New Bedford, Mass., — August 13, 2013 — The following was released by the Working Waterfront Festival:
Anyone who has worked the waterfront or fished the sea for any length of time has tales to tell. The Working Waterfront Festival and the NOAA Fisheries Voices from the Fisheries Project wants to hear them and will partner once again to collect Fish Tales at the 10th Working Waterfront Festival September 28 and 29 in New Bedford.
Storms and close calls, unusual catches, workplace pranks, and tales from the home front are among the many topics fishermen and others from the industry are invited to share at the Fish Tales Tent. Stories recorded during the Festival will be archived and shared through the Voices from the Fisheries website and Working Waterfront Festival publications. Recordings from last year’s festival can be found at www.voices.nmfs.noaa.gov by searching Fishtales under Collections on the Search page of the website.
The Working Waterfront Festival has been collecting and sharing stories since 2004 through their Narrative Stage, Oral History Project, Radio Series and Publications. Voices from the Fisheries is a website based, central repository for oral histories related to the fisheries of the United States. Created in 2007, the website has become a resource for those interested in the lives and experiences of those who fish our nation’s waters. It currently houses over 500 oral histories, the majority of which are from the Northeast Region, along with podcasts focused on key themes or collections within the archive.
The Working Waterfront Festival is a project of the Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern MA, a non-profit organization. A family friendly, educational celebration of New England's commercial fishing industry, the festival is free and features live maritime and ethnic music, fishermen's contests, fresh seafood, vessel tours, author readings, cooking demonstrations, kid's activities and more. It all takes place in New Bedford, Mass, America's #1 fishing port. Navigate to us at www.workingwaterfrontfestival.org.
NOAA’s Voices from the Fisheries is a central repository for consolidating, archiving, and disseminating oral history interviews related to commercial, recreational, and subsistence fishing in the United States and its territories. It is part of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Social Science Branch’s efforts to better understand the human dimensions of marine fisheries – http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/read/socialsci/ – and funded by the NOAA Office of Science and Technology. To learn more, visit www.voices.nmfs.noaa.gov