The Your Local Library + Museum series is designed to showcase some of the exciting things you can see or do at the museum. Start at Carver Memorial Library, then come on a short visit to the museum. These programs are all free.

Your Local Library + Museum: Sailors’ Knots & Life at Sea (Teens)

June 6th 

Make a monkey’s fist keychain or Turk’s head bracelet! Led by Penobscot Marine Museum education director Jeana Ganskop, learn how to make a fancy sailors’ knot. After the craft, we will walk over to the Museum to explore the Crew’s Life exhibit and find out more about the lives of 19th-century sailors! Materials are provided. This program is intended for teens.

Your Local Library + Museum: Fine Art 

June 7th

Did you know Penobscot Marine Museum has a world-class marine art collection including pieces by renowned painters such as the Buttersworths, Robert Salmon, and Fitz Henry Lane. Meet at Carver Memorial Library for an informal talk on some of the artists in the Penobscot Marine Museum collection. After this 20-minute presentation, walk over to the museum for a private tour featuring notable works of art. This program is intended for adults.

Your Local Library + Museum: Searsport Women at Home and at Sea

June 21st

We often hear stories about the Searsport captains who went to sea. But what about the women who joined their husbands on long voyages or spent months or years at home in Searsport, alone? Meet at Carver Memorial Library for an informal talk sharing some stories about local women and their connections with the sea. After this 20-minute presentation, walk over to the museum for a private tour featuring objects and stories from the woman’s perspective. This program is intended for adults.

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Do you enjoy storytelling? Have you ever imagined what life on Penobscot Bay was like 50 years ago? Or 150 years ago? This year’s Ripped from the Headlines event will feature stories about life on the bay for residents and visitors. The event will take place on the evening of June 29th starting at 5pm. We’re looking for costumed volunteers to either dramatically read the newspaper article or create a character to portray based on the article. All ages are welcome (you can even do it with a friend or family member)! Possible stories include: “Lighthouse Uses Giant Telephone,” (1930), "Suspicious Tourists Hove-To at Searsport,” (1917), “Dude Crews Sail in Penobscot Bay Landlubber Cruises,” (1949), and more! Contact Jeana at [email protected] for more information.

By Cipperly Good, Richard Saltonstall Jr. Curator of Maritime History

The death of Ralph Stanley in December 2021 marked the passing of one of the last wooden boat builders in the region. While his boat building expertise was widely recognized, Ralph was also a scholar, author, storyteller, musician, and expert on regional boat builders, designs, and history. Thankfully, Ralph recognized the unique and specialized knowledge he had acquired over a lifetime and he generously and widely shared his stories, memories, and experiences. The Mount Desert Island Historical Society included the following article written by our curator Cipperly Good in their latest history journal Chebacco: The Maritime Edition Volume XXIV 2023.

Maynard Bray Collection June 2023

By Matt Wheeler, Digital Collections Curator

After a month of silence, we’re back blogging. June features a visual homage to tugboats, yawl boats, and push boats. These are a little akin to the straight man in a comedy duo they humbly enable the other one to stand out and do its work. Freighters, schooners, barges, and traditional Chesapeake Bay skipjacks all still rely on their humbler counterparts to function. We’ll see examples of these spanning 50 years from coast to coast.

To view the slideshow of selected images, visit the On Site with Maynard page. From there, you can also browse the entire group in the online image database.

Kosti Ruohomaa Collection June 2023

By Matt Wheeler, Digital Collections Curator

Peruse Ruohomaa’s photography and very quickly a powerful nostalgia for childhood becomes obvious. He often photographed kids in the midst of…being kids. Here, in a rare instance of color portrayal, we follow the summertime escapades of children near a farm and pond somewhere in Maine. As it always does, seeing color in an image makes it more immediate. These days are coming soon!

Maybe that same summer—1950—the photographer returned to the Bay of Fundy, inspired by the dramatic tides he’d seen during a 1949 shoot for Black Star. He was as moved by movement and mood in landscape as he was by reminders of childhood.

Thanks to our talented team bringing this collection to light: Sarah Cole, cataloger, and Erin Tokarz, imaging technician.

To view the new content, visit the museum’s Kosti Ruohomaa site.

Collections at Work

By Kevin Johnson, Photo Archivist

Last month photographer Alison Langley took a deep dive into our photo archives looking for images to use in a video she was creating for WoodenBoat magazine. She was telling the story of the sardine carrier GRAYLING that had a rebirth as a yacht. She found photos in the National Fisherman and Atlantic Fisherman collections, the Maine Sardine Council collection and really struck gold in the Maynard Bray collection. This is a perfect example of our collections being put to work to help tell a story. PMM's images are used regularly for books, articles, websites and videos. We are currently in the home stretch of raising funds to purchase a new database management system that will make searching the database easier and more efficient. If you support this effort and believe our work of making these images available, please consider making a donation to this effort. Donate here.

We were fortunate to have the opportunity to talk about our 2023 season on Good Morning Maine. You can watch that interview here.

The Bangor Daily News featured photos from the PMM archive in this article celebrating baseball.

A huge thank you to Nautilus Marine Fabricators, John Williams Boat Company, Page Traditional Boats, Martin Ottaway, and Maine Maritime Museum for showing their support of PMM by becoming business members!