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Museum lets visitors immerse themselves in life in, on, along water
From ancient sharks to modern menaces, museum educates, entertains all ages
Virginia Living Museum's visitors find themselves surrounded by wildlife
Around 6:30 one Tuesday evening, men began trickling into the Havre de Grace Maritime Museum. Carrying a plastic bucket of personal tools, each had come to learn and teach the knowledge of wooden boat-building.
The group was mostly retirees, and their past occupations ranged from a surgeon to an air conditioner repairman with a few woodworkers in the mix. That skill wasn't necessary, though, as it could be picked up easily enough in class.
The only prerequisite for the course is a desire to learn wooden boat-building skills and to pass on that heritage, so the maritime culture of the lower Susquehanna River and the Upper Chesapeake Bay would not die.
That heritage is being preserved by the Maritime Museum at Havre de Grace, MD, one of the newest sites in the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network, where weekend visitors might catch some of students working on their boats.
The museum was founded in 1988-13 years before it actually had a facility. Local residents had begun safeguarding the artifacts in anticipation. These artifacts are the basis of boat exhibits that immerse visitors in the maritime Chesapeake.
A shad shack on display outside the museum resembles a camper on the water. It could be towed by boat for fishing, hunting crabbing or just relaxing by the wood stove. Watermen lived in the shack anywhere from a week to a month, and inside the museum is a mock-up of how they were furnished.
The main museum exhibit, "Harvesting the Bay," demonstrates how natural resources of the Bay were used, from the native people to modern anglers on boats with outboard motors.
Artifacts include eel safes-woven baskets that were positioned 60 per mile when eel fishing flourished and live eels were shipped to the Orient and Europe to be smoked.
Visitors learn about skate sailing on the Susquehanna Flats back in the 1940s-50s, when the water still froze over in the winter. This sport began in Sweden several centuries before and all one needed was a hand-held sail, a pair of rustic skates and a good wind to go for a thrilling ride.
The salvaged Bald Friar Petroglyphs display is another favorite-massive rocks with ancient carved pictures on them-salvaged from rock islands long-submerged under the Conowingo Dam. These carvings are thought to have functioned as maps, indicating the natural features along the Susquehanna.
Along this vein, for the last six years the museum has offered a summer archeological camp, I Can Dig It: Discover History in your own Backyard, for youths. The one-week class begins by teaching students how to conduct a dig. Practice boxes are created with five color-coded layers of soil, each depicting a time period: from European's first contact with native peoples to modern times. Items-from stone and bone tools to pop-tops-are planted in their appropriate layer.
Students then move to nearby Susquehanna State Park to learn about natural resources and do a bit of geo-caching and compass work, both skills used in archeology. The children build clay and coil pots; plant a native garden of corn, beans and squash; help to burn and scrape a dugout canoe; and build a drying rack for skins and fish. On their last night, the students sleep over, often incorporating native foods such as buffalo meat and corn into their dinner.
Shortly after the museum opened, its Chesapeake Wooden Boat Builders School, become one of its most popular offerings. Classes are offered in conjunction with Harford Community College in the fall and spring. Some students come for a semester or two, others much longer.
The 10-15 instructors each teach a different skill. None are paid for this non-credit course: It is their hobby, their passion. Students have been returning for so many years that they have acquired the necessary skills to fill an instructor's position, should one open up.
There are four basic types of boat-building going on at the school.
The boat restoration group works on larger boats, like the wooden runabout Grady White. People can bring in old boats to restore for a fee.
The wooden canoe group restores old canoes and builds new ones.
The new boat group may be working on a stitch and glue kayak, sailing pram or crabbing skiff.
Members of the model boat shop have built a variety of craft: from replicas of Capt. John Smith's 17th century shallop to a Class C Freighter that was used on the Great Lakes. These guys also operate radio-controlled boats from land with a joystick.
Ron Root pulled me over to show off a brand new wooden canoe called an English 20. The design won awards at the 1900 World's fair in New York City. The ribs are made of white cedar and the planking red cedar, while the wales, decks and seats are all mahogany. The boat builders had to cut, steam and shape all of the ribs. This labor of love took two years to complete and lucky Root gets to take it home because he provided the cash to buy the materials.
After a student has participated in the group for enough years, when there is available space, he or she can offer to pay for a boat's materials, and the instructors teach the students how to build it.
"It's one of the advantages for hanging around so long!" Root said. Since the school's birth, students have built and restored 200 wooden boats.
The group draws new students from the workshops it offers to the general public on birch-bark canoes. They also have a community outreach "road show" in which they pack up a trailer with boats, and attend community events.
As they set up a canopy and work on some of their boats, they invariably draw out a few new students. And then there are those like myself, who wander into the museum after hours to watch and question and learn what all the great fun is about.
Bud Gillis, one of the schools' three directors, said one of the school's crown jewels is its Teen Boat Building School, which takes place every June. Using a program called "Building a 6 Hour Canoe," 13- to 15-year-olds make their own boat in the span of five classes, Pieces are pre-cut from two 4-by-8 sheets of plywood so the youths don't have to mess with power saws. The boat weighs 60 pounds completed and students work in teams of two, creating low-tech, but extremely seaworthy boats that they get to keep.
"We try to make it a big deal for the kids on Saturday, launch day." Gillis said. "Their whole extended family shows up, as well as the mayor, the newspaper reporter and the preacher to bless the fleet. All of the students' boats are lined up on the town's low pier and are launched at the same time, amongst wild cheering. After a spin or two they return to share their ride with a sibling and then a parent."
It is a great confidence-building experience for the builders and their parents, who often can't quite believe their sons or daughters made an actual boat themselves. The youths learn to appreciate the skills that go into wooden boat-building and that's what the Chesapeake Boat Builders School is all about-passing on the tradition.
But people don't have to be boat builders in order to be active at the museum or appreciate the stories it tells. Members of the community help out with the BayScaping program, weeding out invasive species. They work with Scout troops or other local organization and teach them about the flora and fauna of the area. Their vision for the future is to conduct more educational group tours.
"Everything here is a work in progress," said Ann Persson, curator and director of programs. The museum, in fact, is in the midst of a major renovation and expansion.
Partitions and new gallery space will be added upstairs, while the ground floor will become the new boat building workshop and Susquehanna Flats Environmental Center classroom. A new permanent exhibit on Captain John Smith will also be added.
Visitors on Monday nights in July have the pleasure of hearing a free outdoor concert, during which musicians perform traditional waterman songs.
There is also a gorgeous quarter-mile promenade to stroll along the water's edge and the Concord Point Lighthouse right next door. It guarded the point where the Susquehanna River meets the Chesapeake Bay and kept watermen safe from dangerous waters for 181 years. A visit to Havre de Grace Maritime Museum will instill knowledge and appreciation for the ships and watermen the lighthouse protected.
Havre de Grace Maritime Museum
The Havre de Grace Maritime Museum is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Sunday, and 6-9:30 p.m. Tuesday from September through May. It is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, June through August.\
Admission is $3/adults; $2/seniors & students; free/8 years and younger.
For information about the museum, boat-building school or archaelogy camp, call 410-939-4800 or visit www.hdgmaritimemuseum.org.
For information about other sites in the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network, visit www.baygateways.net.
