Low Low Tides: April

Join us for a week of immersive seaweed harvest. 

Harvesting, drying, recipes, ecology, and natural history adventures in the low low tides. Downeast Maine is famous for our 22-foot tides, and the cold Labrador current creates extraordinary algal abundance. 

Join Smithereen Farm Seaweed Captain, Kacie Loparto, and other curious people for a week of learning, harvesting, processing, and eating together!

We will cover the ecology and biology of the seaweed ecosystem, hand-harvest techniques, regulations, drying, processing and cultivation of the wild algae species that abound in our area. 

We will help you obtain the proper license for harvesting. Lodging provided, paid work available for committed harvesters.

Registration required: Low Low Tides 2025 — Registration Form

SCHEDULE

April 27: Arrival

April 27: Trey Angera and Sarah Redmond (Springtide Seaweed and Maine Seaweed Exchange)

Reversing Hall, 1pm
4 Leighton Point Road, Pembroke ME 04666
Springtide Seaweed is a fully integrated organic seaweed aquaculture company, including a seaweed nursery that provides USDA organic seed to commercial and hobby farmers throughout Maine and New England. Founder Sarah Redmond is a dedicated seaweed farmer, tending the wild ocean garden and inspiring others about all things Maine seaweed. Sarah has been a leader in seaweed aquaculture since 2010 through the development of new nurseries and educational programs, crops and products, sea farmer training programs, the first organic certification program for seaweed crops, and through major facilitation of the industry. The Maine Seaweed Exchange is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the success of seaweed professionals of any experience level, providing education, advocacy, and access to a network of thoughtful and dedicated members from around the world.

April 29: What do the West Coast Kelp Watchers See off their Shore?
Digital Access, 3pm
Arms-length from the resource turns out to be a good distance from which to view the health of the seaweed ecosystem, particularly over time. Elinor Ostrum, MacArthur-winning economist who studied Commons-based natural resource economies around the world, identified and names a set of governance principles which characterized systems able to sustain themselves (see list below, and there’s a great video here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr5Q3VvpI7w) ) This digital panel features longtime wild harvesters and conservation minded aquaculturists speaking from their own experience observing Pacific species, particularly in the last years impacted by ocean heating events that have caused cascading impacts in the coastal kelp forests. Each will talk about her own lifeworld in seaweed, observations about changes in the ocean, reflections on the territoriality, customary practices and regulatory structures that inform their harvest. They will bring up some of the misconceptions and 101 thinking that they bring to their work as educators and naturalists, ‘docents to the wild world of seaweed,’ as well as some points that are relevant for those who wish to see more careful state regulation, and where/how to approach a life in seaweed learning….
Panelists: 

• Amanda Swinimer of Dakini Tidal Wilds has been harvesting seaweed in British Columbia for more than twenty years. Trained as a marine biologist, she is the author of “The Science and Spirit of Seaweed” and “The Science and Superpowers of Seaweed: A Guide for Kids.” She is a primary author of the Seaweed Commons white paper and a longtime participant in Slow Fish International.
• Julie Drucker (Yemaya Seaweed) and Heidi Herrmann (Strong Arm Farm) have been wild harvesting along the Mendocino/Sonoma coast in California for the past twenty years.

April 28-May 1: Harvesting, drying, processing, learning!

Registration required: Low Low Tides 2025 — Registration Form