Using scissor-like tongs, twenty-feet long, these Malpeque Bay oyster fishermen are shown harvesting part of Canada's annual million dollar oyster crop. Tonging technique is much the same as that used over three centuries ago when French explorer Champlain learned from Indians how to hook oysters through ice of frozen Acadian lakes and inlets. Today, business-wise restaurants serve customers from both sides of the border with oysters fried, stewed or fresh on the half-shell, shipped thousands of miles in special containers.

Despite hard protective shell, the oyster is prey to sea enemies like mussel, drill and starfish, and is subject to disease in germ-ridden waters. Quicklime, spread over oyster beds, is used as control against enemies, without harming commercially-valuable shellfish.