For Those in Peril: Shipwrecks, Memorials, and Rescues
Celebrate Penobscot Marine Museum’s 2013 season!

Join us for the opening reception of this exciting exhibit, share delicious victuals and ale. Stories of “those in peril” will come alive for visitors to the Penobscot Marine Museum this season. Through exciting interactive exhibits designed by English theater designer Chez Cherry, and with the Museum’s collections of marine art, portraits, photographs, lifesaving equipment, original manuscripts and logbooks, small watercraft, models, and navigational instruments, visitors will learn about the perils of the sea and how these perils have shaped, and continue to shape, our lives in coastal Maine.

Opening Reception
Friday, May 24th
5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
at the Penobscot Marine Museum Gallery
40 East Main Street
Searsport, Maine

On Saturday, May 25th Penobscot Marine Museum opens for the season!

Monday through Saturday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm,
Sunday noon to 5:00 pm. Check out our exciting events

Education News
Welcome our new Director of Education, Kathleen Curtin!

Kathleen brings both enthusiasm and extensive experience as a social studies teacher and museum professional to her new position at PMM. At Plimoth Plantation, she held a number of positions including Manager of Education and Associate Director, Guest Experiences. She is also a food historian and author (she wrote a history of Thanksgiving with Islesboro’s own Sandy Oliver), founded an art house cinema and spent a fair amount of time sailing in and around the Elizabeth Islands of Cape Cod. Kathleen has a degree in history from University of Massachusetts and a Master’s in Education from the University of New Hampshire. She can be reached at kcurtin@pmm-maine.org or 207.548.2529 ext 206.

Volunteer Day!
A great day was had by all!
Thank you to the Yale Alumni (Thomas, Jamie, John, William, George, Pat, Buck), to Tom Preble and Charlie Carter on the excavator, to Neill Peterson and Donna Loomans window washers extraordinaire, to Buck Sawyer who fixed our table, to Kathleen who made delicious food, and all of you who made this day a great success.

The new stone was raked into place, flower beds weeded, galleries vacuumed and dusted, storage areas cleaned out, floors washed, boats moved, and granite walls begun! And we had good conversation and wonderful food. Thank you all!

Object of the Month
This marvelous object is a lamp made from a sperm whale’s tooth with a whale’s eyeball shade. Six square blocks of whalebone of varying sizes create the base. The scrimshander carved a baleen whale, a star, and the word “Thorshammer 1935″ into the tooth. Clifford N. Carver, president of the Western Operating Corporation which was an American whaling company founded in December 1936, gave the Museum his wonderful scrimshaw collection. His business partners were Norwegian and in all likelihood the lamp was a gift from them. The company was dissolved in the 1950s.

Come see the eyeball lamp!
Penobscot Marine Museum opens for the season on May 25th.

Thank you for your Business Membership at the Commodore Level

Join Cross Insurance and our many business partners in supporting Penobscot Marine Museum.

Schooner HERITAGE
“The best vacation you will ever have.” You’ve always wanted to cruise the beautiful islands and bays of downeast Maine. This is the summer you can make that dream a reality, because Schooner HERITAGE is offering Penobobscot Marine Museum members a 10% discount on all 2013 cruises!

Better yet, support Penobscot Marine Museum by sailing on June 4th, June 9th or June 16th. Penobobscot Marine Museum will receive 5% of your fare! Have a great vacation and support Penobscot Marine Museum.

For more information on this special members offer call 1-800-648-4555 or visit www.schoonerheritage.com
Not a member yet? Join us now! www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org
Thank you Schooner HERITAGE for your support of Penobscot Marine Museum.

PMM Photography News

Volunteers Chris Olsson, Phil Brown and Faith Garrold

Thank you, Cascade Foundation of Rockport, Maine and Maine Community Foundation your generous funding enabling us to purchase photographic equipment which bolsters our efforts to preserve, catalog, and share our extensive photography collections.

With this funding we have purchased two PCs to increase image processing speed and general efficiency; a Nikon D800E professional digital SLR camera, which will be used to digitally copy photographs from our holdings at high resolution and to capture archival-quality images of museum objects for our digital catalog; an additional Epson digital projector for use at public talks; a small, high-resolution digital still & video camera which will allow us to document museum activities by creating multimedia content, a professional digital voice recorder for recording and preserving oral histories; and two flatbed scanners to help us keep up with processing our ever-growing collections so that they can be shared with the world.

Events Off Campus
National Maritime Day
Come see Penobscot Marine Museum’s booth at the National Maritime Day celebration in Belfast, Maine on Saturday, May 18 starting at 10:00 am.

Planned activities include: USCG Color Guard honoring mariners lost at sea, guided tours aboard commercial and training vessels, boat trips, pilot gig rowing, law enforcement vessels, pilot boats, tug boats, and many other port support vessels. There will be a live tug boat demonstration by Penobscot Bay Tractor Tug Company tug FOURNIER TRACTOR, and a demonstration of the Bangor Fire Department’s new fire and rescue boat. Live music by the Windbuyer’s.

For more information go to Propeller Club Searsport Bucksport.
For more PMM Events Off Campus, go to www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org/events.

PMM Object of the Month, March 2013

The Emperor of Japan awarded Nathan Carver of the bark Abbie Carver this beautiful medal of the red ribbon and a citation for his rescue of thirteen shipwrecked Japanese fishermen in September of 1881. The Emperor expressed his “high appreciation of [Carver's] humane action toward the unfortunate Japanese subjects who [Carver] rescued so opportunely and treated so kindly.”

Click Nathan Carver for another photograph of Captain Carver from PMM’s collection.
Come see this medal and certificate at PMM this summer in For Those in Peril: Shipwrecks, Memorials, Rescues
Opening reception ~ Friday, May 24, 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm.

Thank you for your Business Memberships at the Commodore Level!

Allen Insurance and Financial and Schooner Heritage support Penobscot Marine Museum in its mission to preserve, interpret and celebrate the maritime culture of the Penobscot Bay Region and beyond.

Allen Insurance and Financial is an employee-owned, community-minded company offering insurance, employee benefits and financial planning services from offices in Rockland, Camden and Southwest Harbor. For more information go to www.allenif.com.

A little adventure and a whole lot of relaxation. Built by her captains. Over ⅔ of our guests return and say, “It just gets better and better.”

Captains Douglas K. and Linda J. Lee
Rockland, Maine
www.schoonerheritage.com

Join us for the Opening Reception Friday, May 24, 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm

Saturday, May 25—Sunday, October 20, 2013

Throughout history, shipwrecks have been the subject of legends, music, books, paintings, and performance. Disasters at sea, whether from storms, collisions, fires, war, vessel failure, or disease, have impacted life around the world. In Maine, we have an especially poignant history of loss to the sea: from the 19th century days of merchant sail, through the vast numbers of fishermen who worked and continue to work under hazardous conditions, to present day merchant marine training and recreational boating, Maine families and communities have known tragedies and triumphs on the water.

Penobscot Marine Museum’s exhibit explores the shipwrecks and near misses; the perfect storms and sudden squalls; those lost at sea and the families left behind; and the brave lifesavers and brilliant marine equipment innovators. Through the museum’s collection of marine art, portraits, photographs, lifesaving equipment, original manuscripts and logbooks, small watercraft, models, and navigational instruments, the stories of “those in peril” will come alive in the summer of 2013.

This exhibit will feature an overview gallery exhibit to set the stage; our sea captain’s home will be a house in mourning for a lost captain; safety equipment and fishermen’s memorials will be featured in our Gone Fishing exhibit; and a lighthouse playscape and a marine archeology salvage activity will be in one of our dedicated children’s rooms.

Although equipment, vessels, and communications have changed dramatically over the past 150 years, the sea has not. Recent events, such as the loss of the Bounty in the recent storm, illustrate this point. The sea is still a formidable force that demands experience, training, and respect. Our exhibit will heighten public awareness of the dangers of the sea, no matter what one’s level of occupational or recreational involvement. It will provide audiences with a greater understanding of the communities of the Maine coast and how they have been shaped in part by the sea and its dangers. Visitors to the museum in 2013 will learn what has happened and can happen at sea; experience first-hand accounts, both historical and more contemporary, of disasters and their aftereffects; gain appreciation for the difficult and sometimes capricious nature of people’s lives when they depend on the sea for a living; and share some of their own stories on our “Ship Log Blog,” which will contain both historic accounts and tales of modern disasters contributed by the public.