Bruce Bourque lives in Freeport, ME, where he has taught archaeology and conducted research at Bates College since 1972. Now retired from teaching, he is working on a documentary film on the history of Maine's fisheries. Bourque came to the state originally to study Maine's prehistory, the period before 1600, and the people that lived on this coast. He was able to collaborate with others to combine this archaeological record with more recent accounts of fisheries history to build a longer timescale of context for how the Gulf of Maine has been changing.

Scope and Content Note

In this interview, Bruce Bourque describes the themes that have come out of his work including the expansion of fisheries and fishing effort and the factors leading to their ultimate decline. However, he says that he has recently become interested in ecological history and the history of fisheries. He explains that his interest in the history of fisheries began when he worked on a stratified shell midden site called the Turner Farms site, where he discovered evidence of changes in fish sizes over time. Bourque discusses how he and his colleagues, including Jeff Bolster, Bill Leavenworth, and Karen Alexander, have been studying the historic record of the Gulf of Maine, particularly fishing in the region, from the seventeenth century to the present. He highlights that by combining his archaeological data with their historical data, together they aim to provide a new perspective on the present state of the Gulf. Bourque emphasizes the importance of understanding the past to better comprehend the current situation.