expenses. But it’s worth it. I work on the beach. My co-workers are seagulls. It's about a lifestyle.”
As for Jennings, she’s thrilled there are now more women oyster growers. And she certainly understands the appeal of the work and the tides. “There’s no place I’d rather be,” she says. “I’m happiest when I’m out here.”
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