Lobster Trap Buoys:  An Island Genealogy
Lobster licenses are often passed down through families, and even when a license is sold the new owner will usually adopt the buoy colours of the former owner. 

The trap buoy is the marker which allows fishermen to identify and find their set traps so that they can haul them up, remove their lobsters, re-bait them and set them again.  The last wooden buoys were made in the 1950s and have been replaced since then with different styles of synthetic foam material buoys, having plastic, rather than wooden, swivels and stems.

Items on Display: A wall of historic wooden buoys; A wall of newly painted wooden buoys, showing buoy colours and markings still in use today and a legend tracing lineage; Photographs of lobster traps on wharves, and of buoys, from c. 1960-1995; A photograph of the “Lobster Trap Buoys of Ingalls Head” quilt patch from the Bicentennial Quilt (1784-1984) with legend identifying each owner of the colours/markings; and a miniature reproduction of the same quilt patch, with decorative wooden buoys

A typical fisherman's shed is filled with items related to an often multi-faceted fishery.  Many fishermen traditionally have set traps for lobster in the fall, gone hand-lining for ground fish or tended herring weirs in the summer (if they owned shares in one of the more than 100 that used to surround the island), and perhaps gill netted or dragged for scallops throughout summer and fall as well. 

A typical fisherman’s shed will be in constant disarray, filled with hooks, lines and sinkers, a miscellany of carpentry tools, warm clothing, and much, much more.  Here is where they store their gear, paint their lobster trap buoys, mend twine, repair a boat engine, or build a toy boat for a grandson.  Some sheds have tubs for gutting or salting fish, or are used for shucking scallops or baiting lobster pockets – whatever the activity, the aroma is always interesting!