Campobello Weir revealed by the Falling Tide

In the summer of 2021 I went to Campobello Island, an island in the Bay of Fundy between the Maine and New Brunswick coasts, in search of herring weirs.  Weirs are large net traps set to catch herring as they school along the shore, an iconic feature of the Bay of Fundy, used for generations to fish for herring.  

My enjoyment in painting weirs is multilayered, just like the weirs themselves can be.  One layer is memory.  I spent countless hours in a weir as a child, exploring the surprises left behind by the falling tide, learning about sea creatures and watching the waters rise and fall.  Another layer is the artistic challenge of portraying something that both stark silhouettes of poles against the sky while also being made of transparent netting.  A third layer is the pleasure of being a documentarian.  These weirs are an old practice, iconic of the Bay of Fundy and are fading away as the fish stocks dwindle. 

I had to travel all the way to Campobello Island to gather the reference material for this painting.  Fifty or 60 years ago, one could have counted several weirs within a very short distance of where I now live in Digby, NS as well as countless more on the shores of Passamaquoddy Bay, my childhood home in New Brunswick.   Now almost all of them are gone.  So I was pleased to find some to record in paint in case they all disappear.  

Update 2022: the inshore herring fishery was closed for the 2022 season and no weirs were built, signalling at least a temporary end to this historic practice.

This painting was included in the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour's 97th Annual Open Water Exhibition and was awarded the Curry’s Daniel Smith Award in this exhibition.   

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This painting is a watercolour on panel.  It has been varnished and is framed without glass. It is available from the gallery below. 

$6500 CAD