News
We have a new home! Plans begun late in 2019, delayed by Covid, are now a reality. We are proud to share space with the Maine Lighthouse Museum in Rockland ME, at the mouth of Penobscot Bay. Home to a Coast Guard station, an impressive group of museums and a lively art scene, Rockland is perfectly situated on Maine's mid-coast.
Last year we mounted two exhibits about Lighthouse Mascots and maritime pets. Late this year, we will introduce more breed-specific exhibits about working and companion maritime pets, maritime heroes and famous mascots.
Covid 19 continues to pose some roadblocks, and like many museums, we have had to learn new technologies to keep our virtual doors open for business! In addition to presenting several on-line lectures, our staff contributed to blogs, book reviews and other services to the field. We also maintained our social media outreach and contacts with the wider maritime and scholarly communities.
In addition, we were fortunate to expand our volunteer force and recently concluded several projects as part of our Second Decade Initiative. These included cataloguing our Library and developing resource lists of maritime organizations around the world by region. Plans for 2021-23 include digitizing our Library and Photo archival collections.
In 2019, the Museum's founder participated in the first international Maritime Animals conference, held in Greenwich UK at the National Maritime Museum. Patricia Sulivan discussed the museum's mission and presented an overview of the types and functions of maritime pets throughout the ages.
Sullivan shared her east and west-bound ocean crossings with a Black Lab service dog who has accompanied her owner on several voyages. Many ocean liners roll out the red carpet for such dogs, and we salute them all!
During her time in the UK, Sullivan visited colleagues at various maritime museums and ports of call. Buster, the history dog from Plymouth University, and Hatch from the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth were just two of many furry and human friends she met up with.
The museum's dory, "Noah's Barque" found a new home in 2019. She performed very well on the water, but the boat was too unstable to use for pet demonstrations and educational events. We are on the hunt for a boat with a flatter bottom and more deck room, in order to provide stability and greater safety during in-water demonstrations.
Podcasting gained in popularity in 2020-21 as museums and other organizations sought ways to keep their profiles and messages front and center in the public eye. We were featured on a May 13, 2021 episode of The Mariner's Mirror, devoted to maritime history. Visit the Society for Nautical Research and search the podcasts page. All episodes are available. www.snr.org
In recent years, we have been interviewed on one foreign and several national radio programs, and have been featured in comprehensive articles in Atlas Obscura, as well as Boating Times, Smithsonian Online Magazine, and the Washington Post. We contribute to several blogs on an invitation basis, and maintain an active exchange of information and images via social media.
In 2017, we circulated an exhibit on loan to us from CFB Esquimalt Museum (Canadian Navy) in Victoria BC. "Creature Comforts" featured mascots from the late 19th through mid 20th centuries. Our own maritime pets exhibit "All Paws on Deck" continues to travel on demand. It features several famous mascots, topical news and images, and a tribute to the pets who were aboard the Titanic on her fateful voyage in 1912.
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