A Wintry Brewster Herring Run

Text & Photos by Walter Brooks

There are many herring runs on Cape Cod, and they are all picturesque and worth a visit. But in most cases you should wait until April when the herring are climbing the ladders from the ocean to spawn their roe and start another year's life cycle for these amazing sea creatures which start their lives in a fresh water pond and spend most of the year in the saltwater seas.... however,  

the mill in Brewster on Satucket Road is worth a visit anytime, even in
February when the scene is covered in fresh snow as it was this month.


Across from the mill you can look downstream at the trail and the ladders the herring (or alewives) climb each Spring. Below you can compare this with the same scene last summer.

The same scene will look like this in two more months.

If you turn around and cross the road you can gaze upstream past the
waterwheel toward the Upper Mill Pond.

Be sure to come back in April when the herring start upstream. Children struggle to touch their scaly sides and seagulls have their annual feast. Curiously the fish wait in Cape Cod Bay at the mouth of Stony Brook until the temperature of the fresh water is the same as that of the saltwater. Then they start their arduous climb up this series of ladders, past the 130 year-old mill to the Upper Mill Pond where they lay up to 100,000 eggs each - and die.   

An arresting story about herring and their fantastic journey can be found on the Best Read Guide's site here. Ocean-dwellers most of their lives, each year, they return to the same freshwater systems in which they were born to spawn - a wonderful signal of spring on the Cape. The story includes photos like these and the alewive's facts of life.

DIRECTIONS: From the EAST the Brewster mill is less than a mile off Route 6-A in West Brewster on Stony Brooks Road. From the WEST take Satucket Road off Route 134 in South Dennis to The Mill at Stony Brooks Road.

From the Mid Cape Highway (Route 6); From the EAST take Exit 11, Route 137, north to Route 6-A, turn left for less than a mile to Stony Brook Road on the left. From the WEST take Exit 9 (Route 134) north 1-1/2 miles to Satucket Road on the right.