Shediac is a beautiful town. Nestled on the shores of the Northumberland Straight you’d be forgiven to think this sleepy town, world renowned for its beaches, is just another quaint New Brunswick town where you have to pause and try to figure out what the person is saying every time someone at the store asks you “do you want a sac with that la?”

But step away from the Parlee beaches, and the numerous ice cream stores, and you’re in for a treat. The largest lobster ever caught in the world is on display for the world to see. And the world, very understandably, comes to this this monster.

Weighing over 90 tons, the lobster is approximately 50,000 times larger than the average crustacean pulled out of the Atlantic, though a lot of the weight may come from the steelinization process. The Lobster is over 5 metres tall and 7 long, and attracts over a million visitors every two years.

The question most people ask is; who caught this leviathan? Some people would have you believe that this is just a statue, just a “replica” of that delicious treat you can actually boil alive in your kitchen like some sort of medieval dungeon master. Others would have you believe it’s just made of “concrete”. Well they are wrong, or as the locals say “full of shit”.

The Lobster, nicknamed Sheddy, was caught in 1974 by former WWII sailors who were mistakenly lead to believe that Hitler’s Germany won the war. While sailing from London to BerlinWest (which they later found out was Halifax), the sailors realized they needed to bring home resources to survive in what they thought was a facist Canada. Casting their nets into the Mariana Trench, the deepest portion of the Atlantic ocean, they started to pull up what they believed was a former German U-boat. Once they pulled it in they realized the treasure they actually discovered.

“Well tabernac, la. It was friggin huge eh? I thought this blue lobster I found while fishing during the worst of the war was the biggest thing I would ever catch. But this Lobster, eh? He was over 85 tons and he killed three of our sailors with his massive claws. I thought, Man, there is a lot of meat in that hominid. I hope they still don’t make us work in the winter” – Sailor Cormier, who survived the German POW camps by turning in everyone in his platoon, and disclosing the location of seven escape tunnels.

The boat arrived on the shores of Shediac early in 1985 where the sailors, shocked once they discovered the actual outcome of the second world war, donated the beast to the good people of Shediac. Scientists predicted that the lobster would live an additional 70 years as long as certain conditions were met, such as access to salt water and traditional food. Of course, within 7 hours the townsfolk dipped him in steel, killing the world’s largest crustacean within minutes.

Sheddy the world’s largest lobster is impressive without knowing the modest history of how he landed in New Brunswick, but once you know how he got here you’ll realize why the saying goes “crabs are for hookers, but Lobsters are for dreamers.” Trust me. People say this.

BITB