Bon Secour, the Safe Harbor Fishing Village
Near Gulf Shores, Alabama
A few miles north of the beach, along a quiet tidal river, sits one of the oldest working fishing communities on the Alabama coast. Its name is Bon Secour, French for good help, though generations of locals have translated it more poetically as safe harbor. The name traces back to sixteen ninety nine, when a French Canadian named Jacques Cook, traveling with the explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, is said to have sheltered here.
French settlers put down roots as a fishing village in the seventeen hundreds, and the river has fed families ever since. Bon Secour grew into a seafood town in earnest as oyster harvesting and packing took hold, with fresh oysters hauled to the markets of Mobile, and shrimp joined the catch later. Along the riverfront you will still find the ice houses, docks, and processing sheds of a real working waterfront, where boats unload Gulf shrimp and oysters just as they have for well over a century.
Bon Secour is not a resort. It is the salty, unglamorous engine that has quietly fed this coast for generations.
