Mobile
Bay's Jubilee
Image
source
Jubilee is the name used locally for a natural
phenomenon that occurs from time to time
on the shores of Mobile Bay, Alabama, USA. During
a jubilee, blue crabs, shrimp, flounder, stingray,
and eels swarm toward the shore in such numbers that
the shallow water near land seems to boil with life.
Photo: Roy
M. Thigpen, Jr
People living near the shore rush
down to the water with washtubs, gigs and nets, and
gather a bountiful -- and easily reaped -- harvest
of seafood. As jubilees only happen on warm summer
nights, often in the early pre-dawn hours, the event
takes on the aspect of a joyous community beach party.
Photo: Roy
M. Thigpen, Jr
No one knows what causes a jubilee.
One theory revolves around oxygen depletion caused
by decay of organic material settling on the bottom
of the bay, a process that is accelerated during the
summer. Coupled with certain climatic conditions,
this is believed to drive the crabs, shrimp and fish
(particularly the bottom dwelling ones) toward the
shore in a desperate search for more oxygen-rich water.
Jubilees cannot be predicted with
certainty. Local folklore offers some clues for telling
when one might be in the offing: The water is calm
the day before and during the event itself, the wind
is gentle and blowing from the east, the tide is rising,
and the sky is cloudy or overcast. Not all of these
conditions must be present before a jubilee can occur,
though, nor does the presence of all of them at once
guarantee a jubilee. To the residents of Mobile Bay's
eastern and western shores, the jubilee remains as
a mysterious -- and most welcomed -- gift from nature
and an important part of their food heritage.---source
Mobile
Mardi Gras float honoring "Jubilee"
Read
more about the science and history of "jubilees"
at Fairhope, Alabama's Jubilee page.
2006's First
Jubilee, Mobile
Register, Fri., Aug. 10, 1956
"The season's first jubilee
had the folks of the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay shouting
with excitement early Thursday morning.
"The jubilee was said by the
old-timers to be the biggest in years. ...
"Two young Daphne brothers,
Frank and Fred Dunaway noticed the bay waters were
becoming saltier.... At 1 a.m. their vigilance paid
off as the fish swarmed to shore. The jubilee stretched
from Daphne to Fairhope and lasted several hours."
Daphne, Alabama calls itself
"Jubilee City" Learn more about
the city here.
Learn
more about jubilee here which includes photos by Richard
Scardamalia.
Food heritage site preservationist
Richard Scardamalia devoted the final years
of his life to preserving the eastern beach front
of Mobile Bay the site of the jubilees.
Who was Richard Scardamalia?
By Valarie Webb
A photograph is a window on past
moments, capturing a little piece of history as the
tide of time carries us away. Though stories can be
handed down, they tend to slowly change over years
of telling. But the alchemy of light and shadow, of
camera and film, provide a record that will speak
the truth to anyone who will listen, long after the
storytellers are gone.
Though Daphne photographer Richard
Scardamalia was certainly an artist - working in a
home studio near Mobile Bay, he produced a body of
fine commercial works that secured his professional
reputation - he was also a local historian and avid
environmentalist with a vision toward preserving Daphne's
unique legacy for future residents. People marvel
over his jubilee photos, shot over a ten-year period,
recording the unusual Eastern Shore phenomenon at
its peak. Through his lens, we can still see the legendary
harvests of thousands of shrimp, crabs and flounder
from a younger, and less populated, bayside. The images
capture not just the magnitude of the event, but also
the magic: taken mostly at night, illuminated by the
flash, the photos capture the mystery of an occurrence
that is yet not fully understood.
"People tell me he could capture
the light like no one else," said Cynthia Scardamalia
Nelson. She still lives in the gracious Belrose Avenue
home she shared with her late husband, surrounded
by his photographs. "The area is growing now,
and new people have moved in. They see his photographs
in public places, but they don't know the man he really
was."
Growing up at the edge of Mobile
Bay, Scardamalia developed a keen appreciation for
the region's fragile ecology. He was a very verbal
person, Nelson said, who freely shared his ideas with
others. Scardamalia developed a photography curriculum
for LeFlore High School, a magnet school in Mobile,
and taught the program himself until he was diagnosed
with leukemia in 1993. Upon his retirement from teaching,
he turned his attention to the preservation of vanishing
beachfront lands.
"It was part of his passion,"
Nelson said. "He was one of the founders of the
Village Point Foundation, formed to preserve one of
the last undeveloped large tracts of bayfront property.
If not for their vision, that land would be sold now,
all privately owned. It would be gone."
During his last year, Scardamalia
poured his efforts into the Foundation's plan to secure
the property that would become Bayfront Park. He attended
meetings, worked with environmental organizations,
and helped develop a plan to purchase the project's
first 6.3 acre parcel. Nelson said the last letter
he wrote was to the Daphne City Council, an appeal
for city support of Village Point Park. Scardamalia
wrote:
"This is the heritage of the
community that we will be protecting for generations
... access to water for everyone in the community,
preservation of wetlands, preservation of natural
flora and fauna, historic preservation in an area
large enough to bring the community together for all
types of celebrations." He predicted, correctly,
that the project would expend to cover more than 100
acres of stream, highlands and wetlands, including
archaeological evidence of Daphne's earliest settlement.
When Scardamalia died of leukemia on December 28,
1995, he had helped establish the groundwork for a
resource that will be enjoyed for generations.
"What he accomplished speaks
for itself," Nelson said. "He was a person
who was passionate about everything: about the environment,
about teaching, about his family, about life. I can't
tell you what he meant to the people who knew him.
It's something that you just can't put into words."
---source
Learn about the Global
Food Heritage Project here.
Read about other Food
Heritage Site Newsmakers here.
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