Inside the effort to restore 'Big Jim,' an icon of Maine's bygone sardine industry

Inside the effort to restore 'Big Jim,' an icon of Maine's bygone sardine industry

For more than a century, the sardine — not lobster — was the king of Maine’s coastal fisheries. The industry may be gone but the people who helped catch and pack the little fish for sale around the world remain with stories to share. There’s an effort underway in Searsport to preserve that history. From ‘Sardineland’ to ‘Vacationland’ At the height of production during the 1950s, dozens of canneries fueled the economies of towns like Lubec, Belf…