As coastal Maine towns are contending with a variety of changes, one Down East fishing village is having an iconic symbol of its past restored.
Big Jim, as he is known locally, is a 40-foot-tall aluminum cutout of a fisherman wearing yellow rain gear. In his hands is a lobster trap that, before the sign was repainted several times over the decades, was originally a can of sardines.
Gouldsboro, where Big Jim has been located since the 1970s, and the surrounding Schoodic Peninsula have gone through many changes over the years. Since a Navy base closed at Schoodic Point in the early 2000s, and the former sardine cannery where Big Jim stands shut down permanently in 2010, housing prices have soared and the number of tourists who come through the Schoodic section of the park has jumped by 30% since before the COVID pandemic.
So when a Maine museum contacted the local historical society to ask if the museum could restore Big Jim to the way he looked during the state’s mid-20th century sardine heyday, local officials were immediately enthusiastic.
“He is symbolic of a whole industry,” Jennifer Stucker, a board member with the historical society, which is raising money for Big Jim’s upkeep. “This is our icon. He is all that is left, and we have him.”
The former sardine cannery — which now has new owners who plan to revive it as a seafood processing plant — was the last such cannery in the nation when Bumble Bee Foods pulled the plug on it 15 years ago. At one point there were dozens of sardine canneries sprinkled along Maine’s ocean shoreline, and hundreds on the country’s coasts, but as supply and demand dwindled, Big Jim’s relevance did, too.
The Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport is now trying to remind people how important the industry once was to Maine. As part of an ongoing exhibit on Maine’s former sardine glory, it is nearing an agreement with the cannery’s new owners, who also got Big Jim in the property deal, to repaint his likeness and the sardine can to the way they looked when he stood next to Route 1 in Kittery in the 1950s.
As part of the restoration the museum will disassemble Big Jim and transport him to a Belmont boatyard. The work would take place this winter, according to Kevin Johnson, the museum’s photo archivist.
In the spring, the museum would display him outside their Route 1 building through next summer and fall to promote the sardine exhibit. The project is expected to cost between $20,000 and $25,000 and will be covered by the museum, though the museum is still looking to raise enough money to fund the project, he said.
The museum intends to sign a memorandum of understanding with Bold Coast Seafood, the cannery’s new owners, sometime this month, Johnson said. As part of the agreement, the museum will be legally required to return the restored Big Jim to its current site in front of the Gouldsboro cannery in the fall of 2026.
“There’s a lot of pride around the history of that industry,” Johnson said. “I know it will be a really cool thing to pull off.”
Stucker said the planned restoration of Big Jim to the way he looked 60-plus years ago adds to the excitement of Bold Coast Seafood reviving the old cannery as a processing plant for lobster, crab and scallops. The sardine industry isn’t coming back, but having Big Jim restored at the same time that the old cannery is coming back to life is helping to buoy spirits in a town that has felt its fishing heritage is in decline, she said.
The property had a series of owners after Bumble Bee shut down the plant and sold it, but none was able to sustain any kind of activity that rivaled its 100-year history as a sardine cannery. One lobster company that moved in went into foreclosure less than a year later when it couldn’t pay its bills, and the next one quietly left town after seven years when it decided to consolidate its local operations with another processing plant it owned in Massachusetts.
But for Stucker and many others, it was the third attempt to revive the property for seafood processing that was most objectionable. American Aquafarms wanted to use the plant to process farmed salmon that it planned to grow in aquaculture pens in Frenchman Bay, but that plan flamed out after the company ran into financial issues and was sharply opposed by residents and local officials on either side of the bay who said it would ruin its pristine setting.
“Big Jim would have been taken down if they had turned the plant into a salmon factory,” she said.
Gouldsboro also faces some challenges similar to those in other coastal Maine towns. Multiple local working waterfront properties were damaged in severe January 2024 storms and face continued risk as climate change makes such storms more powerful. Affordable housing on the Schoodic Peninsula also has become harder to find, as prices have increased and as some local employers seek to hire more help to meet the peninsula’s growing tourism industry.
In the meantime, the town has grappled with turnover at the town office, though its current town manager and police chief have strong personal ties in the area and are expected to stick around. It lost a longtime leader this past April, however, when Dana Rice Sr., — a local selectman for nearly 30 years and a longtime fishing industry leader — passed away at the age of 78.
Stucker said improving Big Jim’s appearance won’t just be a visual upgrade, or a nod to the once vibrant sardine industry. It will help reinforce Gouldsboro’s identity as a coastal fishing town, and restore some community pride.
“That’s what makes him a landmark,” Stucker said. “Everyone is on the same page on this.”