People were wondering where the fish had gone. The once famous Kennebec was empty of salmon and shad. The Sebasticook was known for its stink.
Mills have been in Maine for centuries thanks to an abundance of rivers. The Maine economy had become very dependent on the mills.This started to change in the 1950s. By the 1980s there was a trend away from mills, and in the last ten years the mainstays, the large paper mills, began to close. Generations of families had gone to work in the mills sewing shoes, making furniture, operating paper machines , making tools and dyes. These were skilled jobs with long term job security.
Starting in the mid 20th century mills began to move to the south or overseas to take advantage of lower fuel costs and lower wages. The last mills to close have been the paper mills. At the present time there are just three left in the state. Now we have acres of hollow carcasses of mills, ghosts of bygone days and dams without purpose…blocking the way upstream and down.
Fishermen started to ask about the fish. Where were the salmon, shad, and trout? The state began to look at cleaning up the river. Laws about dumping in the river were passed. A case was made for allowing access to the spawning fish. Everyone had salmon shaped stars in their eyes. No one was thinking about a lowly river herring.
People began to look at the forests and rivers with fresh eyes. Where was the future of the State of Maine’s economy if not in wood? Tourism was the answer. Maine became “Vacationland”. The loss of the fisheries on the rivers became a concern as the word went out that there were no longer fish in the Kennebec. Meanwhile environmentalists saw the opportunity to restore the ecosystems of the watershed and perhaps help the larger Gulf of Maine fishery as well. For this they needed to return the alewives to the rivers.
Everything Eats Alewives 