Save the date for Saturday, October 4th for PMM’s SardineFest. It will be a day of celebration of all things sardines and packed (like sardines) with music, family fun, speakers, food, and more.

There is still space available for exhibitors with a connection to Maine's maritime industries. If you are interested in exhibiting, you can find out more here.

We are also collecting clean, empty sardine cans for crafts. These can be dropped off at the Museum Store Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm.

Interested in volunteering to help at the event? Email us at museumoffices@pmm-maine.org to be added to the volunteer list.

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

Our SardineFest celebration is just around the corner on October 4^th, and we are lining up a fascinating group of speakers to explore sardines from many different perspectives. We invite you to join us to hear from sardine factory workers, herring fishermen, sardine industry regulators, and other sardine enthusiasts. One of our speakers will be diving into the comic Ricky and Debbie in Sardineland. Originally put out by the Maine Sardine Council in 1967, the comic takes readers through the canning process from catching the herring to the different steps at the cannery to going to market. The Maine Sardine Council also issued a Spanish language version and an updated 1987 version that reflects the automatization of much of the canning process.

Snip. Snip.

By Kevin Johnson, Photo Archivist

Over the past couple years we have witnessed the making of a home grown star as Newport basketball player Cooper Flagg rose to fame becoming the No.1 draft pick in the NBA. There hadn't been this type of hype for a Maine celebrity since Rockland sardine packer Rita Willey took the state, and to some extent the country, by storm, winning five sardine packing contests over a 12-year period between 1970-1982. She not only won cash prizes and respect from her fellow packers, she also became a bit of a national television star appearing on the Johnny Carson Show, What's My Line, and Real People. When Johnny Carson asked her how she did her job, she calmly replied “With scissors. Snip. Snip.” The sponsor of the sardine packing contests, The Maine Sardine Council, had found its star. Even after her packing career ended, Rita made appearances at the Sardine Museum in Jonesport where people from near and far made a pilgrimage to meet her and have her sign a can of sardines.

As we prepared for our Sardineland exhibit, we connected with Rita and her husband Lanny to interview them about their packing experience. She donated her trophies and related memorabilia to PMM, and they are on display as part of our exhibit. Additionally, she donated some moving footage of a couple of the contests, which we just had digitized at Northeast Historic Film. You can see a clip of the film here. Come meet Rita and see the entire film at our SardineFest on October 4th! 

By Jeana Ganskop, Education Director

We often talk about the large number of merchant captains that came from Searsport. What does that really mean? This graphic is helpful. An article in the Republican Journal in 1884 listed most of the Searsport captains at that time. We scoured the newspapers for more information and put together this map of over 75 Searsport captains with their locations on January 31, 1884 (or as close as we could determine based on the research). They were masters of schooners, brigs, ships, and barks and on that day in 1884, they could be found all over the world!

Thank you to Wesmac Custom Boats for signaling their support of PMM and the work we do by becoming business members!