North Carolina Conversations Summer-Fall 2008.pdf

een the harbor and the fish house.If there’s a beating heart to thischanging community, it throbs atAtlantic Harbor where the whitefishing boats are tied up in a longrow, bows pointed out, ready toembark. One can still come here at3 a.m. and watch the long-haul workboatshead out of the harbor, brightlights stabbing the darkness, sea birdsproviding a noisy accompaniment asthe boats work the long passage upCore Sound toward Ocracoke. You cansee the pound netters, the crabbers,the shrimpers and the oystermendepart, tying up in the evening aftera long day or night on the water,engines finally falling silent for thefirst time in hours.A returning fisherman invariablyheads to the fish house. The fishhouse is where the fishermen selltheir catch and buy their fuel andice. It’s the fisherman’s indispensableconnection to the larger worldAbout the AuthorsIn late winter 2008, the North Carolina Humanities Council, with additionalsupport from the North Caroliniana Society, cosponsored “The Workboatsof Core Sound Symposium and Photography Exhibit” at the Core SoundWaterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island in CarteretCounty. The exhibit was based on photographs taken over a period oftwenty years by Lawrence S. Earley, scholar and former editor of Wildlifein North Carolina magazine and author of the award-winning Looking forLongleaf: The Fall and Rise of an American Forest (2001). In addition tophotography, Earley contributed material from thirty interviews with localresidents and fisherman.The symposium, “A Day-Long Celebration of Down East Boats & the MenWho Work Them,” featured remarks by museum Executive Director KarenWillis Amspacher, a life-long resident of Harkers Island, a descendant offishermen and boatbuilders. Presentations included a panel discussionby fishermen Danny Mason, Jonathan Robinson, John “Buster” Salter,and Bradley Styron. As the exhibit, the symposium, and this issue ofCrossroads show, the boats provide an entry point into a discussionfor this community about its past, the changing present, and theunclear future.Long-haul workboats and run boats tied up at Clayton Fulcher SeafoodCo. in Atlantic, NC, in the early 1960s. Photo by Jerry Schumaker.NC Conversations • Winter 2008 • 5