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Scale Basket
40 cm high x 46 cm diameter
Passamaquoddy basketmakers
made scale baskets by the thousands for the fish canneries
and processing plants in Eastport, Maine. After fish
were processed for canning, the scales were collected
in baskets and transported to processing plants where
they were used in fish oil production and the cosmetics
industry (nail polish). Each basket was painted with
a color-coded stripe to indicate which cannery owned
it. While in high school, Peter Neptune made 15 scale
baskets a week, for which he was paid $5. apiece.
Full time basketmakers wove up to 120 scale baskets
a week during the height of demand in the early 1970s.
The industry declined thereafter, when the canneries
switched to plastic tubs for storage. |
