Even when they would, I would sneak up under a dock sometimes and take a picture.

I remember when they said, Well, no, there you go again.

You're stalking me.

And I just say, Yep, that's what I do.

You know, here's some cookies.

Thank you for letting me stalk you.

Since 2007, Betsy Wish has gotten up early, baked cookies and headed out to sea.

What's up with that, you ask?

Stick around.

You'll find out.

Welcome to Windows to the Wild.

I'm Willem Lange.

We're at Kittery Point in Maine, where we plan to meet some of the people who spend long days on the water lobstering.

and a guide for this journey is Betsy Wish.

What a pleasure.

The pleasure to meet you.

A pleasure.

Pleasure for me as well.

Now, you know most the lobsterman here, right?

I know most of lobstermen here in Pepperell Cove, Right here in Kittery.

Yeah.

We're going to get to talk to them a little bit.

You might get to talk to a couple of them today.

We'’’ll see how that works out, because today it's windy.

So we'll see how we make out when we get to Pepperell cove.

All right.

I'm looking forward to it.

I am.

And probably the way to do it is to do it.

Yes.

To launch and not forget the cookies.

You say lunch or launch?

launch.

No later.

It's still early.

Okay.

Okay, let's go.

Look at Willem.

He's already out there.

Yeah, It's awesome.

Lunch will have to wait right now Betsy and I will kayak around Pepperell Cove on the coast.

Here in Kittery, Maine.

Come on.

Good girl.

We met Betsy about a year ago while kayaking in the area.

She had her dog, Maggie, on the bow of the boat and bags of cookies packed in the stern.

That kind of got our attention.

Good morning, Jimmy.

30 years ago, we went to visit my brother, who lives in Juneau, Alaska, and he took us kayaking and we loved it.

So a few years later, we were taking a bike ride and we our bikes, one of our bikes broke down, happened to break down right by a bike shop that was getting rid of their kayaks at the end of the season.

They bought the kayaks on the spot and came home with them in the summer.

My husband and I would then end up kayaking different parts of Maine.

We did all the little fingers and he would see an article in the Boston Globe about where to go to get the best lobsters, where the best lobster shacks were.

And that's how we determined where we're going to find a place to kayak.

And then when we both retired, we moved here actually to Kittery and found a condo that had a boathouse where you could keep your kayaks.

Betsy retired from teaching years ago, but she has not stopped working.

It was something about lobstering that drew her attention, along with Maggie, a camera and bags of cookies she set out to learn as much as she could about the men and women who work in the boats.

She hasn't stopped since.

morning.

Do you want cookies?

I'll take some.

Yeah.

Good.

I'm glad you didn't say no.

I haven't been eating them.

I give them to my girlfriend.

Oh, then I'll give you a double batch this morning.

How did you get started with a cookie thing?

Well, initially I was taking pictures of the lobstermen, and they weren't very happy about it.

Understandably, I was in their way.

They were working.

I was playing.

Yeah.

And they called me, ask me.

Oh, you're a speed bump.

You get in our way, you know.

So I was told to first ask if it's okay to take your picture.

Oh, yeah.

Secondly, know where our traps are stay out of the way, which I did.

And then one of them said to me, You're probably making more money selling those photos than I do selling my lobsters.

And I said, Well, I don't sell them.

He So what do you do with them?

So the next day I gave him a bunch of five by sevens I'd taken of him, put some cookies with them in a Ziploc bag in his cockpit.

And after that, the word sort of got out.

I always asked and I after I thanked them, Oh, yeah, you have to have a bag of cookies.

Sure.

And that was it.

These are the special cake cookies.

So it's like having breakfast.

Oh, so you can eat.

It's got very healthy.

It's got special K cereal.

And of course they're eggs in it.

So you can guess your breakfast.

We've had stalkers in the past that it just turned into a nightmare.

Betsy is willing to help anybody do anything.

So I kind of let her hang around.

Steve Lawrence has a long history here at Pepperell Cove.

He rode on a lobster boat with his family when he was 14 months old.

Steve remembers very clearly the day he first met Betsy.

I'd already heard of her, so I saw this lady coming at me, paddling a full head off, waving.

And I'm like, because I don't fish along the shore like I used to when I was younger.

I fish off a bit and I saw the dog.

And that's got to be that crazy woman with the cookies.

So we hauled the throttle back and got some cookies and been friends with Betsy ever since while we were out paddling.

Betsy spotted Steve heading off to work.

Oh, I'll tell you what.

That morning I hadn't had breakfast, and I saw you guys on the kayaks.

I was trying to get away from you guys.

I didn't lie about it.

I was leaving late because I wanted to set a load of traps and was foggy that morning, so I was like, Oh, no.

Night.

And all of a sudden the arms just start flailing.

If she was a windmill, she had to put out a million gigawatts.

And here she comes.

I'm like, Oh, here we go.

Not that I don't want to talk to you, but I just wanted to go.

And I said, No cookies.

Wonderful story, You know, Which one?

You'’’re pals with quite a few of them?

Not all of them, but many of them.

And they're.

They're wonderful guys.

I've gotten to know them.

I've gotten to know their families.

And it's been it's been really a bonus.

Has been wonderful for me.

Oh, yeah.

It didn't happen overnight.

It took, I'd say, about eight, nine years for them to trust me, to get to know me and know that I wasn't there to take advantage of them.

You are on the coast of Maine.

You know, you can't just jump into things.

Well, no, you can't.

And when you think about it, they're also out in their boats by themselves.

That's right.

All day.

Yeah.

So they have someone else, you know, encroaching on their territory.

On their turf.

Yeah.

You're not always appreciated.

Understandably.

Betsy rises early before she slides her kayak into the water.

She's been in the kitchen, all the cookies she hands out about a hundred dozen every year are made from scratch.

It was and still is Betsy'’’s ticket into the lives of the men and women who catch our lobsters.

Bottom line is, Betsy was so persistent on making friends with everybody.

He didn't used to take my cookies until Steve told them.

He said when Betsy gives you cookies, you take them.

You couldn't get rid of her.

She was, I don't know, pretty obstinate on making friends.

And then Covid came, and she really helped me a lot.

She was down there taking pictures all the time.

She.

She cares about people.

She's good.

She's a good soul.

Few years ago, I bumped into one the lobsterman who I had never taken a picture of.

in this funny little boat, that sort of lopsided looking.

And he doesn't have a windshield.

He has a piece of plywood.

And so I paddled up to him and I said, Okay, if I take your picture, he said I wondered when you were coming over.

He said, You been to everybody else.

So I said, Well, I have some cookies.

And he said, Well, would you like some share my lunch with me?

I said, You having a lobster roll?

He goes, No, I'm having peanut butter and jelly.

Beautiful woman in a kayak coming up to me.

And that's about it until I found out she was married.

And I was like, Yeah, I got a girlfriend.

He got a girlfriend.

I used to see you out and around Spruce Creek a lot.

And when I finally came over to your boat, I wondered when you were going to come over and say hi and remember what you did then?

you offered to share your lunch with me that day.

Nobody likes to eat alone.

When you first started lobstering, how old were you?

23.

24.

I went out with my uncle and it was mainly going to be just a fishing day, but he had lots of traps in the water and I liked what I saw and I guess you can say I got it under my nails and I can'’’t get it out.

I also got to know their families.

I got to know their wives.

I got to know some of their kids.

I felt very privileged to sort of be allowed in that circle a little bit.

They're wonderful people.

Yeah, they used to scare me.

They really did.

I mean, they're still really scared of a few of the guys.

And, yeah, you know, like walking into a cowboy bar.

Probably sort of like that.

Yeah, I wouldn't do that either.

And.

And I guess because I love being on the water What'’’s nice is that now they seem to be comfortable when I show up with my camera.

Yeah yeah.

Used to be they would, you know do this kind of thing and but now they're you know I can talk to them.

Keep snapping away, which is wonderful.

You ready for your cookies?

I want you to meet Willem Lange and his crew.

And this is.

This is Mark.

Could you grab my paddle?

Yeah.

Thank you.

You know the drill.

Mark Hoyt is one of the younger faces we found around the dock, like Steve Lawrence.

Mark has lobstering as a birthright.

Grandpa had 20 traps that he would fish out in front of McCleary.

He would harm in the morning before he would go work on the shipyard.

And then you would come back in the afternoon and haul them again.

Three days a week during the week after, before and after work, he would haul And then he got Dad into it.

And and then, you know, so on down the line, I got into it.

Yeah.

This is Willem.

Willem this is Mark Hoyt Hello Mark, I heard all about you, including your sparkling nickname, Sparkle School would be over.

And then I in the afternoon, when Dad got home from work, we would go out on his boat.

And when I first started, I originally had 50 traps.

Mark has his own boat, which is fifth dimension, and he used to go out with his dad.

And you were the first boat I ever photographed.

Your dad's boat Slow Mocean Yeah.

Betsy, as she said when she moved here, My dad's boat.

Slow Mocean It's a blue lobster boat.

Was kind of really the first boat that Betsy started seeing that she would come up and take pictures of.

We never got to meet her for probably two or three years.

She would just we would see her kayak and be like, oh, she called and she she agrees with now.

But we used to call it, oh, there's the stalker, because we never met her.

We never knew who she was, but she would paddle around.

We would see her in the afternoon, work on Dad's boat, and she would always come kind of near and you could always see the camera pointed at the boat taking pictures.

So eventually we started waving.

Me and my brother would start waving in the back of the boat.

And then eventually and finally Betsy came up and and talked to us one day and we started to meet her.

And then we were telling mom about her.

Mom kind of was having a hard time believing that there was a lady that was always following my dad around.

So that's kind of where the stalker came from, which when we finally met her mom finally met her, and then it was just it was good times.

After that.

It was a good friendship after that.

The faces, the boats and all the experiences of lobstermen that Betsy captures through a lens become stories.

They find a place at art exhibits.

And in cookbooks I also make sculptures of lobsterman out of found objects out of water bottles, and I see bottles and polar bottles and yogurt containers and I presume is a flattering depictions of lobstermen, Of course.

I mean, when I had an exhibit a few years ago before COVID, so many of the guys were saying, is that supposed to be Harold?

That's supposed to be Steve.

But I don't know.

I you know, I didn't really I just came out of my head.

sometimes.

They were.

Yeah, it might not look like it here, but offshore there's a strong wind and that only keeps us hugging the coast.

But many of the lobster boats, too.

Weather is an important part of life on the water.

Everyone's image of a lot a lobster man's life is that it's very hard and cruel and harsh and unforgiving.

But they love it.

Okay.

Why you ask them that?

They say when you asked them if you're having a good day, their response will be going lobstering is just always a good day, but I usually start my day at I start hauling.

It's about 6:00.

I get down to the wharf at 530 in the morning.

I haul haul about 100 traps this time of year is my favorite because it's when I start, I get to see the sunrise.

And to me, the August, September timeframe of sunrises are something that everyone should be able to see at some point in their life.

It's I even take pictures of it just about every morning because it's it's like, wow, that's beautiful.

And then the next day it's like, wow, that's that's more beautiful than it was the day prior, even though it's like, no different.

It's just always it's just always nice waking up early because the water's flat.

There is no other boat disturbance.

Usually that early.

So it's you get to see things for the way that they can be.

Then you get to see all sorts of wildlife.

We get to see ocean sunfish all the time and then just being out there, it's it's quiet.

You don't you don't hear the buzz of everyday life on land and you just sit there and quiet.

So it's there's no one to bother you or anything like that.

Except the people who come by in kayaks and start taking pictures.

if you had your way, what would you like people who don't know anything you know about these people?

Lobstermen, lobster, women, lobster folks.

Not only that, it's hard, but it is a way of life for them.

Yeah.

And to respect them because what I saw happening and what these lobstermen referred to is very often people coming down on the dock complaining about the cost of lobster and saying, you know, how come I'm paying this much for lobster?

while they'’’re taking pictures of them, honey look at the lobsterman you feel like an animal in the zoo one of the guys said, Yeah.

So when I was giving them the pictures, he said, You know what?

All these people take pictures of us.

They never talk to us.

Once in a while somebody will talk to us.

He said, The first time someone's really giving us the photographs and it's it's we appreciate that.

Anybody else in the family, Lobster?

Anybody else in your family?

No my father talked them all out of it.

he tried to talk me out of it.

Couldn't he talk you out of it?

Everybody else got talked out of it.

You stuck with it.

Everybody wanted it.

He wanted everybody to be like an electrician and a plumber.

Yeah, You know, have a trade.

He said have a trade.

You won'’’t like lobstering, but you do.

You keep going out.

You did like it after the last few years.

Yeah.

Ask and you'll get an honest answer lobstering for a lot of these folks has become tough going climate change and other challenges make their job expensive between the little bit of water warming up and the pesticides and everything else that they're putting on the lawns.

It seems like the whole coast of Maine, a lot of it is the lobsters are moved off to the deep water, but you still have the same lobsters a bunch of lobsters along the shore this year.

Just it's been a tough year.

Bait went sky high.

Fuel was 580 not long ago.

It's down to 520 now.

So when you go out in your boat for a day about how much will your fuel cost?

it's about 300, 350 a day.

A day.

Yeah, I burn 60, 65 gallons a day.

Oh yeah.

And your bait total is 1200 bucks to leave the dock in the morning.

Yeah.

Baits $275 for a drum of bait and I at these prices I got to get £60 of lobsters roughly to pay for the bait and maybe a little bit of gas.

New regulations are changing the way lobsters are trapped.

One regulation seeks to protect the right whale.

We had it made.

We weren't entangling whales, it was working everything that came out of it.

Early stages that the older school worked with, with BMR and Atlantic states and Noah was working.

So if you had a whale or you had a something, anything, a turtle or anything, pull on that.

buoy had enough.

The buoy come off the rope, the rope dropped to the bottom, but we went away.

The whale or whatever, it shouldn't have been entangled.

And now they have it.

So it breaks halfway down.

So now your buoy breaks off.

You've got to buoy with another vertical line drifting around the ocean.

And I'll tell you right now, not one person that owns a lobster license or a federal permit wants to kill a whale.

I love the friggin things when you eat your lobster.

Well, it's a lot more complicated than you think it is.

And so when people ask about the price of the lobster roll, they don't know what's behind it.

Very often because these guys do.

But you don't see that many young guys who are going into this There are very few of them.

How old are you now?

25.

25.

Okay.

When you hear from people like Steve and some of the older lobstermen and even from your dad, maybe about what's happening with lobstering.

Yeah.

What do you see in your future?

I mean, you're still doing this.

Aren't a lot of young guys who are lobstering now are there?

Correct I don't know if it's to do with just the younger generation out or if it's not wanting to be in the labor force as much, or if a lot of parents might be pushing their kids away from it because some of the parents might see that there is a change in the industry that might not go a good way, or that they just don't want to see their kid get stuck in it.

How's your mom feel about it?

She's all right with it.

Yeah, I just it's obviously not her her favorite choice that I chose to do it, but she's happy that I chose something I like doing Oh I want one from your boat, Herald Perhaps it'’’s change that motivates Betsy to capture life at Pepperell Cove.

She wants people to know who's in the boats as they work and preserve a way of life.

You're not seeing a lot of young guys.

Mark Hoyt is probably one of the exceptions, yeah.

And he's a good lobsterman, and there are few other young guys who are really going to have to work very hard to maintain to make it sustainable.

How'’’s it been this year?

It's been doom and gloom.

Tell me about that what'’’s doom and gloom.

Well it'’’s the price.

because it's changing.

I think it's important.

That's one of the reasons I worked on the cookbook.

When I started working on the cookbook, I started getting these wonderful stories from people who've lived here entire lives.

And one woman said to me, she said, You know, I lived in the same house I was born in.

And she said, My children live here, my grandchildren live here.

And so my great grandchildren live here.

I said, That's amazing.

She said, No, it's not.

Why would anyone want to leave?

I thought that was a great answer.

All right.

Why would anyone want to leave?

Come and get your cookies.

15 years to chase the lobster boats around Pepperell Cove and Betsy is still on the move.

There are new faces to photograph and old ones to remember.

My favorite picture.

Actually, I have so many favorite pictures.

Probably one of each Lobsterman, one Jimmy Baxter, because he has a beard that's better than Santas.

But one of them was of a lobsterman who's no longer lobstering.

And he was sitting on his boat It was a large boat.

He went way out and he was sitting way up on the on the boat and he had on his white boots.

And we started talking and I sat in my kayak my ankles from down here.

And he was way up there.

And we were talking his name was Brad.

And at one point he said, Would you like to come up for a cup of coffee?

It's not very good.

I only have instant.

I said, you know, if I came up I'd never get down again.

You know, I couldn't get down.

But I said, but I got some great pictures.

If you're out on the water around Pepperell Cove, Maine, and happen to see Betsy with Maggie riding the bow, give them a wave.

But remember, the cookies are for the folks in the lobster boats.

Yeah, you build a pretty good life here.

It's a very good life here.

hard for them, but it's.

It's good life for me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's good for them, too, or they wouldn't stay.

You know, it it has its rewards.

It does.

Sure.

And they love being on the water.

Your boat, your time, your ocean.

You know, it's a good life.

It's good independent life Yeah, yeah.

Can be, You know, can be.

Yeah.

It puts a smile on my face and, you know, she she gets me out of my bad spots that I'm usually in lately.

And.

And her smile makes me smile and puts me in a place I need to be and makes the world go around.

Well, folks, we've had a lovely day on the water, thanks to you, Betsy.

And we've seen some beautiful spots and met some interesting people.

Yes, you did And they met one interesting person, too, as well.

Yes, that's true.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But now we have unfortunately come to the time that I like the least on the show, and that is what we have to say goodbye.

But we do.

So I will say goodbye.

And thank you, dear.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

You just been fantastic.

You've held up beautifully.

You did very well today.

My pleasure.

With which I will say adios I'm Willem Lange and I hope to see you again on Windows to the Wild.

Support for the production of Windows to the Wild is provided by the Alice J. Reen Charitable Trust, Bailey Charitable Foundation.

And viewers like you.

Make a gift to the wild and support the Willem Lange Endowment Fund established by a friend of New Hampshire PBS.

To learn how you can keep environmental nature and outdoor programing possible for years to come, call our development team at 6038684467.Thank you.

You'’’re in!

That's tougher than my Beamer Look it.

It'’’s nice and calm in here.

this is amazing.