SEARSPORT – If you have some age and traveled in and out of Maine way back in the day, before the Maine Turnpike was opened, you might remember this 56-foot tall man, dressed in oil-skins, known as “Big Jim” welcoming you to ‘Sardineland’ on Route 1 in Kittery. After the Turnpike opened and there was less traffic on Route 1, and Big Jim was removed. Fortunately, he was saved and found a new home in front of the Stinson sardine factory in Prospect Harbor. After this factory closed, it has been through a couple of owners, but some wondered what would happen to “Big Jim” and a movement began. Then came the exciting news that “Big Jim” would be coming to the Penobscot Marine Museum (PMM) for the summer of 2026.
One of the major players in getting “Big Jim” to PMM was Kevin Johnson, head of Photo Archives, at the Museum. He explained, “When we decided to celebrate the history of sardines and the sardine industry in Maine, we decided to make it a two-year exhibit. My gears started turning to come up with a way of putting a spotlight on this exhibit. I have done it in the past, making a giant camera obscura and a fish weir to attract attention. I was aware of “Big Jim” in Prospect Harbor. I knew that from our work with the Maine Sardine Council collection his back story of being created by the Maine Sardine Council back in 1959. He was one of many things that they came up with to promote the sardine industry. “Big Jim” was essentially a giant advertisement. It wasn’t a billboard because you can’t have those in Maine. It had a nice little life down in Kittery before 95 was finished. Fortunately, Cal Stinson thought it should be saved, got permission to take it down and bring it up to Prospect Harbor. I don’t think he was able to put the original plywood one up because it had deteriorated too much. They were able to use the old pieces to cut out the same shape out of aluminum and remake it. I think it was a twist of fate that it ended up being in front of the cannery that was the last sardine cannery in the state. So, it became a symbol of the sardine industry and I thought ‘wow, what if we could get him and put him down on the crescent on Route 1.
“I didn’t know if it was a feasible idea so I reached out to Jennifer Stucker who is very active in the Gouldsboro Historical Society and with Prospect Harbor being part of Gouldsboro I wanted to talk to her and just find out, could we do it? What did she think?” continued Kevin. “She loved the idea. Loved the idea of restoring him back to his original form. The fact that it would bring attention to him and then he would go back to his perch in Prospect Harbor and continue to be that roadside attraction that he has become.”
What no one considered was all the red tape and hoops they would have to jump through to make this happen. When the process started the owners of the property were good with the idea. They had purchased the factory so as to save it from out-of-state developers. What was not known was that they were selling the property and this had its own complications. They had found a local buyer, Bold Coast Seafood, who wanted to use it as a factory. However, they wanted to keep “Big Jim.” After several conversations they agreed to let PMM take him down, refurbish him, and return him after a year at the Museum.
The Town of Searsport agreed to the idea. Kevin added, “Well, it wasn’t as hard as it could have been. Fortunately, the town saw it as a temporary exhibit and therefore it didn’t have to meet the same threshold as if it was going to be permanent. One big question we had was how do we make him stand up? In Prospect Harbor he is attached to two I-beams that are sunk into the ledge and he is not moving. The wind doesn’t move him there, but here it would be a concern. We reached out to David Wyman, a naval architect who helps us out when he can; former teacher at Maine Maritime Academy and he came up with a design that will hold him upright while he is here and even allow him to be lowered in the event of a hurricane. The other thing was getting the people that we would need to actually do it. We are especially fortunate to be working with Dan Miller at Belmont Boat Works. He has helped us out numerous times just because he appreciates what we do and he likes a challenge. We have been able to give him some challenges, one of which was taking the giant camera obscura down to Camden for a weekend event. When I pitched this idea to Dan, he loved it right out of the get go. He has a crane and he has a son who knows how to work it. They agreed to sign on and do it at a minimal cost. We also contacted with the WOW Collective, which stands for Women on Walls and they are a group of women from the Belfast area that paint murals. One of them is always game for a project and a challenge and she took the bait. Both of them have been great champions of this project, helping to get the word out and shake the trees. So, it is all coming together.”
The fundraising was very successful and is almost at their projected goal. Now, the issue is finding a weather window to get “Big Jim” down and to Belfast where he will be stripped and primed and then repainted back to his original version as sardine man and welcome to Sardineland. Then he will come to the Museum and be placed on the crescent right near the yacht mast, which will be removed.
“Big Jim” will be taken down the end of the year and returned to his old haunt at Prospect Harbor. My question was if this is really successful, can we make a replica, maybe smaller? The entire idea for this project was to bring attention to the Museum and get more people to stop and experience what PMM has to offer. Kevin added, “Our challenge now is to get those who stop here interested in what we do and sometimes it takes a spectacle to get people to stop on Route 1 in Searsport and this will do it. Once they take that time and see that we are more than one building on Route One and all the amazing exhibits and collections that we have, that they will want to join, they will want to come back and visit again, maybe even multiple times a year and support us.”
The sardine exhibit has been absolutely incredible and that was just in the first year. They have one more year and that should bring in even more people, especially the year-end event, Sardine Day, the first weekend in October. Last year they were going to be happy with 250 people, but they were shocked when more than 1,200 people came.
Why was it so successful? “We wanted to do it is because,” said Kevin, “A. It is a recent industry, the last one only closed a little more than 15 years ago. It employed tens of thousands of Mainers and they supported communities. The communities were based around sardines. When we thought of doing this as an exhibit, we knew that it was going to touch a nerve because if people themselves hadn’t worked in them, their parents did or they lived in a community where they could smell sardines on a regular basis. It was part of the fabric of the Maine diet for so long. Much to our pleasant surprise, it did strike that nerve and people did come out. Sardines seem to be hip again. People are even longing to eat them after maybe years of not wanting to.”
Kevin, as head of Photo Archives, explained, “We have thousands and thousands of images of the sardine industry. It goes across many of our collections. Some of the biggest ones like Kosti Ruohomas, Eastern Illustrating or Red Boutilier. Almost all of our big collections have elements of the sardine industry in them. Whether it is the workers in the canneries or whether it is the canneries themselves or whether it’s the fisherman and the boats that caught them. We have a very rich photographic history of that whole industry. We are fortunate in the sense that it was really big at a time when photography became big. For example, the Maine Sardine Council, whose job it was to promote the industry, took full advantage of hiring the best photographers to document what was going on and get those out there. So, it is a fishery that is documented more than most of the other ones that we have in the State of Maine other than lobstering.”
I asked how photo archives was doing. Kevin said, “Well, I can tell you, if no more new photos come in, I will still have enough work to do for the rest of my life.” As we know there are several huge collections that will come to the Museum and keep the next person busy for their entire life. Kevin added, “We’re doing really well. We had a long year with our transition to a new database software that had a bunch of hiccups. We are finally ironing them out and it is getting to the place where we want it to be. This will allow our collection to be explored and put to work: providing images for other museum exhibits and other publications or whatever. It is there for researchers, students, anyone who is interested in photography and help them tell their story, whether they are writing a book, making a movie, writing an article, doing a website, or just enjoying them for their photographic beauty.”
“Currently I am working on the Kosti Ruohomas collection and the Peggy McKenna Collection both of which we have funding for,” continued Kevin. “Collections that have funding always moved to the top of the list and get most of our attention. We are also working on Maynard Bray’s collection. We have a collection from the photographer John Moore who was a contemporary to Kosti Ruohomas and photographed around mid-coast. There are a lot of boatbuilding and boat launches and other maritime themes in that collection. He worked for the Portland Press Herald as the mid-coast correspondent and was based out of Rockport from the 50s to the 70s. We were able to get a portion of his collection. The lion’s share of it is down at the Rockland Historical Society.”
A couple of years ago, Photo Archives went to Boothbay Harbor and scanned lots of personally owned maritime photographs. This has turned into a book project and that should be released the end of winter. Kevin said that he would love to do other towns on the coast and this would be a great way to preserve your history before some family members toss them into a landfill or simply delete them.
