Vol.19, No.4
Text and photos by Mary L. Peachin
Prince Edward Island’s Bay, specifically Area PE5A Colville, appears like any other body of saltwater. Who would know that thirty acres, fronting the Flynn’s home, offers the ultimate water temperature and a sandy ocean bottom, both prime prerequisites for harvesting PEI’s tastiest Malpeque oyster. Larger and bolder than Kusshis, Malpeque’s are light-bodied, with a brilliant balance of sweetness and brine.
Oysters depend on ocean and tidal conditions, and unlike mussels, require a shallow water depth. Johnny and Leo Flynn attribute their oyster farming success to “Divine Intervention.” Johnny modestly shares, “There is no exact science to raising oysters, we are fortunate to have this prime location.” Their plump, briny green algae-colored, bi-valves are quickly delivered to markets.
It was a job with the federal government that got the Flynn’s into oystering. Johnny, looking for a more entrepreneurial work experience, and wanting to raise his family in Colville, looked at raising fin fish. He also considered raising mussels but his licensed Area didn’t have the necessary water depth. After considering farming oysters, he especially liked the idea, “You don’t have to feed them.”
During their early years, the Flynn’s had some tough years. One season, during visits to neighboring Nova Scotia to care for their mother’s health, hired staff failed to properly plant oyster seedlings. They lost a year of production.
Each July, more than 10,000 Malpeque seeds are planted in Chinese baskets where they remain until they are a quarter to half an inch, between mid-July until the first of October. Then they are placed in predator protective vexar bags which allows them to grow. After the seedlings mature months later, for the following year they are placed in four milligram bags.
When the oysters grow, they are placed in a larger nine mil bag then lowered to the Bay bottom. They are not harvested for five years. During that time, while aging in algae and eel grass, their shells become green. Colville oysters were the first to be valued for this green patina.
A passerby would never guess the unassuming garage-like Flynn building is producing and distributing more than a million oysters each year. Harvesting entails washing and sizing the oysters before packing and shipping them throughout Canada.
During the season between April and January, “We work eight day weeks, twenty six hours a day. If that’s not enough, Johnny also does lobster fishing. He has opened the Lobster Shack on Highway 2, a roadside eatery where he sells lobster rolls. Car traffic coming off the Madeleine ferry pass by just around lunchtime.
It’s all about location, location for both raising oysters and selling lobster rolls.
Over the years, Prince Edward Island has sold 3,100 lobster licenses which translates to a total of a million lobster traps lying around the shoreline of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. There are no more license being sold.
Mark Jenkins, operator of Top Notch Lobster Tours owns a mile long lease along Bay Fortune’s south shore. Mark, who works with his son Cody offering tours when they are not actively lobstering or fishing blue fin tuna, prefers using herring over mackerel to bait traps. He can catch his own herring rather than paying for mackerel or other bait.
There’s an unwritten agreement between lobstermen that they will only trap six days a week. During those two months, which is either early or late summer depending on the license location, those days are spent baiting and raising three hundred traps.
Lobster bear 50,000 eggs, but sadly only two will survive. During their first two years as larvae they float in surface plankton, they are devoured by plankton eating fish and sharks. Lobster are capable of “dropping their claws” and capable of regenerating both their interior and exterior body parts. The largest lobster recorded, discovered as bycatch in a fishing net, weighed forty four pounds.
Between July and September, in order to grow, lobster molt. Shedding their shell or eco skeleton, this is also the mating period. Females carry eggs for nine to twelve months before extruding them.
Traps are pulled daily. After measuring for marketability, shorts and females displaying eggs are returned to water. In tanks, they are banded to prevent fighting and killing one another.
Top Notch tours (www.markscharters.com) offers the option to enjoy an on deck lobster dinner. Enjoying fresh lobster follows the two hour tour that allows guests to snag a buoy, haul a trap and band a claw. They can drive the forty five lobster boat, hear Mark’s lobstering experiences, and admire sea birds, porpoise, and seals.
During winter, the Jenkins cut wood, and build and repair lobster traps. By mid-March traps are repaired, and they are ready to go lobstering by May. When asked what they do between season, Mark laughed, like any Canadian, “we drink beer and play hockey.”
No one can say that they don’t work hard and deserve that play time.
Tourism Prince Edward Island claims its mussels as one of North America’s most popular seafood cultured in its cool waters. Wild mussels, which grow abundantly along shorelines, have long been discarded as inedible. Cultured mussels, grown in mesh stockings and suspended from longlines, are just the opposite. Grown above ocean bottom with ideal temperature conditions, rapid growth makes PEI’s cultured mussels taste sweeter, tender, plumper, and free of grit. Tasty, the higher meat yield is nutritiously rich in protein and minerals while being low in fat and cholesterol.
Considered a bi-valve shellfish, PEI mussels measure two to three inches in length. Their shell, blackish with bluish highlights, free of barnacles and seaweed, has an elongated triangular shape. Mussels are traditionally marketed fresh in the shell closed tightly or open slightly when left undisturbed.
Fresh mussels may be stored in the shell in the coolest part of your refrigerator for five to eight days. To keep them moist, cover with a damp cloth or newspaper. They should not be stored in an air-tight container or in water. Before cooking, rinse the shells under cool water. Remove the byssus threads, (brown fibers found between the two shells) by cutting them with scissors or pulling them out. They are traditionally prepared by steaming over medium heat for five minutes or until their shells open. Vegetables such as carrots, celery or onion can also be added for extra flavor. More frequently crispy frites or French fries are served with the mussels. Yum.