DELIGHTFULLY DEEP IN THE WEEDS

Digital editor BRENNA LILLY spent a week apprenticed to a master seaweed harvester-and learned much more than how to gather kelp.

- BRENNA LILLY

MY BEST FRIEND, Jessie, and I were told by the Seaweed Man to arrive at EverWild “on the August full moon,” which we did after a leisurely seven-hour drive north on Route 1.

EverWild is the home base of the Maine Seaweed Company, operated by Larch Hanson and his partner, Nina Crocker. EverWild is a seven-acre patch of land just a moment’s walk from Gouldsboro Bay in Steuben, Maine, where Larch harvests seaweed every summer with a small motorboat, a container boat, two rowboats, and a canoe. He has been there for over 50 years, and Nina for 15.

Once a rocky forest of conifers and mixed hardwoods, the couple have turned EverWild into a flourishing homestead replete with gardens and fruit trees; an extensive campsite for visitors (where Jessie and I shared a tent on a platform); a large, cozy, hand-built home; and an entire operation for the harvesting, drying, packaging, and shipping of seaweed. They ship worldwide, and thousands of people coast-to-coast have been nourished by the luscious varieties of kelp, alaria, digitata, dulse, nori, and Irish moss traditionally used for food and medicine—or nourished indirectly by rockweed fertilizer.

Larch and Nina are also both skilled bodyworkers, teaching hands-on workshops for amateurs and therapists of all stripes. They take apprentices in gardening, carpentry, boatbuilding, bodywork, and seaweed harvesting April through October, and sometimes year-round.

I first saw a video of Larch doing his work back in 2020. Sporting a wetsuit and knife in hand, he effortlessly leaned over the edge of a small black linseed-oiled rowboat, thrust his upper body toward the waves, and emerged in one fluid motion with an armful of kelp. I was captivated.