The first thing I thought when I recently came upon the old Bangor Daily News photo of the Canadian Potato Blockade was that decades of low farm gate prices have taken a heavy toll on the Maine Potato Farmer. As recounted by old-timers and direct observation alike, for decades prices Aroostook farmers receive for their potatoes have been distressed and regularly depressed by the import of Canadian potatoes.

     In 1980, motivated by sheer frustration, March brought about coordinated efforts by Aroostook County potato farmers to physically close the U.S. - Canadian border to subsidized Canadian spuds. Hard-pressed farmers dumped their low-priced potatoes into the roadway at nine different Aroostook County Ports of Entry. Authorities did not take kindly to the farmers' plight. The protesting farmers were met with swiftness and billy clubs by humorless Maine State Troopers.

     Sad numbers tell the rest of the tale. In the mid-1970s we had 1200-1500 Maine potato farmers who grew 147,000 acres of potatoes, 70% for fresh 'tablestock.' Today we're down to one hundred Maine potato farms which grow around 52,000 acres of potatoes, most of them destined for processing into McCain's French fries or Frito-Lay's chips.

Potato Barrel Era.

     The second thought generated by the Blockade photo was closer to home, "They're Bridgewater Barrel barrels." Bridgewater Barrel Company was the last-mill-standing of the former dozens of County barrel operations which had annually built many tens of thousands of 12-peck cedar Potato Barrels found universally - and used iconically at Harvest - on every Aroostook potato farm. Thrifty Maine farmers invented the world's most efficient barrel-centric potato harvest system inspired by an idea gleaned from the import of wooden barrels of fertilizer brought in to boost yields. In Aroostook, barrels reigned supreme from the 1890s until the 1960s and 1970s which then saw the wholesale switchover from hand harvest crews and potato barrels to mechanized potato harvesters and bulk body trucks.

     The brightness of the barrels' cedar staves in that photo - the freedom from weathered bleaching - showed they were new. The barrels' proportions and taper were distinct and familiar. Those were definitely Bridgewater Barrels. I know because I was a cooper at Bridgewater Barrel. And while it wasn't appreciated at the time, those 1970s winters when we were making barrels were to become the last waning days of the Potato Barrel era.

Barrel Business Cycle.

     Like any business there was a cycle to the potato barrel business. Winters were spent making barrels ahead for Spring demand. We'd "make" until planting time when, with farmers all out in the field, barrel demand would dry up. The last job of the Spring - before we were let go until the next Winter - switched over from making to sawing out the tongue-and-grooved staves. For weeks we'd breathe in cedar sawdust - tasting it in every sandwich - and saw out 5,000 staves a day - sixteen went into every barrel. Over the Summer and Fall the staves would dry out and become seasoned. 

     Back in my bachelor days, during the Winters I worked at Bridgewater Barrel. At peak, we'd have four coopers "making." We each made fifty barrels a day and we got paid $0.80 piece rate per barrel. Forty dollars a day was big money in Maine back then.

Cold Mornings.

     Most of the crew would come in to work around 6:30 AM. Glen Lunn - one of the "nailers" who would pound and clinch a single nail through every hoop on every stave - would arrive at 4:30 AM. I would get up at 3:30 AM to first milk the cow. If everything went right, I'd have my fifty barrels done by 2:00 P.M. coffee break and have the afternoons to tend to the farm and do chores in the daylight.

     It was cold those Winter mornings. Glen had dual citizenship and lived on the Canadian side, right beside the Prestile Stream. Our ritual was to first compare notes on the morning's cold. When I'd report -25ºF on our upland farm, Glen would typically come in with an honest -40ºF - everyone knows that cold settles in the valleys.

Crackling Cedar.

     Inside, the uninsulated wood "cooper house" would be frigid as well. The side room which housed the two large water-filled concrete vats called "hoop tanks" - where the Micmac's hand-shaved brown ash hoops were soaked to soften up before use - would usually have a skim of ice on top of it. We'd start a fire up in the ancient large pot-belied wood stove using cedar waste wood. The dry cedar burned hot and fast. You could hear the cedar crackle from across the room.

     One needed this morning warmth just to get fingers to work. Gloves were never used. A nailer's business - of course - was nailing and that demanded bare-finger dexterity. But even coopers pounded sixteen five-penny nails through sixteen staves into "heads" (bottoms) and a single nail to temporarily position and secure each of the six ash hoops (pronounced 'hups') which had been "lock" notched at the precisely fitted correcet point.

Fire and Snow.

     By the time the rest of the crew arrived two hours later, the cooper house was warm and comfortable. By 9:30 A.M., with four wood-fired down-draft barrel stoves cranking out serious sauna-like heat, the coopers would have shed their shirts and were working bare skin, sweating like it was a hot hay day in July. Not a bad experience to have in bone chilling January.

The barrel stoves would "cook" the partially assembled staves and dry "set" the bend in the stave permanently, thereby taking pressure off of the hoops. With repetitive efficiency, one set-up barrel would be cooking while the predecessor-cooked-barrel was being made. Every once in a while a barrel would cook for too long and catch on fire. When that happened someone would matter-of-factly open front door to the cooper house, and the cooper would unceremoniously fling the burning barrel outside into the snow. After the requisite (and deserved) cat calls and howls subsided, it was back to work for everyone. Piece rate has the uncanny ability to generate discipline even to those whom it goes against their native natures.

Deafening Din.

     At Bridgewater Barrel, we would make two hundred barrels a day; in the course of a week, one thousand. To this day, the deafening din of adzes and hammers pounding, the daily thermal progression from icebox to sauna, and the deep, rich smell of roasting cedar wood barrels remain a vivid and strong memory.

     So are the stories - like the day Bing Crosby stopped in town on his way through for a fishing trip; or the time when the 1930s gangster bank robber sped through town with careening Bangor police cars hot on his tail and bullets flying in both directions - told as noontime dinner drew to a close and before the pounding would start in again. But those are tales for yet another day.

Jim.

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