“If we could row, we had traps out,” declared Basil Heanssler of his start in the lobster business. The youngest of three sons of a Sunshine Island poundkeeper, he’d hauled those first traps at age six or seven. (Sunshine is connected to Deer Isle as is Little Deer Isle, by a winding, boulder-lined causeway.) Heanssler had to give up lobstering at 56 due to a bad back. Today, at 79, he still works his two tidal lobster pounds and presides over his business, Conary Cove Lobster Co.
He started working at his father’s pound when he was 17. Then after his World War II Coast Guard service, he turned again to lobster fishing and soon after that, to marriage. His choice was Harriet Barbour, whose father’s family came from Deer Isle. (He took her smelting on their first date and tells people, “She was such a good smelter, I thought she’d be a good wife.”) The two have made quite a team. They produced four children, two of whom work for the company, and have always been active business partners.
In 1972, Heanssler’s father asked him to take over the family lobster pound on Sunshine’s Old Place Road. He made a go of it and bought land for his own pound in 1976, 4,000 feet of shore frontage on Conary Cove, out by Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. The pound would be 15,000 square feet, or four acres, and would hold 200,000 lbs. of lobsters (the smaller pound holds 50,000 lbs.).
His application to build a lobster pound resulted in a lawsuit brought about by seasonal residents on the other side of the cove, concerned about environmental issues and commercialization of the area. It also brought in the state, which claimed half of the property was in state waters. The suit dragged on for five years. Why did Heanssler keep fighting? “I got so involved money-wise, I couldn’t back off,” he explained. A Republican who gives photographs of President and Mrs. Bush some prominence in his dining room, Heanssler credits two Democrats: former Deer Isle State Rep. Lawrence Greenlaw, Jr. and former U.S. Sen. William Hathaway, for intervening on his behalf in the lawsuit. Although relations between plaintiffs and the defendant were strained at the time, over the years they have grown cordial. He finally took the first lobsters from his Conary Cove pound in 1981.
“It’s been a struggle,” said Harriet Heanssler. “So many people didn’t want us in here. The summer people didn’t want noise in the morning. [The lawsuit] went on so long, even the interest in the bank went up 4 points by the time we got ready to actually borrow the money to build the pound.”
Part of what kept the Heansslers going was their deep religious faith. They are Advent Christian, which Basil explained is about the same as Baptist. He said that back in the 1800s, an Advent Christian missionary sailed around the Maine coast in a sloop, and wherever he touched land, he left Advent Christians. The Heansslers, their four children and grandchildren attend church every Sunday. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of my children swear,” Heanssler remarked, adding, “I can’t say that I never did. There were a few times I had to be a little forceful.”
Speaking of forceful, he said in all the years he’s been in business, he’s only lost about $25,000 to bad debt. Anybody who deals in such a highly perishable, live product as lobster will tell you that is an astonishingly small figure. Since losing that $25,000 to a buyer who had nothing more than a rented truck, Heanssler makes a point of investigating to see if his buyers have attachable property to back up their checks. He had over $200,000 outstanding when interviewed, but said he knew the parties were good for it and added that since 1972 his pounds have always turned a profit. “I’ve come pretty close sometimes,” he admitted, “but I’ve never lost money.”
That is a remarkable statement, especially when one considers the dive the lobster industry took after the terrorist bombings two years ago. Although many dealers held on to their inventory at the time, hoping for the price to rise, Heanssler said, “I got rid of ours as soon as possible.” True to his word, when interviewed just before Valentine’s Day – there is a substantial lobster market for Valentine’s Day – he’d been taking out lobster all week and said, “I’m moving all I can as fast as I can.” He knew the price would drop after the holiday.
Heanssler has bought lobster from Port Clyde to Corea and in season buys regularly from as many as 25 boats.
“I’m very well taken care of,” reported Sunshine lobsterman Leroy Bridges, whose MISS MADDISON, named for his two-year-old grandaughter, is one of the regulars. Bridges said not only was he well-paid, but, the Heansslers “can’t do enough for you,” and cited a time the Conary Cove crew came to the cove where he keeps his boat and worked on it for free.
Heanssler, utterly practical, says, “I try to pay a little mite more because [the fishermen] wouldn’t come this far if I didn’t.” He also hauls his fishermen’s boats out free, gives them free access to his shop, furnishes free moorings, and has even been known to have his crew – he has a staff of five – do free welding. He has his crew finish hulls in the off-season and is proud of an ice-breaker they built from scratch using quarter-inch stainless steel plates. “We can break two feet of ice,” he says.
Heanssler was one of the founding members of the Lobster Institute and of the Maine Poundowner’s Association. In fact, he said, the Poundowner’s Association started at his kitchen table in 1984, when several interested parties decided to promote the wise storage and handling of lobsters. Herbert Hodgkins, of Hancock, was voted president, and Heanssler, vice-president. Both remained in those positions for ten years.
Hodgkins recently said of Heanssler, “He’s been a wonderful asset to the lobster industry. He’s been very generous with help and [has been] financially supportive of research projects.”
A plaque from the Lobster Institute cites Heanssler’s service for 1987-1988 and 1988-1989. Robert Bayer, Ph. D., the institute’s director, called Heanssler “Always interested. He had a lot of ideas. He was progressive [and] receptive to new ideas.” Bayer said he spent a lot of time at the pound running pelleted feed tests for pounded lobsters, sampling lobsters for serum protein levels, and observing them using an underwater video. “It was always great to work down there,” he recalled. “Harriet put on wonderful meals: lobster stew or scallop stew. I often brought students down.”
When Heanssler started, landing 20 million pounds of lobster per year for the state was considered good. “Now it’s 60 million,” he said. “I made more than a living from fishing. I done well.”