Women In Fisheries: Amity Chipman

Amity Chipman knew much more about blueberries than she did about lobster when she was a girl. As she says with a hint of surprise, “I had never been on a lobster boat before I met my husband,” Milbridge lobsterman Jason Chipman. Now the 42-year-old is part of a busy family business, Chipman’s Wharf, and is fully immersed in the lobster business.

Amity and Jason Chipman, left, Monica and Chris Chipman right. Island Institute photo.

Amity and Jason began dating in high school. She fished with him during the summer months throughout high school and during college. They married soon after she received her teaching degree and later began their family.

In 2002 Jason and his brother Chris purchased land in Milbridge and, with their father John, built a commercial wharf and installed a small saltwater holding tank. Chris, Jason and their father all lobstered and then scalloped during the winter months. Having a place to land their catch, store bait and gear and keep their boats made a lot of sense.

“Then the fish market in the next town closed,” Chipman said. They added a small retail shop on the property which she and her sister-in-law Monica ran during the summer and fall. In 2020 the wharf expanded with a larger saltwater holding tank; the former tank space was turned into a commercial kitchen.

Soon the two women were running a small lunch service from May to October, serving what their husbands and the 25 other fishermen who landed at the wharf caught.

Being the wife and mother of fishermen (the two families have six children between them, all of whom have lobster licenses) is just one of Chipman’s many roles.

“I do the payroll for all the fishermen, manage the retail shop. I think I cooked on the grill every day we were open last summer!” she said. “Monica and I are the fishmongers, we pick the lobster meat, make all the ready-to-eat products, ship the lobsters, and I make all the chowders and stews. It’s a lot of hours.”

In addition, Chipman handles all the mandated reporting for the wharf. “It is a big, huge part of my life. I help my children and my husband do their paperwork and then, as a business, we have to report everything landed,” she explained.

Come May, when Jason and Chris return from Gloucester at the end of the scallop season, the pace of life really speeds up. As with many fishing families, everyone takes part in making the family business successful, including the children. “We work hard to present good, locally caught products. I tell my children this is a team effort,” Chipman said.

She takes pride in educating customers on Maine’s lobster fishery and the conservation measures that lobstermen take each day. “We try to make each interaction an educational experience,” she said. “We take people to the tank room to see lobsters being graded. We tell them about V-notching and releasing egged females. Someone will say that they’ve been hearing about right whales and we take the opportunity to explain the situation.”

Customers who visit Chipman’s Wharf for a pound of scallops or a lobster roll get a personal view of a working commercial wharf, complete with cheerful guides.

“We have a lot of people come through and they get to see a true working waterfront. They see boats unloading and what goes into the product they are purchasing. And it doesn’t always smell great down there!” she said.

In January 2024, Chipman’s Wharf was seriously damaged by the two winter storms that wreaked havoc throughout the Maine coast. Their wharf and a building at the wharf’s end were destroyed by the storms. They managed to rebuild a portion of the wharf in order to operate for the 2024 lobster season, although Chipman says the shorter wharf made it difficult to land at lower tide.

Then the family began the work of rebuilding the entire wharf, a shorter and higher version with crib work and poles rather than pilings and a concrete surface. “The loss of the wharf was a huge financial burden for us. Plus, everyone’s twenty years older now,” she said.

As the winter comes to a close with its relatively calm schedule of children’s basketball games, tax preparation, and scalloping, Amity Chipman and her family get ready for another demanding season. “I’m really proud of what we’ve built and our service to the community,” Each year we’ve built on what we have and made it better,” she said.

The upcoming summer means hard and nearly endless work for the two families. However, Chipman says that this summer they will stay closed on Sundays when lobstermen are not allowed to haul their traps. “We say it’s because the driveway needs a rest!”