01907 Summer 2022

30 | 01907 SUMMER 2022 | 31
A fight to survive
BY ALENA KUZUB
The last commercial fishermen
in town are concerned that they
will have to leave the harbor for
good if it is not dredged.
“It is really a matter of life and death.
If we don’t have a dredged harbor we are
not going to have the fishing harbor,”
said Michael Gambale, president of the
Swampscott Fishermen’s Alliance.
Swampscott’s fishermen produced more
than $675,000 of landing value in 2018,
according to a Massachusetts Division of
Marine Fisheries report published in April
2021.
“I would fight tooth and nail on
dredging the harbor,” said Gambale, who
is a lifelong Swampscott resident, a former
town’s reserve police officer, and a hockey
coach.
Gambale has been fishing year round in
Swampscott for 44 years, for lobster, cod,
haddock, flounder, and other groundfish.
In 2020, he fished from mid-March to
the second week in January and said the
shallow harbor makes it dangerous for him,
as well as for other full-time commercial
fishermen, to continue fishing outside of
the summer months.
As the Fishermen’s Alliance described
in a letter to the Swampscott Harbor &
Waterfront Advisory Committee on Nov.
29, 2021, many commercial vessels are
aground or nearly so when the wind blows
from the west.
During or after Nor’easters, the
shallow water creates a critical hazard
to the moored boats when the ground
swell rolls through the harbor. The harbor
shoals up year by year, made even worse by
astronomically low tides, the letter said.
The remaining six commercial
fishermen in the harbor are constantly
taking a risk of losing their boats. A lost
boat would mean a loss of income for a
ILLUSTRATION BY EMILIA SUN
year or two and could completely destroy
the business, Gambale said.
Two out of six remaining commercial
fishermen with significant landings only
work here in the town from June through
October, and use seasonal docks elsewhere
for the rest of the year. The four other
fishermen are on the waiting list at another
port or are considering leaving.
“We all have to leave soon without a
safer harbor,” said Gambale.
Dredging the harbor and building a
breakwater would protect not only the
boats but also the beach, properties, and
roadways along Humphrey Street and
lower Puritan Road from the vicious
easterly swells generated during powerful
storms. It would also make the old pier or
the new pier more accessible and would
attract more commercial boats to come
back into the harbor, said Neil Rossman,
who also holds a commercial fishing
Michael Gambale, left, president of the Swampscott Fishermen’s Alliance, and Paul Whitten are two of the six commercial fishermen still working out of
Swampscott's harbor.
PHOTO: ALENA KUZUB
license and is a member of the Fishermen’s
Alliance, but has moved his boat out of
Swampscott.
“Building a new pier or refurbishing the
old one won’t help commercial fishermen
one bit,” said Rossman. “Don’t say you are
doing it to help the commercial fishermen.”
If the new pier is built primarily with
leisure in mind, it will adversely affect
the parking situation, which is already
complicated, the fishermen said.
The Fishermen’s Alliance wants to save
commercial fishing because of its historical
importance to Swampscott. In his book
“Gleanings From The Sea,” which was first
published in 1887, Joseph Warren Smith
wrote that Swampscott used to be the main
fish market prior to 1840, where many fish
were brought in and as many as 50 to 100
vehicles from Boston to Canada would line
up to purchase seafood.
In the 1950s-70s, Fisherman’s Beach
was covered in drying reels for nets, boats
being built, and dories, said Rossman. At
the height of modern fishing, Swampscott
harbor had about 30 full-time commercial
fishermen.
Swampscott is famous for its doubleended
dories and lobster traps that were
invented in the town, not to mention Capt.
James Phillips, who is depicted on the
town’s seal.
“We have more heritage and more
history here than probably any of the
harbors,” said Gambale. “Fishing is a
handed-down tradition in Swampscott.”
Another commercial fisherman,
Paul Whitten, said he grew up in the
Swampscott harbor.
“My father lobstered and tuna-fished,
and striped-fished,” said Whitten. “There
are pictures of my grandfather in the locker
in the Fish House, pictures of me making
nets and building oak lobster traps.”
Whitten has recently bought a new
boat and was considering relocating it to
Beverly, which would definitely be safer,
he said.
But moving to another harbor has
its own challenges. It is not easy to get a
mooring spot as many harbors have waiting
lists. Fishermen would have to let go of
fishing in the Swampscott fishing grounds,
but commercial fishing is very territorial
and competitive, Gambale said.
“If I move my whole operation over to
Gloucester, I am not steaming an hour and
a half back to Swampscott. Now I got to
fish new grounds and make good with the
guys in those areas,” said Whitten.
The fishermen understand the fiscal
issue with dredging. Replanting eelgrass
habitat, required by the state, would
make it expensive. But they wonder how
much more expensive that would be than
building a new pier that does not help
them in any way.
“Do you want Swampscott to maintain
the fishing community?” is what Gambale
would like to ask the town and the state.
According to him, at least three to four
fishermen would come back if the town
makes the harbor safe.
Gambale, 68, said that he is planning
to fish for as long as he can, probably into
his 80s.
“And I will, with or without this pier
and dredging; I’ll fish for the remainder
of my career,” Gambale said. “I am here
because I would like to see this harbor
maintained the way it’s been since the
beginning of time.”
He would hate to throw in a towel
because some highschool kid might be
considering being a fisherman and wants to
fish from Swampscott, Gambale said.
“I would hate to see it all gone and
that is why I am such an advocate for the
dredging project. It is literally going to be
the end of an era if it doesn’t get done,”
Gambale said.