From the book:
The emigrant and sportsman in Canada. Some experiences of an old country settler.
By John Rowan, 1876

On still summer nights, when the tide suits, lobster-spearing parties are the fashion among the Halifax people. A birch-bark torch, carried in the bow of the boat, enables the spearer to see the lobsters crawling about among the seaweed at the bottom. In those bays, where lobsters are really plentiful, I have seen two hundred taken in one tide by a couple of little boys, wading about among the rocks, armed with cod-hooks tied on to sticks.
On one occasion, after a heavy gale in New Brunswick, which threw up tons of lobsters on the beach, I saw several acres of potato ground manured with them. To give some idea of the little value put upon lobsters by the country people, I may mention that on some parts of the coast they boil them for their pigs, but are ashamed to be seen eating lobsters themselves. Lobster shells about a house are looked upon as signs of poverty and degradation.