The Midnight Slider

Around here, you know that you don't steal from lobster fishermen.

Um, you don't steal from any fisherman.

And, uh, there's consequences.

There's a small island in Canada, in Nova Scotia, called Isle Madame, where fishermen are up and out on the ocean at 4:00 AM, pulling up traps full of lobsters, millions of dollars worth of lobster.

You need a license to fish for them, and the licenses are very expensive, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Someone who has a license that can set 250 traps can stand to make close to, uh, $500,000 in the run of a year, give or take.

It's quite lucrative, and, uh, a lot of people's livelihoods rely on that.

And, uh, that's really driving the economy, and been the cornerstone of it for, for quite some time.

Everybody knows somebody who's involved with lobsters.

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

They're either related or, uh, married into it or, or they just know them, you know? Everybody knows who the lobster fishermen are.

This is Jake Boudreau.

He's a journalist based in Nova Scotia.

He grew up on Isle Madame, and he says it's a place where many of the people that live there have been there a long time.

There's always been that tradition of, of taking care of families, um, watching out, looking out for one another.

Um, you know, a lot of people are related.

Um, a lot of people grew up together.

The year-round population of Isle Madame is around 4,000.

When you look it up, you find that most people call it an idyllic place.

Rocky coastlines, small harbors, lighthouses that have been called the prettiest in Canada.

Jake Boudreau says that despite all that, Isle Madame doesn't get the summer tourist crowds like other parts of the coastline.

Jake says people on Isle Madame are used to doing things for themselves.

It's always been that way.

You're a fisherman, but you also have the skills to fix your own boat or be a carpenter as well.

It's a do it yourself kind of ethos, he says.