Les Iles de la Madeleine: Scallops, French Practice, Local Beer and the Perfect Seashore

A visit to Les Iles: 
First of all, before I go on too far, I have to say that the Isles de la Madeleine (aka the Magdalene Islands) rate very high on my list of places to return to. Beauty, great food, wonderful scenery, music and some really excellent local beer make this a place not to be missed. Did I mention the food? People were very friendly, but you'll do well to dust off your French to the best extent possible - English is spoken, but not everywhere, and the attempt to speak in the native tongue is appreciated.

While at dinner one day, my wife and I had a conversation with a gentleman retired from the soap industry, of all things. Back in the 60's, he said that the Isles were principally English-speaking, but subsequently the provincial government made French the official language, which meant that's what was taught in schools, in the workplace, and the like. However, given the Anglo influence prior to that, you can run into people with mixed names, like Philippe Smith.

The beaches are what really make the place stand out. 50 miles out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Magdalenes are an island world, and even from the highest viewpoints, all you see are the ocean, Ile d'Entree, Ile Brion, and a few other biggish rocks. PEI is 4 and a half hours by to the South, and Newfoundland not that much further to the East. If you could see the whole distance to the North, you would see the wilds of Anticosti Island, and beyond that, the Eastern portion of Quebec Province. You do get views of Cape Breton every now and then.

Getting there: After the International Conference on Shellfish Restoration (Charlottetown, PEI) Riley and I took the road out to Souris and readied ourselves for the long ferry ride to Cap aux Meules. The ride itself was very comfortable, and when Isle d'Entree rose out of the fog, we knew we were in for something unusual - it looked straight out of a movie, and we wondered if we had accidently wandered into a King Kong flick.

I was there to make two stops in particular, with Madeleine Nadeau, and with Melanie Bourgeois. Madeleine is a staff scientist with the Ministere de l'Agriculture, des Pecheries et de l'Alimentation du Quebec (MAPAQ), and has worked for many years with fishermen and aquaculturists on the stock enhancement and aquaculture of sea scallops. Melanie is the Research Coordinator for Culti-Mer, an aquaculture firm based just north of Cap-aux-Meules. The Culti-Mer offices and plant lies along the lagoon that forms much of the interior on Havre-aux-Maisons Island, and the lagoons on the Isles are stories unto themselves, for shellfish enthusiasts and kite-surfers alike.

Mélanie Bourgeois - in the processing plant at Culti-Mer.  She's a great hostess,  very knowledgeable, and has a terrific singing voice, especially for the rowdy Quebecois shanties!

My first stop was with Melanie, and one of the first things that caught my eye was a very nice poster of half-shell princess scallops. Well, they had some right in the freezer, and they looked very fine indeed: a dozen whole scallops on the half shell, about 75 mm shell height, with the roe included. Melanie said they are currently using 6 males and 6 females in each package. Unlike in Maine, where scallops will ripen in June/July and also in January-March, they only have one summertime ripening season.

                     Scallops vacuum packed for sale, out of the retail store on the islands....

Their business grew out of the many years that work had gone on between fishermen and scientists, beginning in the 1980's, to examine the feasibility of both aquaculture and wild stock enhancement. Over the years, they'd identified good spat collection sites, handling techniques and equipment, nursery and growout practices, processing and economic assessments. However, it was hard to demonstrate an acceptable level of survival and returned catch to the fishing industry, and over time, the stock enhancement work slowed. On the other hand, a substantial body of knowledge and personal expertise had been developed, and Culti-Mer grew partly because of those assets. One such expert is Sylvain Vigneault, who is the President and General Director of the company, and who has travelled many places and tried many things in his pursuit of a vibrant scallop culture operation.

The company uses a modified longline system for deploying its' roughly 10,000 spat collectors, setting it out in September and retrieving it the following August and September. The longline keeps the collectors in the bottom third of the water column, and securely anchored against storms and surge. Catches usually range between 1000 and 2000 spat per bag, though variations happen from year to year. The bags also manage to catch a lot of mussel seed, and rock borer clams (Hyatella arctica), which then necessitated a handling system.

The longlines themselves are built mostly in the shore facility, where they have a very efficient assembly line. Bags are attached to the longline with hog rings, both at the bottom and the top, with two bags set opposite each other. There is a little slack allowed in the bag, which prevents tearing when strain is applied to the longline itself. Once the strings are put together, they are then set into a wooden frame. A heavy cement weight is set atop the pile of bags and line, compressing it. The whole thing is then tied up like a gift box, so that it will take minimal space aboard the vessel. Ingenious.

Not a great picture of the spat bags, but....hog ringed at top and bottom, two bags set opposite to one another, a little slack in the bags to allow for movement. 

The other ingenious device I saw (though these are inventive folks through and through, like fishermen and farmers everywhere), was the scallop seed sorter. They have a small one (for sale if you're interested), but they quickly outgrew that one and now have a big honkin' one right in the processing plant. The bed of the sorter sits at the surface of a water tank, and moves in a circular pattern, in and out of the water. It also has alternating panels of holes and slots, so that as the bed moves, the shellfish are moved forward over the panels. Mussels and rock borers fall through the panels with holes, and scallops slide through the panels with slots. Hole size and slot width increase along the bed, and I have to say, it works astonishingly well; the waste has almost not a single scallop in it, and the reverse is true for the scallop catch - pretty much all scallop with nary a mussel.

They also have a two sets of 'Netron beaters' (my words) that flail the collector stuffing and make the scallops fall off into a reservoir. I can say from personal experience that this alone would save a huge amount of work, because uncoiling and shaking Netron out is a time consuming process.

Now having sorted seed, Culti-Mer has been working with lantern and pearl nets. They tried bottom culture, but the return was not steady or high enough to warrant sticking with that method. They also do a small amount of ear hanging, but the machine they bought from a Canadian supplier (the machine itself is made in Japan) turned out to be very finicky, and to be temperamental in - of all things - humid conditions. The scallops grown by ear hanging are also not well suited to the half shell market, due to the fouling that grows on the shells and the subsequent cleaning needed, so they use ear hanging to produce meats.

This confirmed for me that they were pursuing a strategy of offering a diversified product line: they sell seed to St. Pierre and Miquelon (officially part of France, just to the south o Newfoundland, so bring your passport), and to growers elsewhere in the Maritimes, and they sell fresh and frozen half-shell scallops, and fresh and frozen meats.

Sorting of market-sized individuals is done by a drum sorter, which they line with polyethylene sheeting; this reduces damage to the shells. Then, off they go to the shucking line at Fruit de Mer Madeline, Inc. for packaging in vacuum packs for the half-shell product.  They also will hold scallops in tanks for sale to the live market.  Sales of whole or half-shell scallops continues year round, and they work with the Quebec company Pec-Nord for their marketing and distribution in Canada, USA and countries in Europe.

Overall, this is an energetic group of professionals. They do some work with softshell clams and other species, but scallops are where their passions seem to lie.

In our spare time, we did a little driving around (the main group of islands is only about 50 miles end to end, and spent some time in the Microbrasserie À l'abri de la Tempête, a great little microbrewery with fantastic views, real atmosphere, and some delicious beer. We even got to mangle our French a bunch with the guy behind the counter. I think his English was probably better than my French, but he kindly worked hard to understand us, and let us knock the rust off. The other place you have to have to have to go, is the creperie in Havre-aux-Maisons, though there are lots of foody places to check out. Not enough time!!

So, on a sunny day with the everpresent breeze ruffling our hair, and with regret, we packed our bags and headed home, determined to return – sooner rather than later.