The Running of the Alewives
In Damariscotta Mills we never need a calendar, a weatherman or even a trip to Round Top Ice Cream to know that Spring has arrived. While it may not be as famous or the same type of miracle as the return of the swallows to Capistrano it is still miraculous and always fascinating. Every spring from sometime around Mother’s Day to sometime around Father’s Day hundreds of thousands of herring known as Alewives return to the bottom of the dam at Damariscotta Lake to make their way up the fish ladder and into the lake.
This year there will be a Fish Ladder Restoration Festival that begins with an Art Show opening at the 7 Waters Gallery in the Mills on Friday the 23 from 5 pm to 8 pm. On Saturday, Sunday and Monday from 11 to 3 there will be food (smoked herring anyone?), music, art show and the Alewife/Osprey experience (encounter a fierce flying predator with a 5 foot wingspan and razor sharp claws from the perspective of an 9 inch fish).
Sunday there will be a bait raffle (or was that sushi?) and on Monday at noon a Cow Flop contest. The proceeds of the festival will all go towards the restoration of the fish ladder to ensure that future generations of alewives will be able to return and spawn as they have since before King George II granted permission to the colonists to harvest the herring in the mid 1700s.
I will be there on Sunday between noon and 3 selling t-shirts and hats so feel free to stop by and say hello. And if you do visit and decide that this is the kind of place that you would like to live in, have I got the house for you.
There are many rivers and streams that the alewives travel to return to the spot that they were hatched but none are nearly as dramatic as the one that has occurred in the Mills since before it was called the Mills. The alewife run attracts hundreds of birds from bald eagles and osprey to herons, cormorants and yes, even seagulls! Sometimes seals will even make their way up the length of the Damariscotta River to catch and eat their fill for a few days..
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