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.
Scale baskets like this one were made by the thousands for the fish canneries in Eastport, Maine.