this Saturday, May 4, 6:00 PM -- just six days away

Come on, Let's take a Sunset Seal Watch

The Black Hawk is donating an exciting trip to view the seals who live off New London. View these animals in their natural environment. It's a fundraiser for NLMS. Sometimes we see many. Sometimes there are few -- but it's always a wonderful trip!

The seals are actually Maine natives who make Long Island Sound their winter/spring and sometimes permanent home. On this trip, we'll leave from Niantic and head out to Little Gull and Plum Islands. Purchase tickets online: https://sunsetsealwatch.bpt.me

Beginning in the 1800s, hunters harvesting seals for fur and oil virtually eliminated seals in Long Island Sound. Fishermen continued to kill seals believing they were competing with them for fish. In fact, up into the 1950s Connecticut offered seal hunters a bounty. From NOAA: The Marine Mammal Protection Act was enacted in 1972 and established a national policy to prevent marine mammal species and population stocks from declining beyond the point where they ceased to be significant functioning elements of the ecosystems of which they are a part. Following new federal regulations, seals began returning to LIS in the 1970s. Today five species can be found, many now making the Sound their permanent home. They've been reported as far west as Greenwich!

Bring your camera and binoculars. We'll bring a drink and snack! The boat leaves at 6, so plan to arrive at 5:30 PM. Sunset's at 7:58. It's about a 2 hour round-trip.

Tickets are $35 for adults, $30 for NLMS members, and $25 for children ages 6 to 18 (the same prices since 2020!). Call 860-447-2501 with your questions or sign up online today.

Photo: Donna Whitehouse (from a recent seal watch!)

May 12 through July 19

Beacons through Time exhibition

Christian Fiedler captured six months of the sun’s path across the sky in a single image. Using a small camouflaged pinhole camera stashed at Harbor Light, his long-exposure print in the lantern room records the scene from 25 October 2022 – 8 May 2023: 195 days. Our visits giving tours inside the lantern room during those months did not signify; the camera registered only the long view.

Christian Fiedler’s Beacons through Time, will be on view at the Custom House from May 12 through July 19, 20204. The luminous pinhole camera prints will include Point Judith (RI), Avery Point (CT), and Montauk (NY) Lights, among others.

Also opening soon: a small exhibition from local shipwreck diver Mark Munro. It’s on the Volund, a 239-foot Norwegian tramp steamer which sank ‘somewhere in the Race’ in 1908.

This week at the Custom House

We are involved in many relationships at the Custom House.

To start with, we have our members, trustees & volunteers, our sponsors & donors -- the indispensable individuals and organizations who make our day-to-day existence possible.

NB: Current members should receive their Spring newsletters any day in the mail!

We also have the individuals who share their precious objects & expertise with us. Jay Kane loans us the Mark V equipment comprising half of the Vintage Dive Gear display in our lobby, for example. This winter Jay took several of the items on vacation in Florida; they all went diving! Last week he brought back the helmet and dive shoes. At 20 pounds, each, the shoes are a favorite with school children. Similarly, others donate expertise -- Jibboom speakers, Joe Maco and Patrick Lynch among them.

Even wider webs came into play this week. I visited the newly revamped Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven. I've loved the museum since childhood and the reworked displays are truly terrific. The museum focuses on real objects, like at the Custom House. The curators crowd-sourced the object labeling, a different and intriguing approach, and one which reflects what matters to the local audience.

A few years ago, when they began the process, the Peabody donated three display cabinets to the Custom House. In fact, we have display furniture from the Yale Art Gallery, British Art Center, and the Peabody, as well as from the Peabody Essex and Russian Icons museums. We have paid that generosity forward, with gifts to both the Noank and Lisbon Historical Societies.

Ever further afield, on Monday morning, yours truly represented the US in an international online Museum Collections Care conference. The program featured ICCROM: the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, which administers disaster help for museums experiencing wars, storms, or fires, & UNESCO which (among other programs) developed the Re-Org collections system for straightening out small-museum collections.

In May 2019, the first RE-ORG in the US took place at the Custom House, led by the system’s guru, Canadian Simon Lambert. In Canada, many of the museums are small community collections with one or two employees, like the Custom House. The RE-ORG Method is a step-by-step approach to storage organization that helps to reorganize a museum’s collection storage rooms, focusing on the creative, yet safe, use of existing resources. Our project was a demonstration to train trainers in the program.

Online conference presenters showed the process applied in India, Italy... This method has been used all over the world in 151 institutions and over 30 countries.

At the Custom House, across one day twenty+ volunteers achieved a magical transformation of our overstuffed collections space. Every-thing was cleaned, sorted, organized, packed in storage boxes, then somehow reassembled.

Although our Re-Org took place five years ago, I happily can report that we have managed to adhere to the system! With collections manager, Denise Davies, we've even improved upon it.

The crushed clam shells also have been spread at Harbor Lighthouse. One worry there: no growth can be detected as yet in the grasses! Maybe it's still too early in the season and the stone planters still too chilly. We'll keep you posted.

This week we got one, and we lost one! We always welcome new volunteer docents, workers, lighthouse tour-givers. Contact nlmaritimedirector@gmail.com to learn more about these opportunities.

--Susan