PORTLAND, Maine — Maine's working waterfronts rely on thousands of fishermen to keep the industry operating, but there are some young people in the state who are interested in learning the trade but struggle with finding access.
Luke's Lobster's Lift All Boats project helps teenagers who don't have a traditional path to lobstering get the opportunity to learn how the industry works.
“We’re the first of its kind in the state," fisherman and lead instructor Wiley Muller said. "We’re basically doing something that no one to my knowledge has ever done."
Muller along with Luke's Lobster co-founders Ben Conniff and Luke Holden started the program in 2022 with fewer than five student apprentices. Now, the program has nearly 30 participants.
One of those student apprentices is 19-year-old Flora Magaya.
“I don’t think I would have had the opportunity if it wasn’t for this," Magaya said. "I know lobstering in Maine—it’s a very tightknit community."
Magaya said she's lived in Maine for most of her life, but she's never known much about the fishing industry.
“You don’t really get a chance like this often," she said. "I only hope that in the future—especially the fishing industry and other older industries—open up the same way."
Five crews of students scatter traps around Casco Bay and get the chance to fish once a week as they work toward getting a full-time commercial fishing license.
"The goal for Ben and I is to be sitting on the deck at Luke’s one day, and we see a lobster boat go by that’s active, and one of our students is the one running that boat, and there’s people on the stern that look just like our students doing that," Muller said. "Until that happens, we’re probably going to stay. We’re going to stay with it until we see that happen.”
Carlos Fra-Nero just graduated high school and said he knows he wants to work with marine life, but he's still unsure what that career will look like. He said this program has opened his eyes to all of his options for the future.
"It's always a highlight of my day getting to be with all of these phenomenal people here," he said.
The students get paid $25 at the end of the summer for every session they attend, and they are able to sell their lobsters at the end of the day.