Photograph of Nate Ellison who comes from a family of commercial fishermen struggling to hold onto the coastal community they have called home for generations.

Outsiders have tried to block access to the waterfront Ellison and others have used for decades to dock their boats and unload their catches. When one of the family’s shrimp boats mysteriously burned, some residents wondered if land grabbers were to blame.

None of it has stopped Ellison from carrying on the commercial fishing tradition.
At 22, he is one of the youngest fishermen working from the end of Silver Dollar Road, an area facing the loss of its culture in tiny Merrimon, N.C.  Ellison, like his relatives, is not willing to stand by and let it go.

“When it's in your blood, it's stuck. You can't get rid of it,” Ellison said aboard the trawler he named after his son, Kayden, and daughter, Kaizlee.

Ongoing legal battles over family property — a controversy so intense it has been covered by national news outlets and was spotlighted in the 2023 documentary “Silver Dollar Road” — is just one of the challenges Ellison faces as a shrimper.

High fuel prices and the cheap imported shrimp undercutting wholesale prices since he started fishing in 2022 fire his tenacity to keep family traditions going.

He also supports his community, going so far as to share part of his catch with residents in need whenever he can.

Learn more about Ellison's story and the Black history and experience in our state's seafood industry at the exhibit debut of the NC Catch African Americans in North Carolina Seafood project March 9, 2025 at Core Sound Waterfowl Museum & Heritage Center in Harkers Island, N.C.

The event is free but you must register to attend.
.

Photograph and narrative source: NC Catch