Presented in cooperation with the Pea Island Cookhouse Museum on Roanoke Island.

Of the many documents associated with the Freedmen’s Colony on Roanoke Island, a letter signed by Richard Etheridge and eight others, and with 58 other names shown, each marked with an “X”, is particularly important.

The undated letter, received on Dec. 25, 1867, is noted by the academic and author, Patricia Click in her scholarly book about the colony, “A Time Full of Trial.”

There will be two opportunities to visit the Pea Island Cookhouse Museum Feb. 28, from 10 a.m. – noon, or 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.  During each, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., the latest version of our short video, “A Checkered Past: The Story of Keeper Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers” will be shown. This 15-minute video, based on two events held during Black History Month in 2023, was recently revised to include additional information about our organization.  It features Pea Island Preservation Society Inc. board members, youth volunteers, and descendants of the Pea Island lifesavers who were interviewed.

For our organization, Black History Month is a reflective time, and especially to think about the Freedmen’s Colony on Roanoke Island and the U.S Life-Saving Service (and later, the early U.S. Coast Guard station) at Pea Island.  Both are important to fully understand the history of the Outer Banks.

Keeper Richard Etheridge, who grew up enslaved on Roanoke Island, is perhaps most known for his leadership and the legacy associated with the Pea Island station.  Following his death in May 1900, the station remained staffed primarily with Black surfman crews until it was deactivated in March 1947 and officially decommissioned two years later.

Etheridge’s association with two letters about the Freedmen’s Colony are not as well known.  The first is a letter he co-authored in 1865 with a fellow solider, William Benson, protesting the mistreatment of those left behind at the Freedmen’s Colony.  A framed typed version of it hangs at the Cookhouse. 

The second letter, a photo of one page included here, shows Etheridge’s signature and eight others.  This page is one of two signature pages that accompanied the undated letter.  The full letter includes the names of fifty-eight men with an “X’’ mark, a practice used to indicate a person was illiterate.

Often when the Freedmen’s Colony story is told what many focus on are the several missionary teachers who arrived from the North and the sawmill provided to build 500 small homes, each with a small portion of land to raise crops.   Also frequently mentioned are the churches and schools freedmen also helped to build to have their own places to worship and be educated. 

This undated letter reminds us of another important, yet unfortunately often overlooked part of the story – that in the end thousands who came to the Roanoke Island colony and other Freedmen’s Bureau locations established during the Civil War were ordered to leave – sometimes forcefully, and sometimes cruelly and even brutally.  

On Feb. 28, during the morning and afternoon, the Cookhouse Museum will be open to visitors. This year Cathy Steever a researcher and friend to our organization will join us. Cathy has been uncovering the remarkable story of the Freedmen’s Colony on Roanoke Island for several years. She is especially drawn to the colony’s everyday realities — work, schooling, housing, faith resilience and hard choices families faced during and after the war. Lately, she and I have been collaborating on research findings, especially the stories that best reflect the challenges and difficulties those who lived on the Freedmen’s Colony faced, and lesser known stories.

The complete undated letter will be read and interpreted on Feb. 28. The noted letter portrays what life was like for the freedmen and their objections to being forced to leave. 

Those who had hoped to see the “First Light of Freedom” as the memorial at the Fort Raleigh site reads, pleads for a short extension of time to stay and for leniency “having been thrown out without shelter” as the noted letter received on Christmas Day in 1867 reveals.

Given the small size of the Cookhouse, those interested in visiting are requested to RSVP indicating if the morning or the afternoon session is preferred.  Those who have a special connection or interest in this history are especially encouraged to come.  Those who plan to visit are also requested to RSVP us at: friends@peaislandpreservationsociety.com. Given the small size of the Cookhouse, RSVP’s are requested soon so we can plan accordingly.

‘Cookhouse Chats’

As director of outreach and education, I am also pleased to announce this special opening on Feb. 28 is also the start of PIPSI’s latest initiative, “Cookhouse Chats”.  These selected chats will focus on less known or newly discovered stories as well as potential future collaborations with interested parties.  

The next planned chat, one about research findings pertaining to “checkerboard crews,” or mixed-race crews, will be announced in the spring. 

Presently, by email request the Cookhouse is “open by appointment only” preferably for group visits and special events.

The North Carolina Maritime Museums‘ three locations on the coast house maritime history, coastal heritage and marine environments.

The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras, the North Carolina Maritime Museum at Beaufort and the North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport each offer unique exhibits and programs designed for all ages.

The museums highlight maritime and coastal culture including fishermen, boatbuilders and decoy carvers, as well as presents exhibits tell the tales of painters and pirates, shipwrecks and sailboats and marine life and maritime habitat protection. 

“See relics pulled from the deep, build a boat, follow Civil War battles fought along the coast, cast a line and learn about the state’s seafood industry, sail or paddle along waterways, and retrace Blackbeard’s voyages and ultimate demise,” according to the website.

Graveyard of the Atlantic August programs

The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras is named in honor of the thousands of shipwrecks that rest in the waters off North Carolina’s coast and is dedicated to the preservation and presentation of the state’s coastal and shipwreck history.

Located at at 59200 Museum Drive in Hatteras, the museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Admission is free, though donations are appreciated. For more information, visit graveyardoftheatlantic.com or call 252-986-0720.

The programs are being offered at no charge and registration is not required.

Kids Crafts 10:30 a.m. to noon Aug. 4, Aug. 11, Aug. 18 and Aug. 25. Join staff and volunteers from the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum for free crafts on Mondays in the museum library/education space located off the lobby.

Salty Dawgs Lecture Series are held at 11 a.m. every Tuesday and feature presentations on North Carolina maritime history and culture.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Aug. 5. Join National Park Service Ranger Ann-Marie to learn about the 1870 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which “protects one of the most hazardous sections of the Atlantic Coast,” according to the National Park Service.

Jockeys Ridge State Park Aug. 12. Join North Carolina Park Ranger Austin Paul to learn about the tallest living sand dune system on the Atlantic coast and is located in Dare County.

“Shipwreck Rescues of the Outer Banks” Aug. 19. Join historian James Charlet for the final program in a three-part presentation on his new book, “Shipwreck Rescues of the Outer Banks,” which chronicles the United States Life-Saving Service’s missions and rescues off the North Carolina coast.

“Changing Sands and Rising Seas: The Future of Maritime Heritage” Aug. 26. Maddie Roth, a doctoral candidate in East Carolina University’s Integrated Coastal Sciences Program will discuss opportunities to better understand and preserve shipwreck sites, aids to navigation, and the maritime traditions of the state’s coast.

Beaufort’s August programs

During summer break, the museum offers Summer Science School courses designed to give children hands-on experiences with North Carolina’s environment, history, and culture. Some courses take place outside the main museum building and may involve travel. Advance registration is required, which can be done online.

Summer Science School: Seashore Life II is set for 9 a.m. to noon Aug. 5-7. For fifth and sixth graders, students will investigate estuarine habitats, plants and animals through field and lab studies. The course includes a field trip to the Rachel Carson Reserve, water quality testing, plankton identification and other activities. Class fee is $120, or $108 for Friends of the Museum

Summer Science School: Pirates! 9 a.m. to noon Aug. 7-8. Youngsters entering first and second grades will be able to learn about life at sea and how pirates lived. The crew will build their own boats, set the rules of the ship, and go on a treasure hunt to find the hidden treasure. Class fee is $90, or $81 for Friends of the Museum.

Limited scholarships are available. Email courtney.felton@dncr.nc.gov or call 252-504-7758 for more information.

Though the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort is currently closed for construction, the Carteret County-based facility will continue to offer programs in the Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center across the street in the downtown area and other nearby locations.

Build a Boat in a Day 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Aug. 2, Aug. 16 and Aug. 22 in the watercraft center. Teams will assemble a 12-foot-long, flat-bottomed plywood boat from a prepared kit suitable for paddling. Minimum age is 8 and the teams of no more than four people must include at least one adult. Course fee is $650, or $585 for Friends of the Museum members, which sponsors the program. Course size is limited, and registration is required and can be done online or by calling 252-504-7758.

Introduction to Wooden Boat Building 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Aug. 9-10. Participants will learn about planking methods, both carvel and lapstrake, and use of appropriate fasteners. After two days, you will have the knowledge, skill, and confidence to choose a design and style of boat to build on your own.  Class fee is $200, or $180 for Friends of the Museum. Minimum age is 16. Course size is limited, and registration is required.

Kids’ Cove: Whales 9 to 11 a.m. Aug. 13. The drop-in program for ages 5 and younger and their caregivers takes place in the Beaufort Train Depot at 614 Broad St. Participation is free but registration is preferred.

Hiking and History on Shackleford Banks 9 a.m. to noon Aug. 19. The guided hike on Shackleford Banks, a part of Cape Lookout National Seashore in Carteret County, is for ages 12 and older. Participants will take a ferry to an undeveloped barrier island where they will hike about 1.5 miles along sandy terrain. All those under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Cost is $35 and $31.50 for Friends of the Museum. Register online by noon the day before the program.

“By Hook or By Crook, Women Pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read” 11 a.m. Aug. 21. Associate Education Curator Christine Brin will share what is known about the lives of these women, how they came to be pirates, and their fates. This program is part of the museum’s Maritime Heritage Lecture Series that features talks about the rich maritime history, coastal environment and culture. The in-person only talk will take place in the Fort Macon Coastal Education Center in Atlantic Beach. Admission is free. Registration is not required. 

Kayak the Salt Marsh 9 a.m. to noon Aug. 26. Basic kayak instruction and safety lessons on shore are followed by a 1.5-mile paddle through the salt marsh in sit-in cockpit touring kayaks, or bring your own. The program is for ages 12 and older. Participants under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. All must know how to swim and some kayak experience is recommended. Cost is $35 or $30 if you bring your own kayak and $27-31.50 for Friends of the Museum. Register online by noon the day prior to the program.

Southport August programs

The North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport, which collects, preserves and interprets material culture pertinent to the maritime history of the Lower Cape Fear region.

The location has two public programs scheduled for this month.

Go Fish! is set for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Aug. 2. part of the Skipper’s Crew series at the Southport facility, which features hands-on activities and take-home crafts focusing on combining arts and history. Participants can fish for a wooden fish swimming in a sea of blue tissue paper, then decorate your fish and take it home. The program is for all ages, but specifically geared toward younger visitors.

Lights will be dimmed and interactive displays muted during the first two hours to provide a calmer environment for those with sensory sensitivities.

Maritime Weapons of the 18^th Century 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Aug. 16. Join a costumed interpreter at the North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport to learn about weapons used at sea during the 1700s. The program is part of the museum’s Deep Dive into History series. The free drop-in program is designed to give visitors a deeper understanding of our shared past. Visitors can interact one-on-one with the presenter at any time during the program.

For more information on either program being offered at no charge, visit ncmaritimemuseumsouthport.com or call 910-477-5151.

The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras is launching a summer-long series of talks on all things Outer Banks.

Kicking off next week, the Salty Dawgs Lecture Series welcomes guest lecturers to speak every Tuesday morning through Aug. 26 about topics that may touch on everything from local families, foods, and lifestyles to shipwrecks, pirates or lost colonies.

The Rev. Bart Muller will begin the summer series at 11 a.m. Tuesday in his talk about the 20th New York United Turner Rifles, a New York-established regiment whose foreign-speaking members participated in the landing and battles of Forts Hatteras and Clark. Muller will discuss the origins of the regiment’s movement, German nationalism, immigration and its history after Hatteras, according to a release.

The complete schedule for this year’s Salty Dawgs Lecture Series is on the museum’s website.

Reservations are not required for the event being offered at no charge. For additional information call 252-986-0723.

Two University of North Carolina Wilmington professors are collaborating this semester on a documentary celebrating community resilience, adding a new perspective to the overall effort of the Down East Resilience Network.

The network, often referred to as DERN, evolved in the years after Hurricane Florence ravaged coastal North Carolina in September 2018. It’s a project of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island, which was hit particularly hard by the slow-moving Category 1 storm.

Museum Executive Director Karen Willis Amspacher coordinated the network of government agencies, researchers, residents and nonprofit organizations.

The idea was to connect similar and overlapping research on flooding, saltwater intrusion, infrastructure damage and other risks associated with rising sea levels in the 13 Carteret County communities, and to offer resources to navigate the changes.

“Our DERN partners continue to work in the Down East area with mapping projects, continued flood monitoring, along with journalism and documentary students during spring semester and the 2025 class of interns this summer,” Amspacher told Coastal Review.

The network holds meetings a few times a year to discuss the research and projects that are carried out year-round. The most recent gathering was in late January on Harkers Island.

UNCW’s Jennifer Biddle, associate professor of environmental policy, and Laura Dunn, film studies professor, attended the Jan. 31 meeting — their first.

Biddle told Coastal Review that she and Dunn attended the meeting to identify how they “could plug in,” and after listening to the research and types of projects, she really appreciated the intention of the network, “to help the local people and local communities adapt to all these changes.”

The next morning, during a roundtable discussion, Biddle and Dunn recognized that their original plan to use a short documentary to help raise awareness had been done.

So, they worked with Amspacher on finding a new perspective, to identify what was missing, “and what was missing is the voice of the future — younger people’s voices. What have they heard and learned from the elders that they want to carry forward? And how do they do that in a changing political and economic society, as well as a changing landscape?”

The documentary became about the community’s resilience. It has “weathered a whole lot of big storms. This is just another big storm,” Biddle said.

The spent February organizing the trip then headed to Down East March 3-7 to film interviews. They stayed in a vacation rental on Harkers Island, where it “was so amazing was to be immersed in the community,” and the week provided a chance for the students to bond and meet people, Biddle said.

The 10 students divvied up into three teams. “We affectionately called them Nature, Culture and Resilience,” Biddle said.

The Resilience crew focused on what’s happening in the area, and how the people are resilient, with a focus on the Core Sound museum.

“The museum itself is a kind of hub of social activity,” Biddle said, adding that one morning there they had seen preschoolers learn about commercial and recreational fishing.

While observing a high school shop class build a skiff, Biddle said they asked the students what they saw for themselves for the future.

“They all had an answer. A lot of it was things they wanted to do, but maybe couldn’t do full time, like shrimping and building boats, because there wasn’t a lot of money there.”

Some said they wanted to work at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point and shrimp in the summers, or be a chef and build boats on the side. “They had these cool, but very realistic plans in terms of how they could make a livelihood,” she said.

On the Nature crew’s first day filming, Biddle said they stumbled upon an oyster farmer who had just pulled in bushels of oysters. He explained how he had grown the oysters, and then opened up a few. “We all got to cheers over half-shells that were really delicious.”

Residents and transportation officials talked to the students about the status of the roads, and a scientist gave an interview about visible signs of change, such as ghost forests and marsh migration, Biddle added.

The students met a father-son team and mother-daughter team of decoy carvers. Witnessing the “passing on of these beautiful traditions and the bonds it builds was really touching.”

Biddle said she joined the Culture crew for an interview with a shrimper and his daughter. The old-timer had described how his kin dated back to the 1700s in Carteret County and are a multigeneration commercial fishing family.

“What was really cool, especially for my policy students to hear, was he described how they self-regulated,” Biddle said. “Up until the ’80s, they were self-regulating their catches” by being assigned a night to catch certain fish, and the fish houses would only buy so much.

The man’s daughter had spoken “eloquently but passionately about her love of gigging flounder and how she would go out at night with her sister to spend time together and how impactful the moratorium” on flounder fishing has been, Biddle said. The state has limited or canceled flounder season altogether over the last few years because of overfishing and being overfished.

Seeing how policy affects people is why she takes students out in the field, to witness how rules can have unintended consequences, especially to those being the most impacted, she said.

Coastal and ocean policy graduate student Kennedy Huntsman is part of the documentary team who visited Down East. She said that policy and documentary film “share intrinsic goals.”

They “both serve as powerful tools for translating complex issues, like science, into accessible and meaningful information for the public. But effective science communication requires a deep understanding of the intended audience. Too often, the communities most impacted by these issues are left out of the conversation, their perspectives overlooked,” she said.

Being able to put this into practice Down East “was an invaluable experience, one that simply couldn’t be replicated in a classroom,” Huntsman said.

Abigail Schindler, a senior in the film studies department, said her favorite moment Down East was the boat ride on the last day of filming.

“This was a truly unique and impressive group of people who love the place they live,” she said, adding they had seen the wild horses, “which was such a cool experience.”

Her biggest takeaway from the experience was understanding why the people Down East love their home so much.

“It’s not just about one thing — family, nature, tradition — it’s everything combined about the place. I heard the phrase ‘why would I want to live anywhere else’ several times and by my last day I finally understood. It’s a place with so much natural beauty and land without hotels and chain restaurants covering its landscape,” Schindler said.

The next step for the documentary is to edit.

“We have probably 150 hours of footage,” Biddle said.

The documentary will likely be a series of vignettes focusing on commercial fishing, boatbuilding and decoy carving. The plan is to give the recordings back to the community and the documentary will be available to the museum.

The project is funded through the Seahawks Advancing Interdisciplinary Learning, or SAIL, program to integrate policy-rich content into short documentary films to help educate and raise awareness about the threats facing coastal communities and what can be done to help them adapt.

Another new face at the Jan. 31 meeting was Jenny Adler, who was getting ready for a stint as a visiting professor at the Duke University Marine Lab on in Pivers Island in Beaufort.

“Having never lived in North Carolina, I knew I had a lot to learn before teaching a course in Science Journalism at the Duke Marine Lab this spring,” Adler explained. “I felt confident I could teach the journalism part of the course and help students report on science, but it was unsettling moving to a place where I had no community connections.”

While writing a grant proposal to fund the students’ stories, she said she came across a ton of coverage in Coastal Review and also quite a few pieces by visual creator Ryan Stancil and photographer Baxter Miller, who are both members of the network and have worked extensively Down East.

Adler said she contacted the two, who then told her about the network meeting.

“So, a week before I started teaching, I drove to Harkers Island from Massachusetts and walked into a meeting where I knew nobody,” she said, and the next eight hours “were informative and inspiring.”

She said the connections she made that day held strong.

“Karen (Amspacher) and several other members I met that day have spoken with my class, been interviewed by my students, shared local knowledge, and provided guidance and stories that have made training the next generation of journalists in a new place such an incredible experience,” Adler said.

Haven Cashwell, a postdoctoral research scholar for the State Climate Office at North Carolina State University, has been coordinating communications for the network.

Over the last few months, she and other members have been working on a website. It wasn’t quite ready at publication, but those attending the Jan. 31 meeting had a sneak peek.

“The goal of the website is to have a place where community members and those interested in the Down East Resilience Network can access information about areas of concern,” which include saltwater intrusion and sunny day flooding, Cashwell said in an interview.

Plans for the website include providing resources, such as how to navigate Federal Emergency Management Agency, raising your home, obtaining a fortified roof, and updates about the network.

“We are currently asking researchers about information they think should be included on this website that community members should know about. We hope this will be used in the future by both community members and DERN members,” Cashwell said.

Dr. Kiera O’Donnell, another member of the network, is a postdoctoral associate at Duke University and is working on a study to better understand coastal water quality concerns in North Carolina.

Residents are being asked to fill out a survey “to help us understand the water quality concerns for surface and ground water throughout Carteret County. We are currently taking surface water quality samples to get a snapshot of the water quality throughout Down East and the surrounding areas,” O’Donnell said. “But we are looking for local perspectives and water quality concerns to help inform us about the current issues locals are dealing with and what they care about when it comes to water quality.”

Featured Image

Visitors during a recent chilly day carry fishing poles while strolling along the water’s edge at Cedar Street Park in downtown Beaufort, with the construction site of the 103-room Compass Hotel Beaufort by Margaritaville Resorts on Gallants Channel in the background. Photo: Dylan Ray

Featured Image

A tiny Z-scale model train operated by Mike Basher of Basher and Sons Hobbies rounds the bend during an appearance earlier this month at the 30th annual John Costlow Train Show at the North Carolina Maritime Museum Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center in Beaufort. The three-day show included model train layouts of various scales, including working antiques.

This model transported a yellow rubber ducky on a flatcar.

Basher said the Z-scale, a ratio to actual size of 1:220, is his scale of choice due to its diminutive size and a lack of space at home.

“My permanent layout at home consists of a Z-scale layout inside a glass-top coffee table that sits inconspicuously in our living room, ready to be operated at a moment’s notice,” he told Coastal Review.

But Z is not the smallest model railroad scale — there’s at least one smaller: the T-gauge, a scale of 1:450, or about half the size of Z-scale models.

North Carolina Maritime Museums officials are bringing back the overnight tour of wildlife refuges and seashores throughout Pamlico, Hyde and Dare counties to observe wintering waterfowl.

The Coastal Culture and Waterfowl Watching Excursion, a two-day adventure through the wildlife refuges and seashores in Eastern North Carolina, will be offered Jan. 8-9, 2025, and again Dec. 9-10, 2025, through the system’s Beaufort facility.

The program had been on hiatus for the past four years primarily because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Taking place mostly outdoors, museum guides will travel with participants throughout Pamlico, Hyde and Dare counties to observe wintering waterfowl.

“This is a unique opportunity to see some species of birds that are only in North Carolina for a limited amount of time each year,” Museum Education Curator Benjamin Wunderly said in a statement. “There’s great diversity in the winter waterfowl we see, everything from large tundra swans to small diving ducks like buffleheads.”

Participants under 18 must be accompanied by an adult, and is not recommended for children under 12.

The fee is $95 each, or $85.50 for members of the nonprofit Friends of the Museum, program sponsor. The fee covers the guided tour and transportation by museum van for the overnight adventure. Meals and hotel accommodations are the responsibility of individual participants.

Seating is limited and advance registration is required. To register, visit ncmaritimemuseumbeaufort.com or call 252-504-7758.

Tradition is the foundation of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island, as much as it is for the entirety of Down East Carteret County.

Every year, thousands from all over make their way to the museum’s Waterfowl Weekend held in early December to celebrate those traditions — decoy carving, hunting, boatbuilding, commercial fishing, waterfowl and fellowship — the way of life for the 13 unincorporated communities.

The Core Sound Decoy Carvers Guild‘s 36^th annual Core Sound Decoy Festival takes place the same weekend at the Harkers Island School. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 8. The facility is filled to the brim with carvers, crafters and other artists. Competitions are planned throughout both days.

The three-day Waterfowl Weekend set for Dec. 6-8 begins with the Friday Night Chow Down at 5:30 p.m. Friday. Those with tickets for the cooking competition will be able to preview what the vendors, crafters and artisans will have for sale before the facility opens to the public 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. A church service will take place at 8 a.m. before doors open at 10 a.m. Sunday and close at 4 p.m.

“The first weekend of December has grown to be the Island’s homecoming weekend with the Decoy Festival at the school, craft sales all along the way, yard sales, fund-raisers and Down East hospitality every mile of the way,” Waterfowl Weekend organizers said.

Not only will visitors have a chance to meet with artists, carvers and crafters, Waterfowl Weekend is a way many begin their Christmas celebration by walking through the “Gallery of Trees: Telling Our Story,” when families, groups and businesses decorate trees to light up the museum through Jan. 10, and purchase their 2024 holiday ornament.

Johnna Brooks and the Della John

Each year the museum releases a collector’s ornament that celebrates Core Sound culture. This year’s numbered ornament features a painting of the fishing vessel Della John by Harkers Island native Johnna Brooks.

Currently working on her doctorate in biomathematics at North Carolina State University where she studies quantitative fisheries ecology, she has had a passion for art her entire life. Her father built the Della John in 1979, which the family later sold, but Brooks said she’s been painting the vessel on and off for as long as she can remember.

Waterfowl Museum Executive Director Karen Willis Amspacher said that the Core Sound ornament has become more than something to hang on the tree.

“It’s a glimpse of Core Sound that many of us hang in a special place all year long.  From decoys and black labs to crab pot trees, these ornaments have told the story of Down East,” Amspacher said. “Each year we have tried to select an artist that shares that deep commitment to our heritage and this year Johnna is that connection to tradition as well as an excellent career in the marine sciences. She’s our future.”

The ornament can be purchased on the website or from the museum’s gift shop.

Brooks graduated as valedictorian from East Carteret High School in 2016 and earned her bachelor’s at North Carolina State University.

Her dad’s side of the family has been on Harkers Island for several generations, spending their days commercial fishing and boatbuilding, Brooks said. The Della John is the first boat that her father built from start to finish. The 50-foot wooden trawler was built in 1979 and her family owned and operated the boat until 2019 when they sold it to another local business, Miss Gina’s Fresh Shrimp. Her father retired from commercial fishing in the 1990s and has been in marine construction since.

She said that she likes to go fishing but not in the way many of her peers do at state’s Center for Marine Sciences and Technology, or CMAST.

“Now, I’m in this marine lab with people who like to fish. I go out with them sometimes, and I think they’re a little bit surprised with how little I know,” about recreational fishing, she said. But she’s been fishing since she was young.

“My granddad, he’s 90 now, but I remember when I was, no older than 10 years old. Pa, he would take me and my little cousin out – he’s younger than me — and we would pull in a mullet net, and it was just me and my kid cousin on one end of the net, and then my 70-something granddad on the other end,” Brooks said. “I’ve been doing that as long as I can remember.”

She said she’s always been strong in math but has enjoyed art just as much, having taken art classes throughout high school. She realized she missed the creative outlet when she was working on her bachelor’s and ended up with a minor in art.

“I’ve always found that math was very concrete, it made sense, it was structured,” Brooks said, and art helped her with her math classes, along the way though she didn’t see it as a viable career option.

When she began her undergraduate, she said she knew she was going to get a degree in math, and that she wanted to stay in Carteret County, “that was the only thing I was sure about.” But she was concerned her career options were limited.

Growing up in the area, she was familiar with all the marine labs in the county, but didn’t personally know anyone who worked there, aside from her grandmother who had worked at the Division of Marine fisheries for many years.

“I thought they dissected dolphins all day,” she laughed about what she thought when she was younger, adding “I can’t use math to dissect dolphins.”

It was her junior year of college when Hurricane Florence was lumbering toward North Carolina, and one of her professors asked if anyone lived at the coast. She and another person raised their hands. Brooks learned that her professor had been a statistician at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Beaufort Marine Lab, and it dawned on her that if scientists are going out to collect data, someone has to do something with that data.

Once it clicked for her that this is a way to stay in Carteret County and use her math degree, she started looking into getting a master’s but was encouraged to work on her doctorate. She initially didn’t want to get a PhD, because she didn’t want to be in her late-20s, still living in Raleigh. “I wanted to come back, start my life, put down roots where I want to live. This is kind of the best of both worlds.”

She spends most of her days doing research for her doctorate on speckled trout management. In what little down time she has, Brooks paints scenes from her childhood on old charts her dad used while he was a commercial fisherman.

“Nobody uses charts anymore,” Brooks said. “I had to get my dad to explain how to use them. This is a whole way of fishing that people did in the past. And just like with the Harkers Island bridge, it’s a thing in the past. It’s not there anymore.”

Her career plans and her art are a way for her to preserve the way of life loved as a child and a way to adapt to how the world around her is changing, which she acknowledges is going to happen, regardless. But she’s trying to preserve the culture and the stories, how things were done, in her own way, she said.

Waterfowl Weekend highlights

For the Friday Night Chow Down, cooks from Down East and neighboring communities will bring several different recipes of stewed shrimp, clam chowder, seafood chowder, stewed redheads, stewed oysters with dumplings, fish stew with cornbread, gumbo and venison chili.

Area bakers will be competing as well for the 2024 “Best Sweet Potato Pie Down East” award during the Friday night event. Seafood market and restaurant chefs from across the state will judge the cooking competition.

Tickets are $35 for members and $45 for nonmembers. Save $10 a ticket by becoming a member now for $30 a year. Tickets are for sale online.  Each ticket includes four cups of your choice. Molasses Creek will perform that evening. There will be a cash bar

In addition to the grounds being covered with vendors, there will be scallop fritters and sweet puppies, online auction, and performances by Molasses Creek at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday. A church service with breakfast begins Sunday’s festivities.

Other highlights include book signings with local authors 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Raffle tickets are on sale for this year’s quilt, “Core Sound Kaleidoscope” by the Core Sound Quilt Crew, and there’s a Christmas cash giveaway raffle for a chance to win up to $5,000 cash.

Two examples of U.S. Life-Saving Service history on the North Carolina coast, the Pea Island Cookhouse Museum and the Chicamacomico Historic Site, are to be showcased on North Carolina public television this month.

PBS North Carolina will feature the coastal history segment on NC Weekend, “a television program that celebrates the best things to see and do in the state,” according to an announcement from the historic site.

The feature is to be available Monday on the NC Weekend YouTube channel and website, as well as be broadcast on PBS North Carolina as part of the season 22 episode titled “Sea and Salt” at 9 p.m. Nov. 14, 5 p.m. Nov. 15, and 7:30 p.m. Nov. 19.

The program will include interviews with Pea Island Preservation Society Director of Outreach and Education Joan Collins and Chicamacomico Historic Site Executive Director John Griffin.

Collins was interviewed for the segment at the Pea Island Cookhouse Museum at the Pea Island station. That’s where surfmen cooked and ate their meals.

The original cookhouse building was moved to Manteo several years ago, renovated, and it opened as a museum in 2008. It’s now open only for special events as improvements are planned.

Griffin was interviewed at the Chicamacomico Historic Site in Rodanthe, where the 150^th anniversary of the establishment of North Carolina’s first seven lifesaving stations was recently celebrated. It was the first of the seven stations to be fully operational and now serves as a full-time public museum and attraction.

The Pea Island station may be best remembered for Keeper Richard Etheridge and his crew’s Oct. 11, 1896, rescue of nine who were aboard the shipwrecked schooner E.S. Newman during a hurricane.

In January 1880, Etheridge, who grew up enslaved on Roanoke Island and fought for freedom during the Civil War, became the first Black person in the nation to command a U.S. Live-Saving Service station when he was selected as keeper of the Pea Island station, the only one with an all-Black crew.

The Chicamacomico site is remembered for the rescue of 42 British merchant seaman aboard the Mirloduring World War II after the fully loaded British tanker was torpedoed by a German sub. The rescue was led by Keeper John Allen Midgett Jr., and the surfmen under his command.

The two sites operated as “sister” stations that were often called to perform joint rescues.

North Carolina Sea Grant has revised and expanded its “Seashells of North Carolina,” a long-trusted guide to help everyone from beachcombers to graduate students identify the treasures they find along the Tar Heel State’s beaches.

The late Hugh Porter, who was referred to as “Mr. Seashell” during his nearly 55-year career at the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City, and Lynn Houser wrote the guide that was originally released in 1997, was edited by Jeannie Faris Norris, and features images captured by Beaufort-based photographer Scott Taylor.

The revised and expanded edition published in June builds on the original and includes detailed descriptions and photos of 275 species, instructions for shell identification, introductions to the biology and geographical range of these animals, and an index of scientific and common names with updated scientific terminology, per the publisher, University of North Carolina Press.

Porter, who died at 86 in 2014 in Carteret County, began his career at UNC-IMS in the 1950s as a research assistant, then served as an instructor in 1957 and just a few years later, in 1963, became an assistant professor. He retired in 1996 but was a regular fixture through 2010, according to Sea Grant.

Porter started the shell collection in 1956 that was on display at UNC-IMS during his tenure. In the late 1990s, the specimens totaling more than 233,000 were donated to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh to become part of the mollusks collection there. The collection is under the care of Research Curator Art Bogan, who is also on the team that updated the book.

Bogan, who said he primarily works with freshwater bivalves, joined the museum in 1997, when there was but a small shell collection at the museum. He learned shortly after moving into the role that UNC-IMS had donated its fish collection and Porter’s shell collection to the museum, and Bogan spent several years cataloging the thousands of specimens.

For the last 300 years, what everybody’s been using for identification is the shape, the sculpture, the color, the size to arrive at identifications, but within the last probably 25-plus years, with the advent of genetics and genomics, identifying shells has “gotten messy,” Bogan said. Researchers are going deeper by looking at comparative anatomy and dissecting the animals to see “how the plumbing all fits together” or how the organs are arranged.

Bogan, who has an obvious passion for mollusks, said that the great thing about malacology, or the study of mollusks, “is you can learn something new every day. It is changing. There are new discoveries, new species described, new resources becoming available.”

Katie Mosher, who retired earlier this year from her position as North Carolina Sea Grant’s communications director, said she started the research organization in 1998, about a year after Porter’s “Seashells of North Carolina” was published.

When she joined Sea Grant, she would witness firsthand how people could be drawn to the book.

“People would come up and just talk to us about what that book has meant to them or what it meant to their family,” Mosher said, adding that they would recount stories about taking their copies to the beach, or losing it in a flood during a hurricane, or that was at a parent’s house and unable to save it after the parent’s death.

“You hear these stories of true personal attachment that people had to a book, and it really was appealing to me,” Mosher said.

“We knew how popular (the guide) was,” Mosher continued, explaining that Sea Grant reprinted the guide several times over the past three decades, working with UNC Press for the last number of years to distribute the book.

When it was time for another reprint in the fall of 2021, UNC Press pitched to Sea Grant the idea of updating the book instead of just reprinting it.

That’s a move Sea Grant was considering at the time as well, Mosher said.

UNC Press offered to manage the printing and include the edition in its Southern Gateways Guides. 

Mosher told UNC Press it was a go, assembled a team of seashell enthusiasts, or conchologists, and got to work.

In addition to Bogan and Mosher, contributors include Jamie M. Smith, who works with Bogan at the museum, Shell Club members Edgar Shuller Jr. and Douglas Wolfe, and, with Sea Grant, Erika Young, Anna P. Zarkar and Carrie Clower. Georgia Minnich, who retired from the North Carolina Aquariums system, provided the illustrations, and the book includes new photos as well as Taylor’s from the 1997 edition.

Bogan explained that before Mosher called and asked him to help, he and a few members of the North Carolina Shell Club had been discussing the need to revise the guide, especially since the taxonomy of mollusks had changed significantly since the 1997 edition. The North Carolina Shell Club formed in 1957 and holds its annual show during May at the Crystal Coast Civic Center in Morehead City.

Club members had been keeping notes like scientific name changes in their personal versions of Porter’s edition, Bogan said.

“They had already been gathering some of the information that we would need to have for the update,” Mosher added.

Shuller, former Shell Club president, said that after he retired in the 1990s he joined the shell club in 2000. That’s when he really began to get interested in shells. In the time since, he’s had a 20-plus-year education in malacology, “and not at any university, actually, just getting your feet in the sand and digging around trying to learn what you can.”

Through that, Shuller said he began to understand the amount of work Porter had invested in the guide. One thing the users complained about with the 1997 edition, however, was that it was organized by shell shape rather than the accepted taxonomic order at the time.

But that was done for “a very good reason, I’ve come to appreciate.” It was organized by the shape of a shell to make it easier for users. “That was one thing we were worried about, and of course there was the issue of the outdated nomenclature,” Shuller said.

Shuller said he had been commenting to Bogan off and on over the years about the guide needing to be revamped.

“I didn’t know he was paying attention. I was quite surprised when he called me about this and the Shell Club was quite anxious to help out on this thing,” Shuller said. “I mean, we really were. We knew that the book needed some work to bring it up to date, and we were hoping to be able to get some of our ideas into the book,” Including having the new edition arranged taxonomically correct.

Mosher explained that the emphasis being on the shell shape in the previous edition had its value, but they wanted to make the guide organized for multiple uses. “As we were putting the book together, I was trying to think about it from my kind of every person perspective,” Mosher said.

Shuller said that to help with identification, “We came up with a very unique pictorial indexing system, which I think is going to be very useful in helping people locate the shells within the book. We have high hopes for that. I think people are going to really appreciate this particular edition.”

Young, Sea Grant’s coastal and marine education specialist, began with organization in 2022, after teaching at UNC Pembroke for 13 years. She said she has been collecting shells since she was a graduate student at UNC-IMS in the 1990s and was excited when Mosher brought her onboard.

Throughout her career, Young has used field guides and, she said that this updated version is “rigorous enough for a graduate student that needs specifics but it’s easy enough to flip through while you’re walking on the beach. It should very easily get you to where you need to be to find out what you’ve collected. And I just love that.”

Following the shell path

The team all came to appreciate seashells along different paths.

Shuller found his way to collecting mostly because of curiosity, he said, and was particularly drawn in after seeing the “fantastic, amazing exhibits” the Shell Club members put together for its annual show.

He and his partner decided to participate in the show the following year, “still not knowing anything about shells. We had picked up small shells along the beach and didn’t know what they were,” Shuller said in explaining why they got in touch with the shell club in the first place. It was to learn the names.

They soon began collecting shells in earnest, then invested in a microscope to which they could mount their camera and began taking closeups of the shells. “These were film cameras, of course, so we spent an entire summer taking pictures, taking them down to have them developed, coming back, doing it again, over and over again,” Shuller said, but they ended up with “some beautiful photos,” and they did well at the show that year.

Mosher grew up in Ohio and did not see the actual ocean until she was 18. She moved to North Carolina after college and “I really found myself drawn to the ocean for many reasons, as we all are.” When she began collecting shells, “I was just mostly enamored with the colors and the shapes and knowing, knowing that there a lot of them that we were collecting didn’t have the bright color.”

Young said that while at UNC-IMS, she would often consult Porter’s shell collection or Porter himself about what she found on the beach. Now she recognizes “what a treat that was” to have that connection with Porter, and fast-forward, she’s helping to work on the revision for his book.

Bogan grew up outside Seattle and became fascinated with shells when he was at the Academy of Sciences in Philadelphia. He was responsible for putting material into the collection.

“It becomes a lifestyle. How much do you want to learn? How much do you want to invest? How much time do you have?” Bogan said. “We learn from each other, we share facts, we ask questions, and the biggest question is, how do you flip that curiosity switch in students? Get them excited about seashells, about shell shape, animals?”

The Museum of the Albemarle will soon have a new exhibit on what The Beach Boys call, “the greatest sport around.”

The new installation, “Where the Waves Break: Surfing in Northeastern North Carolina” will open at the museum in Elizabeth City July 13, with complementary programming planned for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. that day.

Surfing, with its roots in Hawaii and Tahiti, has been around for centuries. On the state’s southern coastline, early forms of surfing activity were first documented in 1909, and, in 1920, the sport was introduced to the northern coast, according to the museum.

“What began as a sacred activity for Indigenous islanders has become a mix of cultures all its own. For more than a hundred years, many surfers have ridden these waves. For some, surfing is a profession; for others, it is a hobby, a therapeutic activity, a community to join, or a mechanism to raise awareness for causes,” the release states.

The exhibit features surfboards, trophies, competition jerseys, a wetsuit, lifejacket, surf jacket, and surf wax, as well as images and surfboards on loan from area surf shops.

“The Museum of the Albemarle thanks the surfers, surf shops, photographers, board making companies, and other organizations and individuals who contributed research, artifacts, quotes, and images for the exhibition,” organizers said.

Visitors can meet author, filmmaker and Elizabeth City native Laurel Senick from 12:30 until 3 p.m. July 13. Senick will be available to sign her book “Foam.” Attendees can view the 30-minute film she directed called “Any Given Morning.”

Port Discover, which touts itself as “Northeastern North Carolina’s Center for Hands-On Science,” in Elizabeth City, plans a program on shells and their different characteristics. That’s set for 11 a.m. July 13.

The following week, the museum will host Summer Fun Day: A Day at the Beach, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 16. During Summer Fun Day, visitors can hear from staff of Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education in Currituck County, “Save Our Sand Dunes” author Hannah West, YMCA staff are to talk about water safety, and Lighthouse Keeper Madison Phillips of the 1886 Roanoke River Lighthouse is to provide educational programming. 

The museum is collaborating with Elizabeth City Downtown Inc., RCE Theaters and GSN Global Surf Network Tuesday, July 30, to offer live music and a film.

Luck 757 of Portsmouth, Virginia, will begin at 6 p.m. The Portsmouth, Virginia, band performs songs by Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Bobby Darin, Sam Cooke, Dion, The Drifters, Smokey Robinson, The Surfaris and others.

Following the band at 8:30 p.m. will be a showing of “The Endless Summer,” the classic surf documentary directed by Bruce Brown. Now marking its 60th anniversary, highlights the adventures of two young American surfers, Robert August and Mike Hynson. They follow this everlasting summer to Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii, and California.

In the event of inclement weather, the event will be held on the portico of the Museum of the Albemarle.

BEAUFORT — Yard games, sailboat rides and other nautical fun will be offered during Maritime Day, set for 11 a.m. to 2 pm. Saturday on the Gallants Channel grounds off West Beaufort Road at the foot of the high-rise bridge.

The North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort’s Friends of the Museum organization host the annual Maritime Day event on the second Saturday in June. The day celebrates the maritime industry and stems from National Maritime Day, which was created by Congress in 1933 and is observed annually on May 22.

“Maritime Day is a fun, family-friendly, community event that brings people together on the beautiful Gallants Channel waterfront,” said Friends Director of Operations Brent Creelman.

Activities include sailing in the museum’s fleet of traditional wooden boats, cane pole fishing, kite flying, kids’ activities and games. There will also be educational displays, live music and more along the Gallants Channel waterfront. All activities are offered at no charge, though donations are appreciated.

“Free traditional sailboat rides are very popular,” Creelman said. “There will also be lots of yard games on the Great Lawn, so come ready to play.”

Food and beverages will be available for purchase, or feel free to bring a picnic lunch. Maritime Day will wrap up with a celebration to specially recognize those who have purchased bricks for the courtyard by the flagpole.

Maritime Day is taking place where the new Maritime Education Center will be located. The groundbreaking is expected this summer with the facility up and running in early 2026.

For more information on the museum, visit ncmaritimemuseumbeaufort.com. For more information on Maritime Day or the Friends of the North Carolina Maritime Museum, call 252-728-1638 or visit maritimefriends.org.

HATTERAS — Following last week’s private tours and state officials doing the honors at a ribbon-cutting ceremony, the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum reopened to the public Monday with a brand-new exhibit gallery that artfully illustrates the sweep of four centuries of some of the most dramatic maritime history in the world.

“I have a question for you,” said North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources Secretary Reid Wilson during his remarks Thursday. “The last five letters of the word history — what do those letters spell? Story.”

And that is the value of museums: telling the human story, he told a large crowd gathered for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Understanding where we were, he added, is the only way we move forward.

“We should not be scared of our history,” he said. “We should learn from it.”

For the island community, the celebration is more than the museum reopening; the celebration is that it is completed. It took 38 years of persistence from stubborn Hatteras Villagers to get there. But that’s another story.

“Goodness gracious, I hardly know where to begin to thank the hundreds of individuals and entities who this important cultural facility would not be possible without them and their sacrifices both personal and in their livelihoods,” said Danny Couch, president of the nonprofit Friends of the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum, in his remarks Thursday.

Couch, a Hatteras Island native, is one of those who stuck it out for decades, never letting go of the idea that Hatteras had to have a maritime museum.

“Raleigh (officials) said it should be in Manteo or Nags Head,” he told Coastal Review in a later interview. “Which is the last thing you want to tell a Hatterasman.”

Standing at the entrance in front of a huge digital measuring stick showing current weather conditions and past hurricane details, Wilson applauded the new state-of-the-art exhibits that include features such as touchscreens, holographic historic people and a huge dynamic sculpture of lifesavers rowing a surfboat through a stormy sea.

The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum harbors a motherlode of maritime stories unique to the Outer Banks, from colonial exploration to piracy to heroic lifesaving service rescues to vicious U-boat attacks to premier boatbuilding.

Situated off the treacherous Diamond Shoals, which squeezed vessels transiting the Atlantic shipping lane close to Cape Hatteras, the Outer Banks has the largest number of the 2,000 shipwrecks scattered along the North Carolina coast.

Today, shipwrecks are only part of subject at the museum, but their significant role on the Outer Banks was the spark that ignited the idea for the museum in Hatteras Village and villagers’ minds. Some islanders have compared a shipwreck off the beach in the old days to a Walmart store spilling its contents today.

Couch remembers the seed first germinating, back in 1973 when a team on the Research Vessel Eastward from Duke University’s Marine Laboratory in Beaufort discovered the long-sought Civil War-era ironclad U.S.S. Monitor 16 miles off the Hatteras coast, where it sank in a storm on New Year’s Eve, 1862.

“Literally, when the Eastward was over top, we saw it as a tremendous opportunity,” he said. “We thought it was a great way to bring in people and a great way to tell our history here.”

There was no place to house even a few artifacts, but villagers wanted to find funding to build a museum. The Monitor was designated as a National Marine Sanctuary, the nation’s first, in 1975. It was to be managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In 1987, The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia, was chosen as the principal repository for more than 210 tons of artifacts recovered from the wreck site.

Villagers were disappointed, but they knew they were up against strong competition.

“A lot of it is the isolation out here,” Couch said about being passed over.

But a year before the Virginia museum was selected, local representatives from the National Park Service and Congress encouraged the nonprofit Hatteras Village Civic Association to compete for the artifacts. Thanks largely to Rep. Walter Jones Sr., a Democrat who represented the Outer Banks at the time, Congress in 1988 passed a bill that funded a feasibility and design-development plan. Jones also made sure that any future Hatteras museum would get a share of Monitor artifacts.

The museum was formally incorporated the next year and designated a nonprofit educational organization in 1991. The National Park Service agreed for a nominal fee to lease the museum 7 acres near the Hatteras docks.

Cathy Parsons, one of the original museum board members, during a chat in the gallery after the ribbon-cutting, remembered the then-Cape Hatteras National Seashore superintendent’s excitement.

“Tom Hartman came running up to us and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got a plan!’” she recounted about the superintendent, who was especially supportive of the museum idea. “He said, ‘Y’all should pull something together and put a bid in for the artifacts.’ We did that.”

Along with Belinda Willis and Katie Oden, Parsons is one of the original group of villagers who somehow pulled together the support and money to build the museum.

“It was a group effort,” she said. “They did all the work. All I did was the money part.”

Willis said that the museum originally was going to be small — about 6,500 square feet — and would look like an old Coast Guard station. She described interviewing to find a director, a fundraiser and the architect. Money started coming in: $1 million from NOAA, $800,000 from the state.

Before long, the museum building and its concept expanded.

“It just was mushrooming and mushrooming until we realized that we had a tiger by the tail,” Couch said.

From 1995 to December 1999, additional state and federal support rolled in, and construction began Dec. 10, 1999. The nearly 19,000-square-foot museum, with its imposing ship-like exterior, opened in 2002, with its interior partially completed.

Joseph Schwarzer, who retired in March, was hired as the museum’s executive director in 1995, and he later became director of all three state maritime museums.

Along with Schwarzer’s yeoman work at the helm, the three women who still live in Hatteras also gave credit to their late fellow board member Dale Burrus, who mastered dealing with the political aspects and reveled in talking about the island’s maritime history and the importance of the museum in its telling. Then there was dedication of other late advocates, Richard Jones with the Hatteras Monitor and the late Irene Nolan, then-editor of the Island Breeze and later the founder and editor of the Island Free Press, who volunteered for the museum and kept the islanders informed about the project.

Over the years, continued contributions of charitable funds and grants, including from the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau, allowed slow progress on the museum, which had been transferred to the state in 2007.

The museum proved to be a popular public attraction, despite its limited exhibits. But to the frustration of the island community — and Schwarzer — funding always seemed to fall short of finishing the gallery and the exhibits.

There were plenty of times they wanted to give up, the women agreed.

“Lots of times,” Willis said. “Then something would happen and we’d get a little push forward.

“We wrote many a letter.”

Meanwhile, as Willis put it, “the community lost faith in us.” Added Oden: “For 20 years, they’d keep hearing how close we’re getting, how close we’re getting. When we finally opened up, none of this was here. They would be shocked.”

In 2021, money was provided for renovations, and in 2022, contractor Riggs Ward Design started work on the exhibit design.

In addition to the Monomoy surf boat in the center of the gallery area, a first-order Fresnel lens that had once been atop the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse dominates the exhibits, which include numerous artifacts ranging from Native Americans here, early English settlements, wars and shipwrecks, including U-boats.

As visitors step into the museum, they’re greeted with a huge video screen with scenes that thrust them into the ocean with lifesavers and fishers and sailors and that carries them over the barrier islands for a bird’s-eye view. All doors open automatically in the middle like those on Star Trek to ensure temperature control. And the Meekins Chandlery Gift Shop now has entrances from the lobby and the museum.

“This is where the state of North Carolina — as a colony — began to develop, to lead us where we are today,” North Carolina Office of Archives and History Deputy Secretary Darin Waters told attendees before the ribbon-cutting. “And I’m so proud of the fact that you are going to see all of that told within this museum.”

North Carolina Maritime Museums System Interim Director Maria Vann, who joined the project in 2023, said the gallery “has been re-imaged as a treasure chest filled with this region’s unique tales of tragedy and triumph.”

Vann said in a later interview that the selection of a new director is underway, but she is not involved.

“The department will make the decision,” she said. “That decision is not mine.”

Now that the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is actually completed, the former board members said they believe that villagers will be more supportive and start pulling out their old shipwreck artifacts from under the bed to donate to the museum.

“Finally — after all these years!” the women exclaimed in unison.

“This is our vision: a world-class museum that can be enjoyed by everyone,” Willis added.

“It’s a national museum. It’s a peoples’ museum.”

ELIZABETH CITY — The Museum of the Albemarle is to welcome two new traveling exhibits next month, with one celebrating pioneering African American surgeons and the other a brief history of voting in the United States.

“Opening Doors: Contemporary African American Academic Surgeons” is to open June 3 and “Who Can Vote: Brief History of Voting Rights in the United States” is to open the following day in the museum at 501 S. Water St.

The National Library of Medicine produced the six-banner exhibition closing July 13 and companion website that recognizes the long tradition African Americans healers and physicians and celebrates the contributions of African American academic surgeons to medicine and medical education.

“Who can Vote” traveling exhibit from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History “examines voting rights with an emphasis on the role of the US Constitution and the interplay between the states and federal government in determining who is allowed to vote,” organizers said. “This exhibition explores the complex history of the right to vote that forms the core of our nation’s democracy.”

The exhibit timeline begins with the founding era through the election of 2000 and covers topics such as voting as a constitutional right, women’s suffrage, Reconstruction and Jim Crow era voting rights, the Civil Rights Movement, and the enfranchisement of Indigenous peoples.

“Key takeaways of the exhibit include voting requirements are primarily determined by states, the right to vote is fundamental to representative democracy, voting rights have expanded significantly since the Constitution was ratified in 1788, and throughout American history, people have fought to gain and keep the right to vote,” according to the museum.

More programs

Planned programs and events also include the following:

• Summer Fun Day: A Day on the Farm. Scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 12, here will be activities such as farming through virtual headsets by Northeast Ag Expo Agri-Pride, learning about seeds, quilting by members of the Colonial Quilt Lover’s Guild, planting by Pasquotank County Extension, farm animals, and hands-on activities. Registration is required for groups of 10 or more. Call the museum at 252-335-1453.
• “History for Lunch: In Search of Sir Walter Raleigh’s Lost Colonists.” The program beginning at noon June 5 will be with Nicholas Luccketti, principal archaeologist at James River Institute for Archaeology. Offered both in person and virtually, register online in advance to receive the Zoom link. Since 1895, historians and archaeologists have been searching for the fort and village sites of Raleigh’s 1585 and 1587 colonies on Roanoke Island and, more recently, where the 1587 “lost colonists” may have reestablished their settlement up the Albemarle Sound. Luccketti participated in excavations at Roanoke Island and served as the co-director of the First Colony Foundation investigations that discovered Site X and Site Y. He review the previous archaeological work at Roanoke Island and the findings of excavations at Site X and Site Y.
• Juneteenth Celebration Take It, Make It at-home project. Packet pickup is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 15. The packet includes activities, learning resources, and information about regional sites that explore the history of slavery and emancipation in the Albemarle.

The museum that serves Bertie, Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Hertford, Hyde, Northampton, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Tyrrell, and Washington counties is the northeast regional history museum of the state Division of State History Museums within the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and closed Sundays and state holidays.

Endangered Species Day, celebrated the third Friday in May, recognizes gains in protecting endangered species and also is a call to conservation action.

To share the research on endangered species taking place at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, its researchers plan to discuss their work on red wolves, right whales, jaguars, black rhinos and black-footed ferrets.

The series of short presentations is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. Friday, which is Endangered Species Day, in the museum’s SECU Daily Planet Theater and will be livestreamed on YouTube.

Dr. Roland Kays is head of the Biodiversity Research Lab at the museum, studies mammals and also teaches conservation at N.C. State University. He plans to present the findings of his study on eastern North Carolina’s endangered red wolf population.

Once common throughout the region, the intensive predator control programs and the degradation and alteration of their habitat in the early 20th century destroyed the red wolf populations, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Now the most endangered wolf in the world, the species was designated as threatened with extinction under the Endangered Species Preservation Act in 1967, when the service said it initiated efforts to conserve and recover the species.

“Today, about 15 to 17 red wolves roam their native habitats in eastern North Carolina as a nonessential experimental population, and approximately 241 red wolves are maintained in 45 captive breeding facilities throughout the United States,” the service states on its website.

Kays told Coastal Review that he is working on a project on the red wolves in eastern North Carolina, “where we evaluated their effect on the ecosystem by comparing how common other species of mammals were before and after the wolf population crashed.”

He said they found that most species increased in numbers when the red wolves declined, including competitors such as bears and bobcats, as well as prey including raccoons, deer and turkey. 

“This shows how important it is to have apex predators on the landscape,” Kays continued. “Since our study the wolves have increased a little bit, starting having litters again, and have also been supplemented by additional captive releases.”

Hopefully they can not only survive but even thrive, to help maintain a balanced ecosystem in eastern North Carolina, he added.

Others to join Kays in the special presentation Friday include the following:

• Dr. Elizabeth Kierepka, senior research biologist with the museum and N.C. State.
• Dr. Mike Cove, research curator of mammalogy mammals and research associate at Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.
• Lisa Gatens, collections manager of mammalogy.
• Dr. Alex Jensen, postdoctoral researcher in the museum’s Biodiversity Research Lab.

WASHINGTON WATERFRONT– A nonprofit environmental education center perched on the Pamlico River is set to undergo a major transformation.

A Partnership for the Sounds facility that focuses on estuaries and coastal rivers, plans are in motion to expand the North Carolina Estuarium’s reach through a new Seafood School.

“The Seafood School is designed to educate and entertain visitors of all ages. There is a deep heritage in eastern North Carolina of both enjoying and providing seafood, and we will work with everyone who wants to share in that,” Estuarium Director Tom Stroud explained to Coastal Review.

The Seafood School is to feature new exhibits highlighting the estuary’s role as a nursery for marine life and will have an educational kitchen where programs for the public on cooking and preparation of key species can take place.

“Our goal is to use seafood — or ‘soundfood’ — to create a full circle of appreciation for healthy estuaries,” Stroud said in a release. “For many people the closest connection they have with estuaries is eating things that come from them – oysters, blue crabs, shrimp, fish. That’s great, but there is a through-line between enjoying a fried oyster and the condition of the ecosystem it came from. The Seafood School will link the health of the estuary, the effort it takes for harvest, and the process of creating a great seafood meal in a single space.”

Currently, the 12,500 square-foot center features more than 200 exhibits that describe estuaries and coastal rivers, including aquariums with crabs and other estuarine life, art, interactive displays, artifacts from life on the Pamlico River, explorations of hurricanes and sea level rise, Pamlico River boat tours, and special programs on natural and cultural heritage, according to its website.

Stroud said in an interview that the renovation is “significant” and “will fully transform our existing classroom space, update current exhibitry, and provide incredible access to the Pamlico River as well.”

Preliminary work on the buildout will begin by June, and the Seafood School is expected to be in operation by early 2025.

The space where the Seafood School will be located is not in the main part of the exhibit hall, “so we’re hoping the renovations will have a minimal impact on our regular operation,” Stroud said, adding he believes programming will increase.

The Seafood School was inspired by the state’s efforts to restore oyster habitats because of the ecosystem benefits and the economic boost to coastal communities, and folds in other key fisheries to expand the view of why estuaries need to be sustained and protected, the announcement states.

The Estuarium evolved from the Albemarle-Pamlico Estuarine Study in the early 1990s, and since then, the goal has been to promote awareness and stewardship of the Albemarle-Pamlico, and that won’t change, Stroud said in the announcement. “But it’s time to engage new generations in new ways. We feel like the Seafood School is an approach that will elevate our message and make us uniquely identifiable among science education facilities.” 

Stroud expounded in the interview that the Seafood School will have two main learning attractions: the educational exhibits and a Cooking Classroom.

The classroom, or kitchen, will be the most noticeable new piece, Stroud said, and will allow for all types of cooking programs including steaming, baking, frying for groups of up to 16 people. The space also is going to be available as a rental venue for groups of 20 to 30 people “who want to socialize in a beautiful spot right on the Pamlico River,” he said.

“We envision having noted local chefs — and hopefully some from farther away — lead programs on how to prepare all types of seafood caught in North Carolina’s estuaries,” Stroud said.

Next to the kitchen will be exhibits that highlight the water quality needs of these species, and look at how different seafoods are harvested in state waters, especially from sustainable methods.

“The exhibit piece will look like a classic waterfront seafood shop along an estuarine shoreline in eastern N.C.,” Stroud said.

A planning grant from Nutrien, the Canadian fertilizer company in Saskatchewan, helped fund the Seafood School’s planning.

“We approached Nutrien with the basic concept in fall of 2022,” Stroud said. The funding allowed the creative consultant, Harbor Peoples, to work for about six months with chefs, watermen, building inspectors, exhibit designers, kitchen suppliers and an architect on design concepts and flesh out a definitive plan before going for bigger funding.

“We started with the idea that the exhibit and kitchen would focus specifically on oysters, but as we met with people and thought it through, we felt the story would be stronger if we expanded to include other key species from the estuary to tell a broader story of the ecosystem, which is indeed the mission of the Estuarium,” Stroud said.

The Estuarium was awarded a $250,000 grant in this year’s budget that will cover about half of the estimated cost.

In the release, Stroud expressed the center’s gratitude to Nutrien for their support on the planning grant and to Rep. Keith Kidwell, R-Beaufort, and also representing Dare, Hyde and Pamlico counties, for help with the state grant, “but we’ll need additional funding to fully achieve our goals. We look forward to sharing our vision with donors so they can have an opportunity to be part of the Estuarium’s programming evolution and show their support for keeping the Albemarle-Pamlico estuary healthy.”

Kidwell, of Chocowinity, told Coastal Review on Wednesday that he supports the Seafood School because the fishing industry is a large driver of the economy in Eastern North Carolina.

“For many years, the fishing industry has been in decline. The Seafood School will help to shine a spotlight on the importance of fishing and seafood and relates directly to North Carolina’s efforts to expand oyster fishing and fishing in general. When correctly managed, seafood is an excellent source of sustainable protein,” Kidwell said in an email. “The coastal waters in NC are a natural resource that provides some of the world’s best oysters and fin fish. Let’s do our best to manage and support the fishing industry.”

The plan is to initiate a major fundraising campaign soon, “but anyone interested in supporting us now can contact me at tmstroud@embarqmail.com and I can provide information,” Stroud said.

North Carolina Maritime Museum officials and staff are set to welcome visitors to the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras for the first time in two years.

Also in the coming month, officials with the museum system’s are planning to welcome back watercraft enthusiasts for its 48th annual Wooden Boat Show May 4 in Beaufort; and at the Southport museum, staff are preparing to launch a new program May 29.

The Hatteras facility has been closed since 2022 for a complete renovation. A ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday, May 20, when the overhauled facility reopens to the public.

First opened in 2002, the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is named after the thousands of shipwrecks off the state’s coast.

Public information officer Cyndi Brown told Coastal Review that the Hatteras museum has undergone a “major transformation, with a completely redesigned lobby and a new gallery space with state-of-the-art features and interactive elements that bring our coastal history to life.”

Exhibits cover from precolonial times to the present and offer a comprehensive journey through the region’s history.

Inside, visitors will find interactive experiences, from touch screens to holographic video displays, “providing visitors with engaging ways to delve into the region’s maritime heritage,” Brown said. She added that children, in particular, can enjoy scavenger hunts and programs designed to both educate and entertain.

There is a Monomoy-class life-saving surfboat, a first-order Fresnel lens from Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, and displays showing shipwrecks off the coast, Brown added.

Special programs and activities are scheduled for the week the museum opens, Brown said.

Following the museum opening at 10 a.m. Monday, May 20, there will be a program at 11 a.m. on the “U.S. Life Saving Service Operations along the North Carolina Coast” with Beaufort museum’s Education Curator Benjamin Wunderly. He will share the history of U.S. Life-Saving Service operations, the precursor to the Coast Guard.

“The History of the Oldest NC State Law Enforcement — 200 Years of Service (1822-2022)” is at 1 p.m. May 20 with N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries Marine Patrol Capt. Christopher Lee. Visitors can hear about the state’s longest-serving law enforcement agency, which can trace its roots back to 1822 when the North Carolina General Assembly enacted legislation to impose gear restrictions on oyster harvest.

“Brigadier General Billy Mitchell: Father of the U.S. Air Force and Hatteras Hero” is scheduled for 2 p.m. May 20 with area historian Danny Couch. Mitchell is often regarded as the father of the U.S. Air Force. Aviation experts often question why Mitchell chose to conduct his historic strategic bombing experiments at Hatteras, and the answer is simple: He liked to fish, according to the museum.

“North Carolina Whales: Diversity, Distribution and Conservation” will begin at 11 a.m. Tuesday, May 21. Beaufort museum Associate Education Curator and Bonehenge Whale Center Director Keith Rittmaster will talk about the whales most commonly spotted off the coast and show related display items.

Learn about “John Rollinson: Hero of Hatteras Island” 2 p.m. Tuesday, May 21, with Couch. Rollinson (1827-1906), was Hatteras’ first paid schoolteacher, collector of the Port of Hatteras and reluctant Civil War outlaw.

“Women in Whaling” is at 11 a.m. Friday, May 22, with Beaufort museum’s Associate Education Curator Christine Brin.

A talk on the “Lost Colony” is at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 23, with Hatteras native Scott Dawson. Hear Dawson’s take on the English who attempted to colonize the New World in 1587 and the mystery surrounding their disappearance.

North Carolina Aquariums’ Aquatic Wildlife Inhabiting Shipwrecks will take place May 20 to May 24. Staff with the Roanoke facility will be on site with this hands-on activities.

The museum will operate on a new schedule after reopening. Hours will be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday and will be closed Saturdays and Sundays.

There is no admission but donations are appreciated and directly support museum operations, Brown said.

48th annual Wooden Boat Show in Beaufort

The Beaufort museum has set aside one Saturday a year for almost 50 years for enthusiasts to celebrate traditional wooden boatbuilding.

The 48th annual Wooden Boat Show scheduled for 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 4, will again bring to the coastal town dozens of wooden vessels, ranging from classic, vintage sailboats to modern power boats.

Grant Caraway, director of the wooden boat show, told Coastal Review that the annual show has been a mainstay for those in the antique and wooden boat community.

There will be many attractions this year, including dozens of classic restored boats and motors, a pirate encampment, and kid’s activities like face painting and toy boatbuilding, Caraway continued.

Plus, Caraway said, there will be public sailboat rides offered from 1-3 p.m.

In addition to the wooden boats, for the second year there will be miniature vintage outboards on display.

“We’ll have outboards on both sides of the street,” Caraway said in a statement. “These miniature outboard motors are really cool. While most people think they’re toys, they were actually used by manufacturers as a marketing tool.”

Brown said Monday morning that though online registration closes Tuesday, boats can register up until the day of the show by calling 252-504-7758. “We will always make room for more boats,” she said. “Right now we have 35 registered.”

Registration for a first vessel is $30 and includes an event T-shirt. Additional boats are $5 each. Register on the website by April 30 or by phone at 252-504-7758 until the day before the show.

Also on the grounds will be knot-tying demonstrations, a book sale, vendors, maritime art, boating skills virtual trainer, sailboat races and more, all offered at no charge.

While most activities are at the museum, the in-water boat show will be a few blocks away at the Beaufort Docks.

“We award 16 different categories with handmade wooden awards made here at the Maritime Museum,” Caraway said for the judge’s selections.

Attendees will be able to choose their favorite by voting for the People’s Choice winner and for the model expo.

An opening reception with refreshments and entertainment is set for 5-7 p.m. Friday, May 3, at the museum’s Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center across the street. There is no charge to attend. The kickoff is being held at the same time as the museum’s Spring First Friday, which celebrates featured artists at the museum’s Port of Call Museum Store.

‘Anchors Aweigh’ in Southport

The North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport is launching its new program,
“Anchors Aweigh,” on May 29.

The drop-in style program offered from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day its scheduled features hands-on activities that focus on a specific part of Lower Cape Fear and North Carolina history.

The debut activity is “Anchors Aweigh: Got the Blues?” an indigo-dying program from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Several “Anchors Aweigh” events are scheduled throughout the summer, as well.

The program June 12 will be on map reading and orienteering, on June 26, declaring independence, July 10 “Wash it up! Laundry in the Age of Sail,” July 10, flags in history July 24, and cyphers and codes Aug. 14.

More Maritime Museum events

Beaufort museum

The Cape Lookout Lighthouse — 11 a.m. May 2 will focus on the history of the Carteret County landmark. The presentation will cover both the destroyed 1812 tower, and the still-standing 1859 tower, as well as some lesser-known facts about the “Diamond” tower. No charge to attend the Maritime Heritage Series program.

Kids’ Cove — 9-11 a.m. May 8 and again 11 a.m.-1 p.m. May 12. This free-play program is designed for children up to 5 years and their caregivers. There is a different maritime-themed craft and wiggle activity each month. This is screen-free program begins an hour before the museum opens to the public. To register, call 252-504-7758 or visit the website.

Kayak the Salt Marsh — 9 a.m.-noon May 9. A member of the education team will give a basic kayak instruction and safety lessons on shore then lead a 1.5-mile paddle through the salt marsh. The program is recommended for ages 12 and up, though anyone under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Participants must know how to swim; some kayak experience is recommended. Cost is $35 or $30 if you bring your own kayak. Register online by noon May 8 at 252-504-7758 or on the website.

Museum’s Most Wanted: Conservation Basics-Identifying and Dealing with Museum Pests — 11 a.m. May 9. Museum conservator Michelle Crepeau will identify common museum pests, their impact on collections, and both historical and modern methods of mitigation and prevention. The program offered at no charge is part of the Maritime Heritage Series.

Exploring Coastal Habitats on the Rachel Carson Reserve — 9 a.m.-noon May 15. The guided hike will take visitors through the different habitats and the sandy, muddy, and wet terrain found on Town Marsh and Bird Shoal in the Beaufort area. The program is recommended for ages 12 and up, but all participants under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Cost is $25. Register online or by calling 252-504-7758 by noon May 14.

Behind the scenes at the Whale Center — 10 a.m. May 17. The 40-minute, behind-the-scenes look shows how marine mammal skeletons are prepared for educational display and the mammals found in area waters. The Bonehenge Whale Center operates as a partnership between the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and the Carolina Cay Maritime Foundation. Register online or by calling 252-504-7758 by noon May 16.

Sea Turtles in North Carolina — 11 a.m. May 23. Program for World Turtle Day will focus on different species of sea turtles and the trials they face before they even emerge from their sandy nest. No charge for the program through the Maritime Heritage Series.

Southport museum

Skippers Crew: Mullet Over — 10 a.m.- 3p.m. May 4. Designed for all ages, but specifically geared toward younger patrons, this activity features hands-on activities and crafts focusing on combining arts and history. Lights will be dimmed and interactives muted during the first two hours to provide a calmer environment for those with sensory sensitivities. No charge to participate.

Deep Dive into History — drop-in series 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 18. Madline Spencer of the state’s Underwater Archaeology Branch based at Fort Fisher State Historic Site will explain the tools of the trade of an archaeologist, how they preserve what they find, and how they help us understand the past during the program, “Digging for the Past.” Designed for all ages, the series gives visitors a deeper understanding of our shared past through costumed interpreters and artifacts. Being offered at no charge, registration is not required.

Third Tuesday: “Silent Sentinels” — noon May 21 with the North Carolina Military History Society. Part of the museum’s Third Tuesday lecture series held at the Southport Community Building, 223 E. Bay St. Lectures are geared for ages 16 years and older. No charge to attend, but registration is requested because seating is limited. Call -910-477-5151 or visit the website.

The first oceanfront community where Black North Carolinians could have home ownership takes the spotlight Saturday in Topsail Beach.

The Historical Society of Topsail Island is set to open its newest exhibit “Ocean City Beach,” at the Missiles and More Museum at 720 Channel Blvd.

The museum is hosting an open house from 3 until 5 p.m. so that guests may meet members of the historic community that continues to thrive on Topsail Island.

Ocean City was established in 1949 after Edgar L. Yow, a white Wilmington attorney, initiated a plan to establish an area on Topsail Island where Black families could buy oceanfront property.

The community was developed by Wade H. Chestnut Sr., who sold his interest in his family’s auto repair business in Wilmington to build the beach community for his and other Black families to enjoy.

The milelong stretch of land within North Topsail Beach became part of the N.C. Civil Rights Trail in 2022.

The community is celebrated annually during the Ocean City Jazz Festival, a nonprofit event held each Independence Day weekend to, among such goals as elevating jazz appreciation and boosting the economy, seeks to “inspire a new generation culturally through the history of the Ocean City Beach Community.”

This year’s festival is July 5-7.

The discovery in 2021 of a new species, the Rice’s whale, which is directly connected to Beaufort’s Bonehenge Whale Center, will be one of the topics covered during the whales and whaling symposium at the North Carolina Maritime Museum scheduled for Friday.

The program is to begin at 10 a.m. in the museum, 315 Front St. in downtown Beaufort. The symposium is being offered at no charge but because seating is limited, reservations are requested. For more information or to reserve a spot, visit ncmaritimemuseumbeaufort.com or call 252-504-7758.

“The symposium is an opportunity to learn about the whale species off the coast of North Carolina and the history related to the harvesting of whales directly off our shore,” museum Education Curator Benjamin Wunderly said in a statement. “By bringing in guest speakers, the community gets an opportunity to learn about topics we couldn’t typically cover in our regular programming.”

Wunderly is an organizer of the symposium, working with North Carolina Maritime Museum Natural Science Curator Keith Rittmaster on the day’s lineup of speakers. Rittmaster is director of Bonehenge Whale Center, which is adjacent to the museum’s Gallants Channel property, and has been helping organize the symposium since the first held in 20165.

“This symposium has been very popular,” Rittmaster said in a release. “I think it’s fun too.”

Rittmaster is the first presenter and will discuss “Whales in North Carolina: Diversity, Distribution, Seasonality & Conservation” starting at 10 a.m.

“North Carolina has impressive whale diversity,” Rittmaster said, noting that up to now, 34 species have been documented off the state’s shores. “As far as I know, that’s more than any other state.”

Russell Fielding of Coastal Carolina University and Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus, University of Washington, will follow at 11 a.m. with “So Wide a Chase: Melvillian Whaling in the Twenty-first Century Caribbean.”

John Ososky of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History will present “From ‘Save the Whales’ to ‘Save the Rice’s Whale’: A History of Modern Smithsonian Whale Conservation” at 1 p.m. After the bones for the new species were treated at Bonehenge Whale Center in 2019, the bones were then taken to Washington, D.C., where it was identified in 2021 as a newly discovered species, the Rice’s whale.

Wunderly will speak at 2 p.m. on the “The Old Whale Fishery of North Carolina.”

After a break for dinner, the symposium will wrap up with a 6 p.m. presentation by the North Atlantic Right Whale Aerial Survey Team. Meghan Bradley, Renee LaGarenne, and Rylie Gonzales of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will discuss their survey methods and address the need for right whale conservation. They will also highlight some special cases of right whales in North Carolina waters.

In addition to the programs, there will be displays showcasing marine mammal bones, teeth, baleen, oils and skeletons, as well as educational games.

Learn about Frank Stick’s vision for developing the Outer Banks along with his modernist design fit for its unique architectural landscape during the next History for Lunch at the Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City.

“Frank Stick’s Flat-Tops: A Vision for the Outer Banks” is scheduled for noon Wednesday, April 3. The public can attend in-person and through Zoom. To attend the talk virtually, register online in advance to receive the link.

The Outer Banks History Center staff will present the history of Stick’s flat-top cottages of Southern Shores that grew from his vision of a thriving beach community in a remote landscape of the early 20th century. 

History for Lunch is a monthly program organized by the museum. The Friends of the Museum of the Albemarle are supporting this month’s virtual program.

Learn more about the developer: Read Coastal Review’s special report, “Frank Stick: A Maverick Who Helped Shape the Outer Banks,” by two-time Pulitzer Prize recipient Gilbert M. Gaul.

Lifelong Ocracoke resident Alton Ballance can trace ancestors on both sides of his family back to the barrier island’s first settlers, he writes in the preface of his 255-page book, “Ocracokers.”

The book that is about “Ocracoke and Ocracokers, past and present, and how both have adapted to the changes that have taken place within the last few years” was published in 1989 by UNC Press.

His parents both grew up on Ocracoke, with roots going back generations to the 1700s. “We were related to so many people,” he told Coastal Review recently.

His late father, Lawrence, worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and his mother Vera, was “an Island girl” who was born in 1918 in the house where Alton Ballance lives today. “And she lived over 77 years there and died there,” he explained.

Ballance said that he remembers his childhood fondly “because of the connection to the outdoors, the families and the voices, the stories, the humor.”

Growing up in the 1960s and ’70s in the island village “was a time when you had immediate contact with people like grandparents, who had themselves grown up in the age of sail and in homes without running water or electricity and they depended on sailing across the sound to trade or go to Carteret County” to shop or get medical care.

Ballance will be taking the same Pamlico Sound route his ancestors likely took to Carteret County on Friday, Feb. 23, when he visits Harkers Island — one of the 13 unincorporated, tight-knit communities north of Beaufort referred to as Down East. He’ll be the guest speaker for the winter Taste of Core Sound.

The annual fundraising dinner at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center includes a family-style feast and two auctions. Located at the end of Island Road, the center is next to the Cape Lookout National Seashore visitor center.

Previously a teacher at Ocracoke’s K-12 school and staff at North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching on the island, Ballance has owned The Crews Inn on Back Road since 1989, served on Hyde County Board of Commissioners from 1984 to 1992 and was on the state’s Coastal Resources Commission, which establishes rules for coastal development, from 1996 to 2002. He has two daughters, Emma Reese, 11, who lives with her mother in High Point, and Vera, 23, who lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Ballance explained that the book is in three parts. The first is the history of Ocracoke through World War II, including the island’s geological formation. The second part focuses on the Ocracokers themselves, those who represent the island when he was growing up, and finally, what “launched us into where we are today,” including the National Park Service, tourism, and school.

He acknowledges in the preface that some of the people in the book have died or don’t do what they used to since he started writing the book in the late 1970s, but “this difference doesn’t bother me too much because the book really is about the past, about the people and events who have made Ocracoke what it is today. For all that might happen to the island in time to come, it will always have its past – a past full of rich history, some of it alive today.”

Ballance began working on the book in the late 1970s and it took to the late 1980s, to get it done. “It took me a while.”

The book went through through several revisions as it was transferred from handwritten pages, to manual typewriter, to electronic typewriter and finally, a computer.

The idea for the book happened shortly after Ballance graduated from high school.

He attended University of North Carolina Asheville for a few years — hitchhiking across the state the day before Thanksgiving one year to surprise his family — before transferring to UNC Chapel Hill.

At Chapel Hill, he discovered the library’s North Carolina collection and became interested in trying to record the stories of Ocracoke’s past and its people, which eventually became the core of “Ocracokers,” he explained.

He did much of the work after graduating from UNC and going back to Ocracoke around 1980. “I spent a year fishing with these old guys that I portray in the book,” he said, and writing, interviewing and keeping journal.

He said he took his first teaching job in Hillsborough after that year but moved back home to teach at Ocracoke School. He taught at the kindergarten through 12th grade school from 1982 to 2003. He also worked on his master’s through Middlebury College in Vermont, where he could take summer classes.

He became interested in village politics because of the Anchorage Inn being built on Ocracoke at the time and decided to run as the village’s representative for the Hyde County Board of Commissioners. This was in 1984.

He described the Anchorage Inn as a “brick building, like a roadside interstate hotel that had been jammed on a residential lot,” adding it was “Only 3 or 4 feet from the highway” and at some point, a ladder had to be on the highway to finish the project.

“So, I was interested in introducing the island’s first development ordinance. I wrote it myself in 1985 and so what got introduced was height limit, and setbacks and parking and things like that,” he said.

Before that, there were no development rules. “That wasn’t easy. To go from nothing to something, and most people, I think, were supportive,” he said.

While teaching, he heard about the program, North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, or NCCAT, where teachers could take seminars in Cullowhee. He made his way there in the mid-1990s and the director at the time approached him about expanding the program to Ocracoke.

The first program they developed on the island was held in 1995 and took place a few times a year. Then one day, Ballance said they were heading over to historic Portsmouth Village, now protected as part of Cape Lookout National Seashore, and were discussing how the Coast Guard was downsizing and leaving Ocracoke. As well as its World War II-era station on the shore of Silver Lake empty.

“We had a dream to make the old station an eastern campus for NCCAT, he said.

“It took an act of Congress — literally and figuratively — for them to give the building to the state (for NCCAT) and we came very close in the late 90s to getting it,” he said, “But then Hurricane Floyd and a few other things put the brakes on the funding.”

When the effort reignited in 2003, he stepped away from teaching and began working to get NCCAT eastern campus to Ocracoke, which he succeeded in doing and it is still in operation today.

Though not offered anymore, one of the most popular seminars was called “Salty Dogs.” Groups of teachers would spend the day on commercial fishing boats. They would clean what they helped catch and then cook the seafood in Ballance’s backyard.

The teachers after that experience “would never look at seafood the same way again because of the complexities,” from having to be your own lawyer and accountant to having to take the risks. “I’ve seen my two nephews, who are commercial fishermen, you know, they make zero one day because they lost gear, and the next day make $10,000, so you’ve got to be really in tune to a lot change.”

Ballance led seminars at NCCAT until 2018, when he decided to spend more time at The Crews Inn.

“I’ve spent my time renovating. I’m kind of a do-it-yourself person, so after Hurricane Dorian (in 2019) I had rebuilt whole first floor of the inn, and my house, and The Crews Inn cottage,” he said.

Ballance told Coastal Review that he feels like Ocracoke and Down East are both kind of “at the end of the road,” the center’s slogan, and are “kindred spirits” for their coastal connection and concerns with when storms come along.

“You have to learn to be resilient if you’re going to keep living there. You’ve got to get used to pushing sand around, you’ve got to get used to being flooded, you’ve got to get used to having your roof blown off, trees down, and your backyards growing wetter,” he said. “We’ve got some of the same sort of concerns.”

About Taste of Core Sound

Taste of Core Sound begins at 6 p.m. Feb. 23 with a reception that includes oysters on the half shell.

The dinner, served at 7 p.m., is to include “Hancock Salad” with homemade poppy seed dressing, venison bites, stewed conchs, assorted fruits and cheese, oyster dressing, shrimp and grits, scallop fritters, redhead ducks and rutabagas, Ocracoke pork tenderloin, winter collards, sweet potato pudding, squash casserole and light rolls. For dessert, culinary students at East Carteret and West Carteret high schools are baking Down East fig cakes.

Ballance, who is slated to start his talk around 8 p.m. after dinner is served, will also be on hand to sign copies of his book throughout the event.

Visitors will have a chance to bid on decoys, collectibles and waterfowl art during live and silent auctions.

Davis Springle carved this year’s contemporary decoy for the live auction.

He said that both of his grandfathers started taking carving classes at the community college after retiring “so when I was growing up I was always helping them sand a decoy head or painting ‘abstract’ decoys,” he said.

He began carving decoys while in college, after joining his grandfather, Clinton Barnes, at the Core Sound Decoy Carvers Guild and have been carving since. “I usually carve Core Sound style decoys but will occasionally carve and paint a more decorative bird. I enjoy carving wood ducks the most but have carved most of the birds local to our area.”

A vintage decoy will also be auctioned.

Tickets are $100 per member or $125 each for nonmembers, and that includes an annual membership. There’s also the option to reserve a table with seating for 10 for $1,000. Call the museum at 252-725-1500 or visit www.coresound.com/wintertaste or at the giftshop in downtown Morehead City.

The traveling exhibit, “We Built This: Profiles of Black Architects and Builders in North Carolina” will be on display March 6 through May 28 at the Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City.

Presented by Preservation North Carolina, the exhibit that spans more than three centuries highlights the stories of those who constructed and designed many of North Carolina’s historic sites.

The exhibit includes more than two dozen personal profiles and historic context on key topics including slavery and Reconstruction, the founding of historically Black colleges and universities and Black churches, Jim Crow and segregation, and the rise of Black politicians and professionals.

Featured among the profiles are the first Black architect licensed in the state, Gaston Alonzo Edwards; Stewart Ellison, an enslaved carpenter hired out in Raleigh; and William B. Gould, an enslaved plasterer in Wilmington.

Edwards, 1875-1943, worked at Shaw University, where he planned and superintended construction of key buildings such as the 1910 Leonard Medical School Hospital, now Tyler Hall, using students to help in the construction.

Ellison, 1834-1899, helped build the North Carolina Hospital for the Insane, now Dorothea Dix Hospital. He became one of the state’s longest-serving Black legislators of the 19th century, representing Wake County in five legislative sessions. He was also the first Black citizen to serve on what is now the Raleigh City Council.

Gould, 1837-1923, made his mark on the elaborate plasterwork at the Bellamy Mansion. His initials, WBG, were found on the back of decorative plaster pieces during the 1993 restoration of the mansion.

The Museum of the Albemarle is at 501 S. Water St., Elizabeth City. Visit the website at www.museumofthealbemarle.com.

Post has been updated.

Warm your bones at the “end of the road” Dec. 1 during the Core Sound Chow Down chowder and stew competition, a part of the annual Waterfowl Weekend in Down East Carteret County.

In its second year, Chow Down is a newer event for the Waterfowl Weekend, which has been held in early December since 1999 at Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center. The museum is located at the end of Island Road on Harkers Island, one of Down East’s 13 unincorporated communities.

During the celebration of the area’s heritage set for Dec. 1-3, both inside the museum and on its grounds will be crafters, photographers, decoy carvers, and artists, seafood plates for sale, an online auction, decoy competition, live music, and activities for children. A community church service will begin at 8 a.m. Dec. 3, followed by breakfast.

Chow Down sold out last year. So this year, organizers said there will be double the cooks, double the chow, double the Christmas lights, and double the tickets for sale compared to last year, and a musical performance for Ocracoke-based Molasses Creek that night. The group will also perform at 2 p.m. Dec. 2 at the museum.

Down East residents are cooking up more than a dozen different stews and chowders including stewed ducks, shrimp, oysters, Scallops, clam chowder, fish stews, seafood chowders, gumbo and chili. Judging will take place at 5 p.m. by seafood advocates. Winners will be announced at 8 p.m. Dec. 1.

Area bakers have a chance to win the prize for the “Best Sweet Potato Pie Down” by participating in the first “Tater Pie Tasting,” a new element of the Chow Down event. Winners will be announced at 8 p.m. as well.

Tickets, $35 for members and $45 for nonmembers, come with a choice of four bowls of chowder or stew, homemade cornbread, dessert and a drink. A cash bar for beer and wine will be available near the Jean Dale. Tickets are available at the museum and its store at 806 Arendell St., Morehead City, as well as online. Only 400 tickets will be sold. Nonmembers can join the museum and save at the website.

While heading to the museum, visitors will be treated to Christmas light displays from Rush Point to Shell Point and at the museum as part of the island’s decorating contest. Winners will be announced Dec. 1.

On display in the museum is the Gallery of Trees that tell stories of places like Davis Ridge and Portsmouth, honor commercial fishermen, musicians, Veterans and Active Military and by students at schools Harkers Island and Smyrna schools, Down East Middle and The Bridge Down East.

The Core Sound annual online decoy and waterfowl art auction is open now online at houseacutioncompany.com. All items will be on display starting Dec. 1 at the museum. Bidding closes at 7 p.m. Dec. 2 and pickup begins at 11 a.m. Dec. 3.

The Carolina Decoy Collectors Association will be on hand for an expanded exhibition of “Decoys from Ocracoke” opening Dec. 1. The Association’s 2023 Vintage Decoy Competition will welcome entries 9 a.m. to noon Dec. 2, with judging to begin around I p.m. Categories for the competition include: Core Sound Diver Decoy, Knotts Island Decoy, Ocracoke Duck Decoy, Joe Hayman Decoy, NC Beach Robin Decoy, NC Canvas Decoy and NC Ruddy Duck Decoy. The exhibition and winners will be on display through Dec. 3.

Every year quilters design and make a quilt with a theme, which is “Working Sails, Fishing Nets.” Tickets for this raffle are $5 each or six for $25 and available on the website. Tickets aloo are on sale now for a $5,000 Christmas cash giveaway. The winner will be drawn Dec. 3. tickets are $20 each or six for $100.

Tickets for both raffles can be purchased on the Core Sound website.

The effort to conserve three dugout canoes excavated in the late 1980s from Lake Phelps within Pettigrew State Park will be the focus of the Museum of the Albemarle’s monthly History for Lunch.

Kimberly Kenyon, head conservator for the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology’s Queen Anne’s Revenge Conservation Lab in Greenville, will give the presentation scheduled for noon Wednesday, Nov. 15.

The program is being offered in person in the Gaither Auditorium inside the museum at 501 S. Water St., Elizabeth City, and through Zoom. To attend virtually, register in advance to receive the link.

Kenyon oversees the conservation of the three dugout canoes excavated from Lake Phelps in the state park located in Washington and Tyrrell counties 75 miles northeast of Greenville.

Kenyon will share the history of Native American activity around Lake Phelps, the discovery of dozens of canoes in the lake, and initial conservation measures taken for those recovered.  She also will discuss the renewed efforts to stabilize the canoes so that they are preserved for generations to come.

The virtual program is supported by Friends of the Museum of the Albemarle.

More than 4,500 eighth graders during this school year have been helping the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences identify hundreds of microfossils.

In its first year, the Cretaceous Creatures public science project, a part of the upcoming “Dueling Dinosaurs” exhibit at the museum, has provided tools and training to 55 classrooms in 32 counties in the state, Project Coordinator Dr. Elizabeth Jones told Coastal Review. 

Fully funded by Bank of America, teachers are given lesson plans, presentations, videos and kit materials at no charge, giving students an opportunity to discover fossils and make identifications. 

The kits are made up of small, rectangle boxes containing microfossils, a lens, tweezers and paintbrushes, all tools used in the field. Working in teams of three, each student gets their own box to make sure everyone has equal access, Jones said.

The “Dueling Dinosaurs” exhibit, which is currently under construction at the museum in downtown Raleigh, includes the skeletons of a Triceratops and a tyrannosaur in what appears to be a predator-prey encounter “rapidly buried in a single event” 67 million years ago. The new exhibit will allow visitors to watch researchers study the specimens still entombed in sediment from the Montana hillside where they were discovered.

Jones, a postdoctoral research scholar at North Carolina State University and historian of science, explained that the sediment the students are studying is from the Hell Creek Formation in Montana, near where the dueling dinosaurs were found, and is about 66-67 million years old.

For the 2023-24 school year, Jones said the hope is to reach classrooms in all 100 North Carolina counties. Educators can register now on the Cretaceous Creatures website to join the project. 

Jones explained that the soil from the site is special because it contains “teeny, tiny fossils, or microfossils,” which are small bones, teeth, shells and scales of the ancient animals that lived around the time of the dueling dinosaurs. 

The microfossils “tell us about their ecosystem as it existed back then, just before the end of the Cretaceous, and the extinction of all the nonavian dinosaurs,” Jones said. Nonavian dinosaurs are all dinosaurs except birds.

Jones said the Cretaceous Creatures team worked with N.C. State University web developers to create a training module and a fossil discovery module that has digitized videos, images and rotating videos of all the possible different microfossils they could encounter. 

There are close to 50 different possibilities of what the students may find in their little box of soil. The students work through a multiple-choice program that asks questions about the fossils to try to get to the correct answer, she explained.

The students record their findings in an online database and send the fossils back to the museum. 

“The process of identifying fossils is part of the process of learning about fossils. We have strategic questions in place to get the students to look at certain features that are unique or perhaps shared amongst other fossils in order to help them figure out what they might be looking at,” she said. 

“The fun part is we get to analyze what they identified for accuracy, and update any of the IDs if we need to, and then we catalog everything into the museum’s paleontology collection,” Jones added.

The eighth graders so far have correctly identified about 1,500 fossils.

“It’s looking like they’re getting it correct about 40% of the time, which is actually pretty remarkable considering they’ve never seen microfossils before. They have a limited amount of time to learn and try to identify it. And also, identifying microfossils can be pretty hard because they’re super, super tiny,” she said. 

Eventually, the students’ findings will be available on an online database for all researchers to access.

Jones said the teachers have been providing feedback on the program, such as what worked, what didn’t work, what they would like to see more of through a survey.

“And luckily for us, the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. Everything seems to be working pretty smoothly,” she said. “We’re getting extremely good feedback in that the teachers can take all these resources and execute it pretty easily,” but also, it adds another element. “We’re not just sending the fossils, so the kids can do stuff with it, but they’re contributing to a bigger part of the research process and that they have felt like it’s really cool.”

After analyzing the data from the students, the Cretaceous Creatures team sends a report back detailing how many and what kind of fossils the class identified, “And then we give them some fun facts about the different ancient fish or lizards or dinosaurs or mammals,” Jones said. 

They chose eighth grade students because a lot of research shows that this is a prime age to increase interest in the sciences, but it’s also a prime age to lose interest in science, so “we’re getting them at that sweet spot,” she said. 

The program meets educational science standards for eighth grade’s evolution and fossil units. It gives them a “unique and authentic experience that might tap into that either increasing or decreasing interest in order to help retain it in their later years.”

Jones said this is one of the few public science projects that involve students, or the public, handling fossils.

“We know that paleontology is one of the most popular of the sciences among the public and has been for a good 200 years,” she said. 

There are thousands of public science projects but there are really only a handful that actually involve students or the public in directly handling fossils, taking measurements, making identifications, or analyzing the data in a way that scientists actually use for their own research purposes.

“We’re probably the biggest one in terms of scale, and we’re expanding,” Jones said.

The plan for year two is to be in eighth grade science classes across North Carolina specifically. In year three, they hope to send the project out to schools in different states, and then in the fourth year, the intention is to go international and collaborate with schools in a couple of different countries. 

Jones, who has been project coordinator for about a year and a half, said the idea for the project came from Dr. Lindsay Zanno, Head of Paleontology at the Museum of Natural Sciences and Associate Research Professor at N.C. State. The project has been in the making for several years and came along with the acquisition of the dueling dinosaurs specimen. 

The lab staff head west in the summer for field work in New Mexico, Utah and Montana and have access to the microfossil sediment. There are thousands of fossils and not enough people and not enough time, and one of the focuses of the lab is not just talking to the public about science but having them participate and contribute to the actual research.

Zanno told Coastal Review that the Cretaceous Creatures program is an opportunity to experience science firsthand.  

“In designing this project, we wanted to give kids all over North Carolina the chance to be a part of our scientific team. These students will get to make real discoveries, do real science. The data they collect will become part of the museum’s permanent collections,” she said. “We want them to experience the thrill of discovery for real, to know what it feels like to discover something no one has laid eyes on before. This is the best part of being a scientist.”

Learn about the importance of pollinators during the Museum of the Albemarle’s History for Lunch beginning at noon Wednesday, June 21, in the Gaither Auditorium.

Beekeepers of the Albemarle member Paul Wand will share information on the importance of bees and beekeeping. The talk will highlight the exhibit, Pollination Investigation, on display now through March 2024 in the Elizabeth City museum.

The museum will offer History for Lunch in-person and through Zoom. Register in advance through the museum’s Facebook page or its website to receive a link to attend the lecture virtually.

“Pollination Investigation” showcases how pollinators are vital for a strong ecosystem as most plants need their help to fertilize flowers and reproduce, according to the website. Presented by Smithsonian Gardens and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, the poster exhibition covers the the who, what, when, where, why, and how of pollination by interpreting the unique relationship between pollinators and flowers. The exhibit went on display in March.

The virtual program is supported by Friends of the Museum of the Albemarle.

The Ocracoke Preservation Society is one of 44 institutions selected by the Collections Assessment for Preservation program to assess and improve collections care.

The Ocracoke Preservation Society is a nonprofit, community-based organization dedicated to the preservation of Ocracoke Island’s rich historical and cultural heritage.

The Collections Assessment for Preservation program provides small and mid-sized museums with partial funding toward a general conservation assessment. Participants who complete the program receive an assessment report with prioritized recommendations to improve collections care.

“We’ll be working with a team of two preservation professionals to identify our collections care priorities. We’re excited to begin this important work,” states a social media post by the society from earlier this week.

“This assessment is critically important for a museum and collection like ours and will help us identify our most valuable and vulnerable items for conservation. With ongoing threats from age, storage constraints, and weather, we must ensure that the OPS collection and museum are safeguarded for generations to come,” Administrator Andrea Powers said in a statement.

The society operates a museum in the David Williams House, a traditional two-story house built around the year 1900.

Its owner, David Williams, was the first chief of the U.S. Coast Guard station on Ocracoke. In 1989, it was moved to its present location on National Park Service property to prevent its demolition and was subsequently restored.

First opened in 1992, the ground floor rooms are the museum, which has no admission charge, and the second floor contains a research library and administrative offices.

The house and surrounding Ocracoke Historic District property are on the National Register of Historic Places.

When bird expert Brian O’Shea travels for field work, he heads to northeast South America, taking a similar route as the long-distance migratory shorebirds he studies.

O’Shea, who has been the ornithology collection manager for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences since 2011, heads to Guyana or Suriname three or four times a year for various projects, including documenting major shorebird concentration points.

He said there is a “massive effort” to study the diverse group of shorebirds that migrate between the Arctic and Guiana Shield, the region between the mouths of the Orinoco and Amazon rivers.

Most shorebirds are extreme long-distance migrants. After spending four to six weeks in the Arctic during the summer to breed, “they fly extraordinary distances, sometimes nonstop, across patches of ocean that take them several days to cross.”

There’s been quite a bit of tracking work on shorebirds, especially on larger species, and a lot of those birds move up and down the coast.

Of the 30 or so shorebird species that come through North Carolina, “I would say roughly 20 of those species are regularly along the coast of the Guianas as well,” O’Shea said.

His work studying these shorebirds in South America helps us better understand the behaviors of and threats to the same birds we see on the North Carolina coast.

Worldwide, shorebirds have declined quite a bit, at least 40% with the long-distance migrants, he said, adding those found along the coast of the Guianas having declined more than most.

“By most accounts, the populations of certain shorebirds from the coast of the Guianas are down roughly 80% from where they were 40 years ago. They are declining very rapidly and there’s a lot of interest in identifying key habitat and taking whatever conservation measures we can to help protect them,” O’Shea continued.

“The network of people that is working on this problem and studying shorebirds basically encompasses the entire Western Hemisphere because the birds just travel so much. So, it’s a massive effort involving multiple agencies.”

O’Shea found himself in Guyana in 2000 as the resident ornithologist for the Smithsonian program, Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield, after graduating from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in 1998 with a bachelor’s in biology. He earned his doctorate in biological sciences in 2009 from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he learned how to care for specimens in a museum setting, before joining the Raleigh museum to oversee the ornithology collection.

“I am sort of the guardian of the collection of about 27,000 bird specimens,” he said of the collection that has been growing since about 1879.

The collection contains thousands of seabird specimens including skins, skeletons, fluid-preserved birds, several thousand egg sets, about 1,000 voice recordings of North Carolina birds and two rare specimens, the Carolina parakeet and the passenger pigeon, both extinct, according to the website.

The coast of the Guianas has, historically, been a major stopover for shorebirds flying north across the Atlantic to get to North America, or flying south from New England or the coast of the Carolinas, O’Shea said.

“These birds are, right now, subject to a lot of different pressures all around,” he added. In addition to climate change and pollution, there’s coastal development. These “cascading ecosystem effects” can impact shorebirds disproportionately because of the rather narrow zones that they inhabit along the edges of the continents and on the islands, particularly causing fluctuations in prey abundance.

One issue in Guyana he has been working on is shorebird hunting. Many of the shorebirds are protected while in the United States, but when they leave North America, they leave all the protection that they have here and fly to places where there is very little in the way of protection, he explained.

There has been shorebird hunting in Guyana and throughout the Caribbean, for some time. In places like Barbados, there are shooting swamps, for example, which are areas where shorebirds tend to stop and people go there to shoot the birds, often for sport.

In Guyana, the hunting method is a little different and “is pretty brutal,” O’Shea said. The hunter will whip a wire back and forth to maim or kill shorebirds flying across mudflats.

Shorebird is considered a luxury food item and the hunter will sell the meat to a market or eat it themselves. “And there’s no regulation whatsoever. It’s not even really on the radar of wildlife management in a place like Guyana,” he said.

O’Shea has been working with a grassroots organization, Guyana Marine Conservation Society, on education and outreach about hunting shorebirds with the hope to get laws implemented that will at least establish limits on harvest.

Another concern is an oil-related disaster. While Guyana has historically been one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, a few years ago oil was found off the coast and that’s completely transforming the economy, he said.

“There’s been a lot of concern, not only with sea level rise because 90% of the population lives right along the coast, but also because of the potential for pollution related to the oil development,” he said. “There’s a lot of attention being drawn to the coast now, and shorebirds are just a part of that. You can imagine if there were an oil-related disaster there that it would impact these shorebird staging areas, which are so vital.”

When he’s in the U.S., he’s caring for the thousands of specimens making up the ornithology collection in the museum.

The museum has a long legacy of coastal specimen collection, including the sizable seabird collection started by Dave Lee, who was at the museum from 1975 to 2003, O’Shea said. Lee was a very passionate naturalist who collected the large numbers of seabirds off the coast of the Outer Banks, and “helped document a lot of the birds that we know are out there today at a time when nobody else is really doing it.”

The museum also has the largest specimen series of the black-capped petrel, a bird that breeds mainly on Hispaniola and is now listed as endangered. The bird is quite common off the Outer Banks. “I believe we have 66 of them. And that’s more than any other museum in the world,” he said.

Rehabilitation centers on the coast like Outer Banks Wildlife Shelter in Carteret County and Sea Biscuit Wildlife Shelter in Oak Island contribute to the state’s specimen collection, too.

“When they get birds that don’t survive, they come to us and then we either work to prepare them ourselves and put them in our collection, or we send them to other museums around the country,” he said. “I am doing this to make sure the birds are preserved. We’re establishing long-term documentation of what’s going on in the oceans with these specimens.”

He explained that scientists have used the specimens for a variety of research, from studying the accumulation of plastics in seabirds’ stomachs, to determining where these birds breeding, to tracking ocean pollution by sampling bird feathers from 40 to 50 years ago compared to now. And there’s “a lot of other things that we don’t even know we can do yet. We’re just putting birds away and at some point down the road when the technology catches up the shorebirds will be there.”

The Naturalist Center in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh currently is closed to the public during construction of a new dinosaur exhibit, but the museum staff has continued to answer nature-related questions or make identifications through the “Ask a Naturalist” program.

Cindy Lincoln, who manages the center, said the program established well over a decade ago provides the opportunity for anyone anywhere to ask a question about something in nature. All they need to do is fill in the online form on the museum website and include a photo, video or audio.

Lincoln has been center manager for the past 10 years and handles daily operations along with training and managing staff, interns and volunteers. Greg Skupien is curator and has been with the museum since 2015. He oversees the maintenance of the collection, which includes over 20,000 specimens showcasing the biodiversity of the Southeast. 

The two coordinate the Ask a Naturalist service and process all questions that come through. 

Lincoln continued that while the service isn’t unique — there are other methods such as iNaturalist social network for nature enthusiasts for sharing nature observation — Ask a Naturalist provides a way to connect with educators, curators and scientists and tap into the vast amount of knowledge and expertise at the museum.

The most common question posted on Ask a Naturalist is, “Is this a meteorite?” The cutest question, “Do turtles get concussions?” Lincoln said.

She also gets questions from the coast, particularly about beach finds. 

“Interesting fossils may turn up on the beach after storms or beach renourishment projects. The Ask a Naturalist form allows beachcombers to submit their finds for identification,” she said. “Most of the coastal fossil specimen identification requests fall under the ‘worn marine mammal bone’ or ‘fragment of shark tooth’ categories. A lot of these questions in the past year were from Holden Beach area.”

Lincoln said that she and Skupien receive and sort the questions and if either can make an identification or answer the question, they do. More often, they share the question and video or photo with the appropriate museum expert, or reach out to nearby universities. Lincoln said the museum doesn’t have a mycologist on staff and fungi are exceptionally difficult to correctly identify, so she forwards all the fungi identification questions to specialists at North Carolina State University. 

The key to help staff answer the question or make the identification is a good-quality photo or in-focus video with different angles, closeups with size references like a coin, ruler or other common object. “There are many times when even a high-quality photo isn’t enough to identify an invertebrate, plant or fungi to species, but we can usually get close,” she said. 

After receiving an answer back from the expert, staff send the answer and helpful links to the individual. Some of the museum scientists prefer to correspond directly with the person who submitted the question, but that’s not typical and varies depending on the question or identification, Lincoln added.

“If we know the question is coming from a child, we like to connect them with a museum scientist because of the positive impact that may have. Occasionally this will result in a family coming in to meet one of the research staff or get a tour behind the scenes, but this is very rare,” she said. 

“If the inquiry includes a specimen of potential research significance such as a fossil, then we’ll invite the person to come into the museum to meet with the expert,” and they regularly invite people to visit the center during normal operating hours if they want to bring in something for staff to look at, Lincoln added.

Occasionally, the Ask a Naturalist questions relate to an object that the individual wants to donate to the museum. While donations are accepted on a case-by-case basis, the Naturalist Center can’t accept many objects or specimens because of limited storage space, Lincoln added.

For human artifacts such as arrowheads, the center directs those questions to staff at the North Carolina Museum of History or Office of State Archaeology. They don’t appraise or estimate the value of anything and do not offer medical advice such as what do to if you’ve been stung by an insect, gotten a snake bite or eaten a mushroom, she said.

During the pandemic, She and Skupien wrote a blog called “What’s that? Ask a Naturalist!”

“We would take especially interesting or challenging Ask a Naturalist questions and write a story about them. This is a good place to find some of my favorites such as the ‘solving the maggot mystery,’ ‘batty for batfish’ and ‘armored mudballs,’” Lincoln said.

Her favorite question from the coast was about a marine polychaete worm riding a coconut found at Fort Macon State Park, which they wrote about for the blog.

The center received a video taken from the beach at Fort Macon State Park, according to the blog, leading Lincoln on “an interesting journey into the world of polychaete worms.”

The sender asked “What is that brown, prickly worm thing?” 

“After puzzling over an image that to us looked like a fat, coffee bean-colored caterpillar wrapped around a gooseneck barnacle on a coconut, we knew some expert consultation was needed. Our Curator, Dr. Bronwyn Williams, and Collections Manager, Megan McCuller, from the Museum’s Non-molluscan Invertebrate Unit identified it as a polychaete worm,” the blog states. “Further confirmation came from Dr. Geoff Read, a marine biologist and polychaete expert based in New Zealand, who offered the identification of Amphinome rostrata or marine bristle worm. This particular bristle worm species preys upon goose barnacles often attached to drift objects (in this case, a coconut, the most common ocean drift fruit) throughout tropical oceans worldwide. Our coconut-riding bristle worm may have gotten a little too much sun exposure resulting in its abnormal color.”

Right now, questions may only be submitted through the online form. When the center reopens, they’ll resume onsite identifications, although Lincoln said the Ask a Naturalist form is preferred. “We discourage bringing in live or dead plant, animal or fungal material or personal collections such as rock, shell, or fossil into the museum.”

Before the museum began construction on the dinosaur fossil exhibit called Dueling Dinosaurs, the Naturalist Center was open for visitors to access an extensive collection of specimens for individual research, student exploration or for general interest. 

Lincoln said that the hands-on space was originally on the fourth floor of the Nature Exploration Center building that opened in 2000, around the time she thinks the Ask a Naturalist program began, and has been available ever since. The Naturalist Center was relocated to the second floor of the Nature Research Center on Jones Street when it opened in 2012. While the center is temporarily closed, Lincoln said there is a virtual tour of the Naturalist Center online. 

Lincoln said her background is in botany while Skupien’s is in herpetology, “but we both love learning about almost anything in the natural world. One of the perks of working in a natural history museum is that you learn something new every day. Ask a Naturalist questions frequently stump us but we are surrounded by experts who enjoy tackling questions from the public,” she said. 

“I guess if you define ‘naturalist’ as a ‘student of natural history,’ we both fit that definition,” Lincoln said. “However, there are other staff, past and present, who I consider to be true naturalists because their knowledge spans a very broad range of topics. I think what is almost more important now is understanding how to make good observations, how to research a subject and knowing what sources to trust — that’s what I most enjoy teaching visitors to the Naturalist Center and explaining via Ask a Naturalist.”

BEAUFORT — Before the 37-foot peace ship, the Golden Rule, visits here in early March, the North Carolina Maritime Museum on Front Street will host a program about the ship’s mission in opposition to nuclear weapons war.

Dr. Arnold Oliver will speak at 3 p.m. March 4 in the museum auditorium. Admission is free and registration is not required. 

Golden Rule is scheduled to dock in Beaufort that week and will be open for tours and crew visits 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. March 8-10 and free sailing as tides and weather permit.

This is one of the many programs the museum will offer in March for all ages.

Golden Rule became popular in 1958 when four Quakers sailed the wooden ketch toward the Marshall Islands to halt the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. The ship was was later pressed into private service but eventually sank in 2010 during a storm in California, according to information provided by the museum.

Veterans For Peace raised and rebuilt the Golden Rule, completing the work in 2015. The ship and crew, which revived both the ship and the original mission, are currently on a great loop tour around the eastern United States that includes the Beaufort stop and one in Wilmington March 2-5.

For more information on Golden Rule, visit vfpgoldenruleproject.org. The N.C. Maritime Museum is at 315 Front St. in downtown Beaufort. For information on the March 4 program or to register for any of the other programs at the museum, call 252-504-7740 or visit ncmaritimemuseumbeaufort.com.

March schedule

Ribbon-cutting and Spring First Friday 5 p.m. March 3. The Port of Call Museum Store First Friday series resumes in March with a celebration of the one-year anniversary of the redesigned store, now operated under the Friends of the Maritime Museum. The Carteret County Chamber of Commerce will be on hand to host an official ribbon-cutting and join in on a toast the first year. First Fridays, which will be held in March, April and May, feature local artists, jewelers and crafters showcasing and selling their art. The receptions are free and open to the public.

Merry-time for Tots 10 a.m. March 8. Ages 2-5 and their caregivers participate in a maritime themed hands-on experience, craft and activity. Each program is 45-60 minutes long. Caregivers are asked to stay for entire program. Registration required; $10 per participating child, $5 for Friends of the Museum members, or buy a three-month package and get 20% off.

Ocean Infants 9 a.m. March 9. The program for 0-2 years and their caregivers, involves maritime items such as whale bones, shark teeth, and pirate hats. Registration is $5 per participating child, $2 for Friends of the Museum members or buy a three-month package at 20% off.

“The World’s First Ironclad Warship: Lincoln’s Secret Weapon” 1 p.m. March 9. In A 57-minute film will show an elite team of divers as they attempt to recover priceless artifacts of American naval history from the USS Monitor that sank in 1862 off the coast of Cape Hatteras during a storm. Free.

North Atlantic Right Whale Aerial Surveys in North Carolina 6 p.m. March 10. A presentation at the museum will focus on the work by a team to document the existence and importance of right whales, as well as their plight, off our state’s coast. North Atlantic Right Whale aerial observers with the Clearwater (Fla.) Marine Aquarium Research Institute will present the North Atlantic Right Whale Aerial Surveys in North Carolina program on March 10 at 6 p.m. in the museum auditorium. Free.

Lift Half-Model Class 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. March 11-12. Learn how to read a set of plans and use the basic woodworking tools to shape a lift half-model of a North Carolina Shad Boat during a two-day course. The models are built following a step-by-step procedure and are then taken home to apply a finish. Course fee is $120, or $108 for Friends of the Museum). Course size is limited, and advance registration is required.

North Carolina’s Oyster Boom 11 a.m. March 15. Join Maritime Historian David Bennett for a free presentation in partnership with the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries on the history of four different fisheries in North Carolina as part of the division’s celebration of 200 Years of State Marine Fisheries Management and Conservation in North Carolina.

By Hook or By Crook 11 a.m. March 16. Ranked amongst the fiercest pirates from the “Golden age of Piracy,” Anne Bonny and Mary Read have stories that daytime TV could only aspire to. Join Associate Education Curator Christine Brin in the museum auditorium to learn about these women pirates. The program may not be appropriate for younger children as topics of adultery and pregnancy will be discussed. Free.

Lofting a Boat 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. March 18-19. Learn how to “loft,” the process of taking information from a boat plan and drawing it out in full scale in preparation for creating templates to build a boat. Fee is $110, or $99 for Friends of the Museum. Course size is limited, and advance registration is required.

Book launch: ‘Drought, Drought, Torrential’ 2 p.m. March 18. Join Susan Schmidt, PhD, in the museum auditorium for the launch of her newest book, “Drought, Drought, Torrential.” The program will feature Schmidt reading some of the poems from her latest work, as well as a discussion of the poetry from this publication and her previous works.

The Oyster Patrol: Early Enforcement of North Carolina’s Oyster Laws March 23, 11 a.m. Join Maritime History Curator David Bennett in the museum auditorium to explore the challenges and controversies that the Shell Fish Commission faced while patrolling the state’s waters. Free, no registration required.

Adults-Only Tour 6-8 p.m. March 24. Enjoy a beverage of choice while learning about some lesser-told maritime history stories that features tales of love triangles, indecency, drugs, and more. This program is rated R due to language, alcohol and explicit content. Participants must be 21 years of age or older. Tickets are $30 per person or $25 for Friends of the Maritime Museum members. Cost includes tour, moonshine tasting, and souvenir cup. Register by noon the day prior.

Carolina Maritime Model Society Meeting 2 p.m. March 25. The Carolina Maritime Model Society exists to promote the production of high-quality ship models and encourage members and the public to participate in a craft that is as old as shipbuilding itself. Meetings, which are open to the public, are held in the museum auditorium.

Introduction to Wooden Boat Building 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. March 25-26. The course begins with the design and lofting of boats and moves on to the setup, steam bending and different methods of creating the backbone of small boats. Course fee is $180 or $162 for Friends of the Museum. Course size is limited, and advance registration is required.

Beaufort’s Dolphins: Getting to Know Them 11 a.m. March 30. Bottlenose dolphins occur in Beaufort year-round but they’re not the same individuals, and we’re learning a lot from photo-ID and stranding response. Join Museum Natural Science Curator Keith Rittmaster in the museum auditorium for an informal discussion about the biology, behavior and conservation issues affecting “Beaufort’s dolphins.”  Free.

Coastal Review is featuring the work of historian David Cecelski, who writes about the history, culture and politics of the North Carolina coast. Cecelski shares on his website essays and lectures he has written about the state as well as brings readers along on his search for the lost stories of our coastal past in the museums, libraries and archives he visits in the U.S. and across the globe. 

When my wife and I were in London last summer, we visited the Natural History Museum to see the collection of plants that the naturalist, explorer, surveyor and sometimes fur trader John Lawson sent to the English naturalist James Petiver in 1710 and 1711.

Lawson, himself an Englishman, collected the plants on parts of the North Carolina coast near where I grew up: by the Neuse River, by the Trent River, at Thomas Pollock’s plantation on Salmon Creek, and along the shores of the Pamlico Sound, among other sites.

The collection is a wonderful array of coastal flora, including, just to name a few, a specimen of southern live oak (Quercus virginiana),  an American persimmmon (Diospyros virginiana), a patch of Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides), two kinds of sunflowers (Helianthus sp. and Eupatorium dubium), a yellow-fringed orchid (Habenaria ciliaris) and a bit of woolgrass (Scirpus cyprinus), among much else.

Many are species that Lawson wrote about in the work for which we know him best, “A New Voyage to Carolina.”

Of the live oak, for instance, Lawson wrote in “A New Voyage to Carolina” that it bears an acorn “as sweet as chesnuts (sic), and the Indians draw an oil from them, as sweet as that from the olive, tho’ of an amber colour.”

According to Vince Bellis, an esteemed botanist who taught for many years at East Carolina University in Greenville, there are 295 specimens of Lawson’s at the Natural History Museum. To my knowledge, they are the only relics of Lawson’s life that have survived to the present day.

Deep in the museum’s inner recesses, they are preserved in a simple, but effective fashion that botanists have employed for nearly 500 years: dried and pasted onto linen paper pages, now grown yellowed and brittle, and bound together.

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Lawson collected the plants soon after he published “A New Voyage to Carolina.”

First appearing in London in 1709, “A New Voyage to Carolina” is by far the most important account of North Carolina’s natural history and native peoples written at any time prior to the American Revolution. Today it is widely considered a classic of early American literature.

In a way though, the path of Lawson’s plant specimens to London’s Natural History Museum began almost a decade earlier.

I think the story really begins when Lawson first settled on the North Carolina coast. That was in 1701, at a time when there were not yet any English towns or villages in the territory that the British would soon begin to call “North Carolina.”

Almost immediately, Lawson recognized the potential to do pathbreaking natural history work in his new home. No naturalist had yet done any serious collecting there. Neither had any colonist or settler yet written with any depth of knowledge about the Tuscarora, Neusiok, Coree or other native peoples who inhabited the region.

After a long journey through Carolina, and after spending much of that time in the region’s Indian towns and villages, Lawson contacted James Petiver, who was a well-known apothecary, naturalist and collector of plant and animal specimens in London.

In a letter dated April 12, 1701, now preserved at London’s Royal Society, Lawson wrote Petiver from “Bath County on Pamphrough (Pamlico) River.” In that letter, Lawson offered to collect plant specimens for Petiver, as well as shells, butterflies, fish and insects.

He told Petiver that he was willing to do so there by the Pamlico River and on a trip that he was planning to the Outer Banks.

At the time that Lawson wrote to him, Petiver was building one of the world’s great herbariums.

Beginning in 1695, Petiver published a series of booklets called, in Latin, Musei Petiveriani Centuria Prima Rariora Naturae Continens. They featured descriptions of plants and other specimens that had been sent to him from around the world. At the end of every volume, he encouraged readers abroad to send additional specimens to him. Lawson may have first contacted Petiver in response to that plea.

Herbaria, the singular is “herbarium,” are collections of plants kept for scientific study and teaching. Some herbaria focus just on vascular plants (trees, shrubs, grasses, flowering plants, etc.). Others feature an even more astonishing degree of botanical diversity.

The herbaria at the Natural History Museum, where Laura and I were, for instance, make up one of the world’s largest botanical collections, totaling more than 3 million specimens in all.

In addition to the General Herbarium, the museum is home to quite a few other, more specialized herbaria. There is a herbarium just for mosses and other bryophytes, another for algae, one for ferns, yet another for lichens and even ones for slime molds and diatoms.

The museum’s bryophyte herbarium alone houses 900,000 specimens, all of them tiny evolutionary descendants of what are believed to be the first terrestrial plants on Earth.

Yet another of the museum’s herbaria holds 300,000 diatoms. Resembling a pillbox and its lid (to borrow Rachel Carson’s description of them), diatoms are one-celled, microscopic organisms that, by some estimates, produce 20 to 30 percent of the air that we breathe.

Because of their hard silica shells, fossilized diatoms have also proven tremendously useful for studying changes in environmental conditions over the centuries.

Botanists have long used herbaria to advance our knowledge of plant taxonomy, the branch of science that identifies, describes, classifies, and names the world’s plants.

But in recent decades, with the advent of DNA analysis and other new  analytical tools, scientists have also begun to use herbarium specimens to study historic changes in local ecological systems and to investigate key questions about global diversity and climate change.

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A physician and botanist named Luca Ghini (1490-1556) created what is believed to be the world’s first herbarium in the early 1500s, during the Italian Renaissance. A professor at the University of Bologna, he pioneered the process of preserving and displaying plants by pressing them and gluing them to a page of paper, then binding them into a book.

The earliest herbaria, including Ghini’s, were created in order to catalog, study and exhibit plants that had medicinal uses. At that time, botany was fundamentally a branch of medicine. Few scientists were interested in the study of plants if they did not have healing properties.

That soon changed, however. Over the next couple centuries, physicians and other healers, including apothecaries such as James Petiver, began to expand herbaria to include nonmedicinal plants as well as medicinal plants. The modern science of botany was born.

Luca Ghini’s herbarium has not survived, but the herbarium of one of his students, the artist and herbalist Gherardo Cibo, is believed to be the oldest extant herbarium in the world. Dating from 1532, Cibo’s herbarium is preserved at a public library in Rome, the Biblioteca Angelica.

The oldest herbarium in the United States is generally believed to be at Drexel University’s Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. The Academy’s herbarium holds a wealth of specimens from the early 19^th century, including all but a few of the plant specimens that the Lewis and Clark expedition collected in 1803-06.

I should add though that at least some historians of botany consider a much smaller herbarium at Salem College, a small women’s liberal arts school in Winston-Salem, N.C., as being even older.

That herbarium—for many years occupying just a few drawers in a filing cabinet—was started in 1772, the year that Moravian settlers founded the school. However, the oldest plant specimen that remains in Salem College’s collection today is apparently a common snowberry (Symphoricarposalbus albus) that was not collected until 1817.

James Petiver’s herbarium was not one of the first herbariums, but he certainly compiled one of the largest and quite likely the most geographically diverse in early modern England.

Judging by his surviving specimens, Petiver began building his herbarium in 1683-84, while on medicinal plant collecting excursions into the London countryside that were sponsored by the Society of Apothecaries, one of the city’s trade guilds.

Petiver did not build his herbarium by traveling widely outside of Great Britain, however. He only traveled overseas once in his life, and that was not until he visited the Netherlands in 1711.

Instead Petiver relied on hundreds of correspondents around the world to send plant specimens to him. Like John Lawson, most of those correspondents were somehow connected to the colonial or imperialist aspirations of the British Empire.

From his apothecary shop, Petiver corresponded with naturalists, naval officers, ship surgeons, explorers, merchants, physicians, missionaries and an astonishing number of individuals who were involved in the trafficking of Africans to slave labor camps in the Americas.

In a 2013 journal article, Kathleen S. Murphy observed that seagoing men made up the largest number of Petiver’s correspondents in the Atlantic Basin and that nearly half of them sailed on the routes of the slave trade. See Kathleen S. Murphy, “Collecting Slave Traders: James Petiver, Natural History, and the British Slave Trade, ” William & Mary Quarterly 3rd ser., 70, No. 4 (Oct. 2013).

Murphy’s article is part of a growing body of scholarship revealing how tightly even the most enlightened spirit of scientific inquiry in Great Britain was entwined with colonialism and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Petiver’s correspondents, including those involved in the slave trade and those who were not, lived or traveled in much of the world, including Western Europe, India, China, West Africa, and the Americas.

By one count, he corresponded with at least 80 individuals just in the British colonies in North America.

Above all, Petiver cultivated relationships with that far-flung network of correspondents in the hopes that they would collect plant specimens for him, as well as share with him any knowledge they might discover about their medicinal uses.

If they proved willing to collect for him, Petiver sent detailed instructions to them on how to gather, preserve and ship the specimens so that they would arrive in London in good shape. He often sent collecting supplies and scientific instruments to his correspondents as well.

The relationship between Lawson and Petiver unfolded slowly. While Lawson first offered to collect plants for Petiver in 1701, there is no record of him having done so for another eight years.

During much of that time, Lawson was busy with matters other than the study of natural history. He was a surveyor by training. In that capacity, he laid out the colony’s first English towns.

For years, he served as the official surveyor for the Lords Proprietors, the eight Englishmen to whom King Charles II had given the lands that the English called “Carolina” to use for their own profit and gain. (They were absentee landlords; none ever set foot in the territory that is now North and South Carolina.)

Lawson also worked hand in hand with the local British colonial leaders, a motley lot that we remember today largely for their corruption, perfidy, and rapaciousness.

Some were mere penny-ante charlatans and opportunists. Others were more like Thomas Pollock, on whose lands Lawson collected quite a few specimens that are now at the Natural History Museum. Pollock was a land baron, a trafficker in African and Indian slaves and an ardent, often brutal enemy of the region’s native peoples.

I have often struggled to reconcile the heartfelt sympathy that John Lawson showed native people’s culture in “A New Voyage to Carolina” and his eagerness to serve those that did so much to threaten the survival of Native American people.

After meeting with Petiver on a return trip to London in 1709, Lawson did finally begin to send both botanical and zoological specimens to him at his shop in London.

After that meeting in London, Petiver described Lawson to a friend as “a very curious person & hath lately printed a Natural History of Carolina wherein he hath treated the Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes, Reptiles, & Vegetables, particularly the Trees, with a great deal of Judgment & accuracy.” (Petiver to William London, 7 Sept. 1709, Sloane Papers, Royal Society Archives.)

Petiver was referring of course to Lawson’s “A New Voyage to Carolina,” which was published in London that year.

Lawson sent a first shipment of specimens to Petiver in July 1710. (They apparently included some zoological specimens that have been lost.) A year later, he sent a second package, which he described in a letter to Petiver as “one book of plants very Lovingly packt up.”

The shipment of that second package of plants may have been Lawson’s last contribution to the field of natural history.

By the time they arrived in London, everything had changed back on the North Carolina coast. War had broken out between the Tuscarora ( or, in the language of the Tuscarora, the Skarù:ręˀ), and the English. Six or seven smaller Algonquin tribes had also joined the war on the side of the Tuscarora. Towns had been laid to waste. Many killed.

By the time his plants reached London, John Lawson was dead too, the war’s very first casualty.

The details of Lawson’s death are far from clear. The sources are few, and the sources that we do have are generally secondhand and far from trustworthy. Nevertheless, most scholars believe that Tuscarora leaders captured Lawson and sentenced him to death because of his leading role as an agent of British colonialism.

I would not be surprised if that was the case.  By the beginning of the 18th century, anyone, native or newcomer, could tell that the British were an existential threat to the region’s native peoples — and Lawson had become one of the most public faces of British colonialism.

Correspondence between Lawson and Petiver indicates that Lawson had dreamed of doing important new work in natural history. Those dreams would not be fulfilled. He left us only “A New Voyage to Carolina” and the plants now at the Natural History Museum, many of them having been in the “one book of plants very Lovingly packt up.”

-To be continued-

The Museum of the Albemarle will host a poster exhibition that explores the process of pollination by interpreting the unique relationship between pollinators and flowers.

Presented by Smithsonian Gardens and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, “Pollination Investigation” will be on display starting March 20 and will showcase how pollinators are vital for a strong ecosystem as most plants need their help to fertilize flowers and reproduce.

The exhibit will be on display until March 2024 in the museum in Elizabeth City. There is no charge to visit the museum.

The exhibition features seven “pollinator profiles” for bees, beetles, butterflies, hummingbirds, flies, moths, and wind, along with special references to bats and water. Using a field-journal theme, each profile describes the pollinators’ favorite flowers based on floral characteristics encouraging exploration into flower shape, color, scent, and more.

The set of 14 posters is in both English and Spanish and designed to educate and inspire people to explore the natural world looking at flowers and insects.

Distributed at no cost to schools, libraries, museums, and community organizations, “Pollination Investigation” was created by Smithsonian Gardens in collaboration with the National Museum of Natural History and made available by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. It is funded in part by the Smithsonian Women’s Committee.

MOREHEAD CITY – The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries is partnering with the N.C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort to offer a series of presentations on the history of four different fisheries in North Carolina.

The presentations are part of the division’s celebration of 200 Years of State Marine Fisheries Management and Conservation in North Carolina. The North Carolina General Assembly on Dec. 30, 1822, approved An Act to Prevent the Destruction of Oysters, and for Other Purposes, in the State, which restricted oyster harvest gear and prohibited the export of North Carolina oysters to other states. It was the first statewide law governing marine fisheries, and it was the beginning of state marine fisheries management in North Carolina, eventually leading to the establishment of what is now the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries and the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission.

David Bennett, curator of Maritime History for the Maritime Museum system, will give presentations on the below topics with Division of Marine Fisheries staff also on hand. The following Wednesday sessions begin at 11 a.m.:

• March 15 – North Carolina’s Oyster Boom.
• April 19 – Reevaluating the Origins of the North Carolina Menhaden Industry.
• May 17 – Shrimping in North Carolina.
• June 21 – The Early History of North Carolina’s Recreational Fishery.

The Maritime Museum has also scheduled the following 11 a.m. Thursday presentations pertaining to the history of fisheries:

• Feb. 23 – North Carolina’s Antebellum Shad & Herring Fisheries.
• March 23 – The Oyster Patrol: Early Enforcement of North Carolina’s Oyster Laws.
• Oct. 26 – North Carolina’s Crab Fishery.

Bennett, who also oversees the Maritime Museum’s Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center, holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and an master’s in Maritime History from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. His research interests focus on North Carolina’s commercial fishing industry as well as traditional workboats. 

The North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort will offer in February programs for little learners, two-day boatbuilding courses, a talk on love triangles at sea, and a chance to archaeological conservators.

Museum Associate Education Curator Christine Brin took over as programs coordinator when she was promoted in October. In her new role, she oversees the museum’s event schedule.

“I’m always excited to see how people respond to the variety of programs we have on our schedule each year,” Brin said. “But this year, I’m paying even closer attention so moving forward I can make sure the events we host continue to appeal to locals and visitors.”

The Maritime Museum is at 315 Front St. in downtown Beaufort, and the Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center, which houses boatbuilding programs, is across the street from the museum. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. Admission to both sites is free. Donations are appreciated.

For more information on any of the programs or to register before the event, call 252-504-7758 or visit ncmaritimemuseumbeaufort.com/events.

The February schedule is as follows:

Lift Half-Model Class 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Feb. 4-5. Learn how to read a set of plans and use the basic woodworking tools most commonly found in a boatbuilder’s tool kit to shape a lift half-model of a North Carolina shad boat during this two-day course at the watercraft center. The models are built following a step-by-step procedure and are then taken home to apply a finish. Course fee is $120, or $108 for Friends of the Museum members. Course size is limited, and advance registration is required.

Merry-time for Tots 10 a.m. Feb. 8. Ages 2-5 and their caregivers will be able to participate in a maritime themed hands-on experience, craft, and activity during the program offered every second Wednesday. Topics rotate between pirates, sharks, whales, and fish with a focus on both experience and exposure. Each program is 45-60 minutes long. Caregivers are asked to stay for entire program. Pre-registration required; $10 per participating child (Friends of the Museum members $5). Or buy a three-month package and get 20 percent off.

Ocean Infants 9 a.m. Feb. 9. The program for 0-2 years and their caregivers involves maritime items such as whale bones, shark teeth, and pirate hats. This program, offered every second Thursday, is designed to give the caregiver and infant the chance to bond, learn, and socialize. Registration before the event is required. Cost is $5 per participating child, $2 for Friends of the Museum members, or buy a three-month package and get 20% off.

Love at Sea program 11 a.m. Feb. 9. Duels, deathbed confessions and love triangles help make up some Crystal Coast love stories. Join Associate Education Curator Christine Brin in the museum auditorium as she shares eight of her favorite stories of love at sea during this unique approach to Valentine’s Day. Free, no registration required.

Heart of the Sea program 7 p.m. Feb. 14. Join the museum for a Valentine’s Day presentation about its beloved whale Echo. Learn about putting together his skeleton and preserving his heart. This presentation also covers the story of Bonehenge Whale Center, a massive volunteer effort inspired by the skeletal display of our sperm whale and its heart. Free, no registration required.

Don’t Be So Salty: Diffusion and Desalination in Archaeological Conservation 11 a.m. Feb. 16. Ever wonder why archaeological conservators keep things in tanks, or why a crusty cannon can take more than 10 years to travel from ocean floor to museum showcase? Join Museum Conservator Michelle Crepeau as she breaks down the fundamentals of desalination and the underlying science that makes it all work. Free, no registration required.

North Carolina’s Antebellum Shad and Herring Fishery 11 a.m. Feb. 23. For generations, river herring and shad were the most important fisheries in eastern North Carolina. Join Maritime History Curator David Bennett in the museum auditorium to explore the business of operating these fisheries and the role of black labor in the decades prior to the Civil War. Free, no registration required.

Introduction to Wooden Boatbuilding 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Feb. 25-26. Explore the art of boatbuilding from start to finish during a two-day, hands-on course at the watercraft center. The course begins with the design and lofting of boats and moves on to the setup, steam bending and different methods of creating the backbone of small boats. Additional topics include how to make planking systems, both carvel and lap strake, and all the appropriate fastening systems. By the end of the course, students will have the knowledge and skill to choose a design and style of boat to build on their own and the confidence to take on the job. Course fee is $180 or $162 for Friends of the Museum members. Course size is limited, and advance registration is required.

Carolina Maritime Model Society Meeting 2 p.m. Feb. 25. The model society exists to promote the production of high-quality ship models and encourage members and the public to participate in a craft that is as old as shipbuilding itself. Meetings are open to the public and take place in the museum auditorium.

The North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport will take “Deep Dives into History” monthly during 2023.

This month’s program, “Navigation Tools in the Age of Sail,” will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 21. The free drop-in program designed for all ages will showcase the tools that helped seafarers of old explore the world. Registration is not required.

The “Deep Dive into History: Navigation Tools in the Age of Sail” program will include a hands-on activity. Using string, a weight, a straw, and paper, visitors will recreate and learn the basics of using a 1728 Gunter’s quadrant.

The program, developed by Museum Manager John Moseley, combines living historians, material culture displays and hands-on activities to provide visitors a greater understanding of the wide ranging and varied history of the region, the state and the country. A newly launched series, the first program featured dentistry in the Colonial age, and the second shared the history of local USOs during World War II.

“Latitude sailing and dead reckoning were two early methods to find your way, but both had their limitations,” Moseley said in a release. “The change in technology from a cross staff to the octant and the shift from maps to nautical charts greatly improved the abilities of the navigator to get where they were going safely.”

Moseley will set up and staff a station with many navigational tools on display, demonstrating how they were used.

“For sailors arriving in the Cape Fear River to trade for naval stores and rice, making sure these cargoes made it from one port to another took a great deal of mathematical skills, intellect, and sailing knowledge,” Moseley added.

“Part of our mission is to interpret the material culture pertinent to the maritime history of the region,” Moseley said. “This hands-on program will help us offer visitors an even deeper understanding of history and its importance.”

The Deep Dive series will continue monthly with the exception of February and December.

The museum is at 204 E. Moore St., Southport. For more information, call 910-477-5152 or visit ncmaritimemuseumsouthport.com or facebook.com/NCMaritimeMuseumSouthport.

Humans will star in Astronomy Days set for 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Jan. 28-29 in and around the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh.

The two-day program, “Humans in Space: Past, Present and Future,” will feature presentations from NASA astronaut and North Carolina native Christina Koch, and other astronomy experts, as well as exhibits and activities. Astronomy Days is free, for all ages, and in-person for the first time since 2020.

Koch’s first trip to the International Space Station broke the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman at 328 days from March 2019 to February 2020, and conducting the first all-female spacewalk with fellow NASA astronaut Jessica Meir.

Related: Christina Koch Describes View of NC Coast

Koch will present at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Jan. 28 and again 1 p.m. Jan. 29. She will share her first-hand experience on what it takes to be an astronaut part of a long-duration mission on the International Space Station. From training to launching, spacewalking, working, landing and returning home, attendees will have the chance to hear about her journey to space and the people who make it possible.

Klaus Pontoppidan, an astronomer with Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, will show at 2:30 p.m. Jan. 28 and Jan. 29 “Setting Sail on the Cosmic Ocean,” a photographic journey through the science of the new James Webb Space Telescope, and a view behind the scenes of the creation of the famous first images.

Pierre Haenecour, assistant professor at University of Arizona who studies early history of the Solar System history, will speak at 12:30 p.m. Jan. 28 on Asteroid Forensics.” As remnants left over from the early solar system, laboratory analysis of samples from asteroids allows us to investigate the origin and evolution of our Solar System. Pierre will discuss how the analysis of samples from asteroid Bennu will help scientists unravel the origin of life, according to the museum.

Exhibits and activities scheduled include the following:

• Museum astronomer Patrick Treuthardt is to host from 1-2:30 p.m. both days solar observing on the fourth floor terrace of the Nature Research Center, weather permitting.
• Visitors will be able to make their own rocket and send it sky high on the plaza in front of the museum.
• “Exploring the Universe: Imagining Life” is a hands-on activity when visitors can imagine and draw an extreme environment beyond Earth, then invent a living thing that could thrive in it.
• From living water bears and vinegar eels to plants small enough to fasten onto necklaces, join members of the North Carolina Academy of Science for a look at life in extreme environments.

Astronomy Days is presented in collaboration with the Raleigh Astronomy Club and NASA. The event is made possible with financial and promotional support from North Carolina Space Grant and in-kind support from Pepsi Bottling Ventures.

For more information about Astronomy Days, visit naturalsciences.org/astrodays or contact Kari Wouk at kari.wouk@naturalsciences.org or 919.707.9879.

The Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City will host the traveling exhibit “Crossroads: Change in Rural America” Jan. 24 through March 8.

“Crossroads: Change in Rural America,” a Museum on Main Street exhibition, offers small towns a chance to look at their own paths to highlight the changes that affected their fortunes over the past century..

To complement the traveling exhibit made possible through the Smithsonian Institution and the North Carolina Humanities Council, the museum is to have on display Jan. 24 until November photographs of “Century and Bicentennial Farms of northeastern North Carolina.”

“According to the State Agriculture Overview, in 2021 there were over 45,000 farms operating in North Carolina with 8.3 million acres being farmed. Soybeans dominated the harvest with over 1.65 million acres planted. As of December 2022, over 1,500 of these farms have been placed on North Carolina’s Century Farm registry, with 186 of these farms located here in the Albemarle region,” according to the museum press release.

“Farms that have applied for inclusion must have been owned by the same family for over 100 years. Gates County has the largest number in our region with 48. Over 100 farms in the state have received their certificate as a Bicentennial Farm. Four are within the Albemarle region,” the museum continues.

The Museum of the Albemarle is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

“Crossroads: Change in Rural America” is a Museum on Main Street exhibition. These exhibitions are available for booking by state humanities councils or other statewide organizations but are not available for general rental by individual venues.

Along with the museum in Elizabeth City, the traveling exhibit will be in the Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village, Friends of the Great Falls Discovery Center in Massachusetts and Mead Cultural Education Center in South Dakota to host the traveling exhibit.

On the last day of November, a particularly cold day, a 450-pound sharptail mola washed up on the beach beside SeaView Fishing Pier on North Topsail Beach.

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences researchers in the Ichthyology Collections lab coordinated with volunteers in the area to move the fish into the back of a truck filled with ice. From there, they transported the specimen to N.C. State University’s veterinary program to weigh it using a livestock scale before heading to the lab that studies fish in Raleigh, where it’s currently being preserved.

Once the preservation process is complete, it will become part of the sizable ichthyology research collection at the museum. The collection has more than 1.4 million specimens, some dating back to the mid-1800s.

Lily Hughes, curator of ichthyology, told Coastal Review in a recent interview that the fish is soaking in formalin as part of the preservation process, one that will take at least another month.

Ichthyology Collections Manager Gabriela Hogue added that they’re working with a company on a design for a stainless-steel tank with a removable lid and plexiglass cutouts to display the fish. Though they’re unsure of the cost of the tank, the hope is a donor will step in “so everyone in North Carolina that visits the museum will be able to see this beautiful creature and researchers and students will be able to study it.”

In addition to the fish collection that spans 42 countries and represents one of the largest and most complete regional collections in the United States, the museum houses research collections containing fossils, birds, non-molluscan invertebrates, mammals, bivalves, amphibians and reptiles, geology, microbiology, astronomy and astrophysics, and veterinary sciences, according to the website.

Hughes explained that there are currently about 36,000 species of fish living today and they’re pretty biodiverse. Molas are ocean sunfish and there are five known species of mola. The mola that washed ashore Nov. 30 is a specific species called the sharptail mola.

“They are the heaviest fish that live in the ocean today. This one weighed 450 pounds, but the largest ocean sunfish that’s ever been caught was more than 6,000 pounds,” Hughes said.

She explained that they’re not sure why it washed up, though it’s not uncommon for molas to be found on beaches.

Reasons range from being ill from parasites, “they’re famously covered in parasites,” Hughes continued. The massive fish could have gotten tangled in fishing gear, struck by a boat, consumed a plastic bag, or been cold shocked. There were no obvious signs of cause of death, “so we don’t know right now. We may never know,” but those are some of the more common causes.

When the fish washed up next to SeaView Fishing Pier on North Topsail Beach, an employee called the state Division of Marine Fisheries for guidance, and eventually were put in contact with Hogue and Hughes.

Hughes said the fish was not healthy when it washed ashore, where it died a few hours later.

“It was actually very good that it washed up where it did and when it did,” Hogue added, explaining that the cold weather those few days kept the fish from deteriorating.

Immediately after the fish died, part of the fin was clipped and preserved in 95% ethanol for DNA study, Hogue said.

A group of volunteers offered to transport the fish the day it was found, but the nearly 500-pound creature was too large to fit in the bed of the truck.

The next day, Thursday, Dec. 1, Hogue and museum Chief Veterinarian Dan Dombrowski drove from Raleigh in a bigger truck to North Topsail Beach to collect the fish. By then about a half-dozen volunteers had moved the fish from the shore to the parking lot by the pier.

The volunteers helped get the fish into the back of the truck. The fish was iced down before Hogue and Dombrowski headed back to Raleigh.

The next question was “how do we weigh this thing?” Hogue said.

Dombrowski reached out to the veterinarian school at N.C. State to use its scale. Because it was still cold in Raleigh, they were able to leave the specimen in the truck overnight, after covering it with more ice, and then brought the fish to the school Friday morning, Dec. 2, to weigh it.

Hogue said students and staff helped move the fish on and off the bed of the truck to weigh it at the university. A group followed the truck carting the fish back to the research lab, also in Raleigh, where Hogue and Hughes do their work.

Because they didn’t have a vessel to store the specimen during the preservation process, Hughes and Hogue initially thought of a kiddie pool, but those are hard to find in December. Someone recommended an agricultural supply store, where they found an 8-foot stock tank.

Right now, the whole specimen is being preserved in a 10% formalin solution. Formalin is a derivative of formaldehyde. This chemical completely stops tissue deterioration, Hogue said. Because of the specimen’s size, the solution needed to be injected into the body cavity, which they spent all day doing the Friday the fish came into the lab.

After the fish is preserved by the formalin solution, which should be another month, the fish will be soaked in water to remove the solution. For the long term, the fish will stay in a 70% solution, a form of alcohol.

There’s already a line forming to study the sunfish.

Hogue said a fellow collections manager and curator would like to examine the parasites on the fish. The fish will likely undergo a body scan and probably be opened up to see if there’s any parasites inside.

“This is what it’s for,” Hogue said. “I like to think, of every specimen we have, let’s make it have died for a reason. And so, this can be used in perpetuity for whatever parasite studies want to be done. If somebody wants to come and do a gut analysis, if they want to look at what sex is it, how old.”

Once the fish is completely preserved, it will be entered into the ichthyology database that is globally accessible.

“Anyone in the world will have all that data. Everything from where it was collected, how it was collected, if in the process any parasites are found, all of that will be put into our database,” Hogue said.

She spends a lot of time making sure the specimens are properly preserved because she wants “to make sure that this stuff stays in perpetuity and so that’s what makes it all worth it, when people use the collection,” Hogue added.

The collection really is used all over the world, Hogue continued. Not just the data, but the specimens themselves, and the substantial tissue collection.

The collection, which has everything from eggs all the way to an almost 13-foot thresher shark and everything in between, is made up of different collections and research expeditions from different curators and researchers and donations. They also have a lot of deep-sea specimens, even specimens from Antarctica, and the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences collection.

The idea with the fish specimen collection is to preserve things not just for right now, but for the long term, Hughes said.

“Our collection is very diverse. We’re the fifth-largest regional repository in terms of collection,” Hogue added. “It’s the most Southeastern collection, which is wonderful because you know, the Southeast is such a hotspot for biodiversity. There’s so much going on. The cool thing about North Carolina is we’re the southernmost distributional point for a lot of fish species. And the northernmost point.”

In addition to researchers, the information is available to teachers and educators, “because they can look at things and say, ‘hey, you know, we live in North Topsail, what kind of things have been collected right off of our coast?’ and they can create a better picture of ‘what’s in my backyard?’” using the data, Hogue said.

As water temperatures change, they’re finding “a lot of weird stuff, too,” Hogue said, in both saltwater and freshwater. These changes are something the researchers wish to track over time.

Along with data being collected in the present day, the collection holds a trove of historical data and “that really is the basis for conservation and management,” specifically for the Wildlife Resources Commission and the Division of Marine Fisheries, Hogue said.

“They can look at the historical data and they can say, ‘OK, this is where we should be finding these species,’ and then they can target their studies from there and they can say, ‘OK, well now we’re not. Let’s check out: How do we conserve this? How do we manage this? What do we do? What do we need to do better?’” Hogue continued.  “We’ll get changes over time in that aspect, and, really, I think make much more informed management and conservation decisions. Having the specimens vouchered here that they can go back and look at and verify identifications, if need be.”

Editor’s note: Assistant Editor Jennifer Allen’s husband is a member of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences advisory commission.

Ever mosey through a museum and pass by a display of those little ethanol-filled jars holding spineless creatures and think “big deal” as you head to check out the dinosaur exhibit?

Turns out, the contents of those jars are rife with clues that may help researchers unlock some of the mysteries of our coastal environment and help them better gauge the effects of climate change and pollution.

“The power of museum collections is that they’re a combination of donations from a variety of different sources, each with their own stories and usefulness, but when you put them together that really provides something that can be used in ways that we may not comprehend quite yet,” said Bronwyn Williams, research curator of non-molluscan invertebrates at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh.

Williams and Megan McCuller, collections manager of non-molluscan invertebrates, oversee what is ostensibly the largest research collection at the museum.

Non-molluscan invertebrate is a fancy term for animals that don’t have spines — think shrimp, worms and crabs.

Since its creation in 2017, this collection has grown to include tens of thousands of specimens collected as far back as the mid-1800s from freshwater, land, and near and offshore marine habitats of the Carolinas, mid-Atlantic region, and the Southeast.

It is a separate collection from the museum’s mollusk collection, including mussels, clams, snails, octopuses and squids.

Specimens preserved in ethanol-filled jars, vials and, for the larger critters, buckets or tanks, are housed in a building suitable for storing thousands of containers filled with flammable liquid a few miles away from the Museum of Natural Sciences main building in downtown Raleigh.

This means the collection is primarily out of view day to day, barring the occasional display of a small fraction of non-molluscan invertebrate, at what is said to be the state’s most-visited museum.

Williams’ and McCuller’s work is more of a behind-the-scenes job, one that entails cataloging information that can include details about who got a specimen, where and when it was collected, and why it was collected.

And the specimens have come through a variety of means, whether from someone fishing off a pier stretching out from the ocean shore, a research vessel, orphaned collections donated to the museum, employees of the museum, even a World War II American airman who collected specimens from the shores of Australia during a stint overseas.

In many cases, the more Williams and McCuller dive into that history, the more they discover, and they want to share that with the public and with researchers.

“We want to teach and tell other people about what is back here,” Williams said. “We want everybody to know what we have here and why it’s so important. This collection is invaluable from a biological standpoint. It can be used to address questions about changes in distribution or connectivity. It can be used to monitor for invasive species. People have used it to dig in and identify diversity that we didn’t know we have.”

McCuller is one of only a few researchers who study bryozoans, small invertebrates found in most marine communities that can grow on everything from barnacles to coral skeletons.

When she first took her job at the museum a few years ago, she looked inside a jar of hard skeleton corals and spotted what looked like bryozoans. She has identified up to 19 different species of bryozoan in a single jar.

To date, McCuller has identified more than 1,200 colonies of bryozoans in more than 200 lots from the museum’s non-molluscan invertebrate collection.

The museum’s collection of saltwater crayfish has helped researchers understand the impacts of invasive species to some of North Carolina’s coastal habitats.

Red swamp crayfish, native to many Gulf states, is one of several crayfish species shipped live for human consumption. These delectable edibles were introduced into North Carolina waters decades ago, taking over habitats once abundant with crayfish native to the state.

“It’s actually very rare to find the native crayfishes now and we can document that in the collections,” Williams said. “Invasive red swamp crayfish were not being collected in these areas frequently prior to 2000. After 2000 we’ve seen the red swamp crayfish really explode in terms of its geographic coverage in portions of eastern North Carolina.”

A collection acquired from Charleston, South Carolina, tells the story of an invasion of Asian tiger shrimp off the South Carolina coast after a batch of the species reportedly escaped from an offshore research lab.

Sometime between 2015 and 2016, a father and his young son brought to the museum an Asian tiger shrimp they collected while pier fishing off the North Carolina coast.

“That’s, I think, one critical story of how museum collections can be used to look at changes in the distribution of things,” Williams said. “Our ultimate goal for this collection is to have it be well known and well respected.”

McCuller, armed with a list of “fun facts,” shared a few in a recent telephone interview with Coastal Review.

The oldest specimen in the non-molluscan invertebrate collection is two jars, also referred to as lots, of white shrimp, gathered in 1855.

The largest specimen is a horseshoe crab, roughly 24-28 inches in diameter, collected in 1975 from Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina.

One of the most popular among museum guests is a giant isopod, a distant cousin of crabs found in deep, cold waters of the sea. It looks, as McCuller describes it, like a “really large roly-poly.”

There are also a couple of deep-sea tube worms collected in 1966 by the Duke Marine Lab at a depth of more than 5,000 meters below the ocean’s surface.

Anyone interested in touring the museum’s fluid collections may contact Williams at bronwyn.williams@naturalsciences.org or McCuller at megan.mcculler@naturalsciences.org.

You may also follow them on Twitter at @mccullermi and @bwwilliamslab.

The 27^th annual American Indian Heritage Celebration is taking place this weekend both virtually and in-person at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh.

There will be an American Indian Heritage Celebration Virtual Education Day for students and teachers in grades K–12 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday and an in-person celebration 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the museum.

For the first time in three years, the celebration is bringing together members of all eight state-recognized tribes to share demonstrations, presentations and performances that highlight the traditional and contemporary artistic, scientific, historical and cultural contributions of American Indians in North Carolina, organizers said.

The American Indian Heritage Celebration, with support from its community partners the North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs and the North Carolina American Indian Commission, hold the event in honor of American Indian Heritage Month in North Carolina every November.

Attendees can learn about North Carolina’s eight state-recognized tribes, and discover how the American Indian community has shaped and continues to shape the state’s history and culture, organizers said.

During the virtual education day, there will be a variety of presentations in-person, livestreamed as well as prerecorded and available on demand, including a live dance and drumming demonstration. Register and learn more about the presentations on the website. All presentations and performances are free to attend. 

The American Indian Heritage Celebration continues Saturday with an in-person festival featuring multiple demonstrations, presentations and performances that highlight the traditional and contemporary artistic, scientific, historic and cultural contributions of American Indians in North Carolina. The full schedule is available online.

The Cape Fear Museum of History and Science’s newest traveling exhibition, “Dinosaurs Take Flight: The Art of the Archaeopteryx,” combines original artwork with fossils, replica skeletons, hands-on activities, and interactive media to tell the story of the evolution of flight.

There are more than 50 pieces of original artwork, murals, sculptures, research grade replicas of Archaeopteryx, a collection of real fossils representing German flora and fauna, video interviews, interactive components and more making up the exhibit on display until May 14, 2023.

A single fossil feather of a Archaeopteryx, pronounced ahr-kee-OP-tuh-riks, was unearthed in 1861 in a dusty limestone quarry in southern Germany. That find would be among the first to reveal birds’ origins as the descendants of dinosaurs. In the time since, the Archaeopteryx has been an integral part of the discussion of evolution, the origin of birds, and the origin of flight and provides a critical bridge between dinosaurs and birds, according to the museum.

“We are excited to open this new exhibition to the public,” museum director Wayne LaBar said in a statement. “Dinosaurs Take Flight excites the sense of wonder we all have about the natural world, and explores the evidence showing that the birds we live amongst are direct descendants of dinosaurs.”

Dinosaurs Take Flight is a traveling exhibition organized by Silver Plume Exhibitions and the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

The museum is a Smithsonian affiliate, located at 814 Market St., Wilmington. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday.

Standard admission prices are $8 for adults; $7 for seniors, students, and military with valid ID; $5 for children 6-17; and free for 5 and under and museum members.

New Hanover County residents’ free day is the first Sunday of each month. Cape Fear Museum is a partner of Museums for All and offers free admission to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefit recipients when they present an electronic benefits transfer, or EBT, card.

A collection of marked jars that show the names of victims of the massacre and coup that took place Nov. 10, 1898, in Wilmington will be on display until Nov. 20 at the Cape Fear Museum of History and Science.

The jars were filled Nov. 6, 2021, during a ceremony in the 1898 Memorial Park and are housed in a wooden display case created by Kids Making It, a Wilmington nonprofit organization.

The jars were supplied by the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, where a duplicate set of jars are displayed in their Legacy Museum.

There will be a free panel presentation 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12, in the Williston Auditorium at the museum where the public can learn about the New Hanover County Community Remembrance Project, the organization presenting the exhibit.

The New Hanover County Community Remembrance Project was established to memorialize victims of the massacre that occurred in Wilmington in 1898. The project is a coalition of individuals and organizations, including the New Hanover County NAACP, LINC Inc., Third Person Project, Cape Fear Collective, Coming To The Table, Sokoto House, and the Restorative Justice Collaborative at University of North Carolina Wilmington.

“Our work is to provide truth about what led to the massacre and the damage done to the Black community as a result. We will work toward future reconciliation,” the group states on its Facebook page.

More information about the Equal Justice Initiative is available at https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/museum and the New Hanover County Community Remembrance Project has a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/nhccrp/.

Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City is to open a new exhibit and offer a weekend of programing to celebrate decoys and their carvers in early November.

The wooden decoys to be featured in the exhibit, “Working Birds: Decoys and Their Carvers,” which opens Nov. 3, were are made by carvers from Back Bay in southeastern Virginia to Ocracoke in Dare County.

A special feature is to include a ruddy duck carved in 1902 by Alvery “Alvirah” Wright born 1872 and died 1951. Of Old Trap, a rural community in Camden County, Wright was a fourth-generation boatbuilder and decoy carver.

“Waterfowl has been an important food source for many centuries. The abundant flocks of migratory birds to the Atlantic coast gave rise to an industry called market hunting. In the late 1800s, restrictions that limited the hunting and shooting of these birds were nearly nonexistent,” according to the museum. “By the early 1900s, local craftsmen were carving shorebird, duck, and goose decoys as a method of hunting waterfowl, with hunt clubs and hunting lodges as major clients. ‘Working bird’ decoy usage fell as stricter hunting laws were eventually passed.”

The exhibit kicks off with a program at 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 3. Guest speaker Kroghie Andresen, author of “Gunnin’Birds,” will discuss decoy collecting for all ages and introduce Sid Daughtridge, the donor of many of the decoys in the exhibit.

Carolina Decoy Collectors Association members will be available 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 4, to evaluate decoys at the conclusion of the program, answering questions about the presented decoys. Visitors are welcome to bring in their own decoys for an educational show and tell, especially Alvirah Wright decoys. 

The museum will offer hands-on activities 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, about decoys, demonstration of decoy carving and the Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education will be on hand.

Museum of the Albemarle hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Saturday and is located at 501 S. Water St., in Elizabeth City. The website is www.museumofthealbemarle.com.

The museum, which serves Bertie, Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Hertford, Hyde, Northampton, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Tyrrell, and Washington counties, is the northeast regional history museum of the North Carolina Division of State History Museums.

The division is within the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, the state agency with the mission to enrich lives and communities and the vision to harness the state’s cultural resources to build North Carolina’s social, cultural and economic future.

HARKERS ISLAND — The Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center is hosting a wildlife and nature photography workshop Friday.

Led by photographers Gordon Allen and Dan Williams, the workshop includes both classroom and field experiences with instruction on learning how to dial in your camera for sharper images and what it takes to capture wildlife and nature in a different light through your camera. The workshop is designed for all skill levels with helpful hints for even the most experienced photographers as well as beginners.

Attendees are to gather at 8:30 a.m. Friday at the Core Sound museum with coffee and pastries and time to view different types of photography on exhibition. Class begins at 9 a.m. and will conclude around 4:30 p.m. Lunch will be provided at noon before a trip to Cape Lookout National Seashore (weather permitting) for field time in the afternoon.

Fees cover instruction, supplies, food and ferry – $125 for museum members; $150 for nonmembers with full payment needed at registration.

Register online or at either museum location, the museum at 1785 Island Road, Harkers Island, or 806 Arendell St. Morehead City. 

Cape Fear Museum of History and Science is hosting a rain-or-shine event for International Observe the Moon Night Saturday.

The event from 6 to 8 p.m. is part of a worldwide celebration of lunar science and exploration that occurs in early fall when the moon is in its first quarter.

The museum at 814 Market St. in Wilmington is hosting hands-on activities, exhibit explorations, moon observation and a themed story time. Participants can also explore Space Place, an interactive exhibit inspired by and modeled after the International Space Station.

Learn more at capefearmuseum.com.

In the main lobby of the Museum of the Albemarle from Aug. 12 to Oct. 14 two soybean harvesters from the early 20th century are to be on display.

The temporary exhibit is in the Elizabeth City museum is in conjunction with the unveiling Aug. 12 of an updated North Carolina Highway Historical Marker dedicated to soybean processing.

Visitors to the museum will be able to see a 1920 soybean harvester manufactured in Elizabeth City by the Gordon Bean and Pea Harvester Co., invited by resident LeRoy S. Gordon, born 1866 and died 1955. Church Street resident George Pritchard, born 1883 and died 1947, also patented his own model in the 1920s as well.

The original North Carolina Highway Historical Marker erected in 1982 read “Commercial processing of domestic soybeans in U.S. began in 1915 at a plant which was located two miles north.”

The updated marker to be unveiled next month states, “In 1915 W.T. Culpepper launched the soybean oil industry in the U.S. at Elizabeth City Oil & Fertilizer Co., 1 mi. NE,” according to the state marker program’s website.

A representative with the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program told Coastal Review that the unveiling of the new marker to be located near where Church Street meets and Water Street will not be open to the public.

To see the harvesters and other exhibits in the Museum of the Albemarle, hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Post has been updated.

With camps for little mariners, programs for older learners and activities for all ages scheduled, the state’s three maritime museums are planning for a busy July.

The museums, part of the Division of State History Museums in the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, are in Hatteras, Beaufort and Southport.

“The educators at our three museums offer programs year-round that focus on maritime history and culture,” Maritime Museums Public Information Officer Cyndi Brown told Coastal Review.

“But during the summer, we add even more opportunities for children and adults to develop a deeper appreciation and understanding of the maritime history and environment,” Brown added. “This increase lets both our first-time and our returning visitors explore the maritime world in new ways and in greater depth.”

A slew of talks, hands-on projects, camps and more are scheduled throughout the month. Museums are free to visit, although there are fees for some activities.

Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum

The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras, named in remembrance of the thousands of shipwrecks off the North Carolina’s coast, is dedicated to the preservation and presentation of the state’s coastal culture and maritime history, including these shipwrecks.

The museum features exhibits on piracy, war, lifesaving, commerce, diving and coastal living. The museum has on display remnants of the earliest known shipwreck found in North Carolina waters, dating to 1650, and objects from other shipwrecks including the USS Monitor, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, and the USS Huron.

“Through our summer speakers series and our maritime crafts we entertain and educate all ages about the Outer Banks and its fascinating maritime history. A museum activity can provoke a lifelong love of learning,” said Mary Ellen Riddle, education curator at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras. 

“The maritime history of the Outer Banks is far reaching with global, national and state impacts,” Riddle said.

“The coastal location and nearness to the Gulf Stream and an extension of the Labrador Current brought heavy trade traffic to an area that was dangerous due to shoaling, weather, war and sometimes piracy,” Riddle explained. “As a result of these conditions, we have over 2,000 shipwrecks in our waters. We think of the related stories and shipwrecks as invaluable repositories of history that teach us about eras, people, places, and technology from all over the world.”

The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is at 59200 Museum Drive, Hatteras, and is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Saturday. The museum will be closed Monday for the Fourth of July holiday.

This month, the Hatteras museum will host speakers and offer craft activities.

The Salty Dawgs Speaker Series will feature historians, divers, maritime history master’s candidates, musicians, professors, researchers and authors that will cover piracy, shipwrecks, whaling and sea shanties. The free, 30- to 45-minute talks begin at 11 a.m. and take place every Tuesday through September. The public is invited. No reservation needed.

The series includes the following:

• A Picture Show of Outer Banks Shipwreck Diving with underwater photographer Marc Corbett is set for July 5. Corbett, who will soon publish a book on nearshore wrecks, will discuss shipwrecks on the Outer Banks. His photography has been on display at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum and has been in multiple publications.
• Cooking Seafood Hatteras Style with Sharon Peele Kennedy will be July 12. Kennedy will prepare a seafood chowder to taste and sign copies of her cookbook, “What’s for Supper?” that focuses on recipes using locally caught seafood. Kennedy’s family roots are deep on Hatteras Island.
• Sea Shanties and Songs of the Sea with JR Shanty Co. will take place July 19 and July 26. Wife and husband folk duo Julianne Laird and Richard Workman performs traditional sea shanties and songs of the sea.

Maritime Crafts for all ages will be from 10:30 a.m. to noon July 6, July 13, July 20 and July 27. Supplies will be provided for coastal-themed crafts during these free events.

Crafting Sailor’s Valentines is 10:30 a.m. to noon July 21. Create a Sailor’s Valentine using shells, and discover the history of the maritime art. All supplies furnished for the free event. All ages welcome.

In addition to special programming, the museum offers family- and youth-friendly scavenger hunts. Visitors search for objects throughout the museum and receive a surprise.

N.C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort

The North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort shares the story of lighthouses and lifesaving stations, the seafood industry and motorboats. Educational programs focus on marine life, science and ecology.

On permanent display is an exhibit with artifacts from Blackbeard’s wrecked flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, among them cannons, grenades, belt buckles and beads, found off the coast of Beaufort. In the the Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center across the street, boatbuilding classes are held for all ages.

“Creating opportunities to educate people about North Carolina’s maritime history and environment is important for the museum year-round, but even more so during the peak tourism season,” said Benjamin Wunderly, associate education curator at the Beaufort site.

“Visitors coming from across the state, country and even farther allow us to reach a much broader audience that typically wouldn’t be here in the off-season. The museum capitalizes on the situation by offering a variety of educational programs for varying ages and interests,” he added.

The museum at 315 Front St. in downtown Beaufort, and the Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center, across the street, are open year-round. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.

From kayaking to a sailboat race, the Beaufort museum has a range of activities planned.

Kayak the Salt Marsh 9 a.m. to noon July 1. Basic kayak instruction and safety lessons on shore followed by a 2-mile paddle through the salt marsh. Cost is $35 or $25 with own kayak. Registration is required by noon the day prior. 

Maritime Heritage Series: The Cape Lookout Lighthouse 11 a.m. July 6. Wunderly will talk about the history of light towers at Cape Lookout at the free talk. No registration required. Attend in person in the museum auditorium, watch online via the museum’s Facebook page or sign up for Zoom at ncmaritimemuseumbeaufort.com/sign-up-for-virtual-programs/.

Fish & Fishing 9 a.m. to noon July 6-7. Third and fourth graders will learn about coastal fish and fishing methods during this two-day class. Cane poles, bait, and tackle are provided for dock fishing and they will use nets to catch and identify marine life in nearshore waters. Advance registration is required. Cost is $90 per child. 

Seashore Life I 9 a.m.to noon July 7-8. First and second graders will investigate the coastal marine life of the tidal flats, salt marshes and sounds on local islands in this two-day class. Field-based classes include ferry ride, barrier island hiking, and animal identification. Cost is $90 per child. Advance registration is required.

Great Fourth Race 9 a.m. July 7. Traditionally-rigged sailing craft rally to celebrate the historic voyages that carried news of the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the Outer Banks. Boat registration required to participate in the free event. Boats will gather in Taylors Creek between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. Organized by the Traditional Small Craft Association Friends of the Museum Chapter. For information, call 252-728-1638 or visit maritimefriends.org.

Boat in a Day Class 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. July 9, July 15 and July 30. Teams up to four people assemble a small flat-bottomed plywood boat suitable for paddling. Fee is $630, or $567 for Friends of the Museum. Course size is limited, and registration is required.

Pirates! 9 a.m. to noon offered on July 11-12 and July 28-29. First and second graders will work with their fearless captain to learn how pirates like Blackbeard lived. Cost is $90 per child. Registration required.

Merry Time for Tots Summer Science School 9-10 a.m. July 13. Children entering preschool can listen to a story, estuarine critter observation and a related craft. Cost is $5 per child. Registration required.

Ocean Infants 9 a.m. July 14. The program for birth up to 2 years old and their caregivers, involves maritime items such as whale bones, shark teeth, and pirate hats. Registration required. Cost is $5 per participating child or $2 for Friends of the Museum members.

Boats & Models 9 a.m.-noon July 18–19. Third and fourth graders will build a sportfishing boat model at the museum’s Watercraft Center. Museum exhibits and field trips will demonstrate the boats used for offshore charter fishing. Cost is $90 per child. registration required.

Coastal Adventures 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. July 18-20. Seventh through 10th graders will examine environmental conservation issues such as marine debris and protected species. Through field observations and data gathering at local nature preserves, students will learn how scientists and natural resource managers deal with conservation challenges. Cost is $120 per child. Registration required.

Maritime Matinee: “Wild Caught” 1 p.m. July 21. Free showing of “Wild Caught: The Life and Struggles of an American Fishing Town” in the museum auditorium. Film chronicles commercial fishermen in Sneads Ferry and their struggles in the industry. Free, no registration required.

15th annual Crab Cake Cook-off 6 p.m. July 22. Fundraiser for the Friends of the Maritime Museum at the Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center. For information or tickets, call 252-728-1638 or visit maritimefriends.org.

Exploring Coastal Habitats 9 a.m. to noon July 26. Discover the various plants and animals of the salt marsh and tidal flats at the Rachel Carson Reserve. Cost is $20 a person. Register by noon day prior. 

For information or to register for any event at this museum, call 252-504-7758 or visit ncmaritimemuseumbeaufort.com/events/.

N.C. Maritime Museum at Southport

The North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport, at the confluence of the Cape Fear River, Atlantic Ocean and Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, tells tales of pirates, blockade running, commercial fishing and other nautical adventures.

“Museums are in a unique position to offer engaging content to aid in learning retention over the summer,” said Katy Menne, who leads the education programs at the Southport site. “Getting to add hands-on fun surrounding the topic of water brings summers to life, since many visitors are coming to the beaches for an escape and enjoyment. We provide both in our exhibits and programs.”

The museum at 204 E Moore St., Southport, is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and closed Sunday and Monday.

The Southport museum will offer camps for children under 12 and its monthly Third Tuesday Talk in July.

Little Mariners Camps are for ages 4 to 6, with a guardian, and take place every other Wednesday. Each camp is $7 with a 10% discount for Friends members at the Family level and above. Registration closes the day prior at 5 p.m.

• Red, White, and Blue Whale is at 2 p.m. July 6. The class includes a sing along, craft, and story time.
• Duck Dash is from 2 p.m. July 20. Ages 4 to 6 can color, and race ducks then listen to a great story about five little ducks.

First Mate Four-Day Camps are being offered for ages 7-12. Each camp is $60 with a 10% discount for Friends members at the Family level and above. All programs are subject to N.C. state taxes. Registration closes the day prior at 5 p.m.

Camps are from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and include the following topics and dates:

• Salty Sea Life July 12-15. Learn about the sea life local to the Lower Cape Fear and how they have helped the region economically. Students will take a trip to the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher, as well as walk the Southport waterfront.
• Colonial Days July 26-29. Learn how port town residents lived everyday life and then travel to an old Colonial City.

Call 910-477-5151 or visit ncmaritimemuseumsouthport.com/events to register for these camps.

Third Tuesday: “The Submarine Blitzkrieg against North America and the U.S. Response: December 1941 to August 1942” with Dr. Salvatore R. Mercogliano 7 p.m. July 19 at the Southport Community Building, 223 E. Bay St. Admission is free but reservations are required since seating is limited.

Updated June 28: Organizers have opened up the invitation to this year’s shrimp fry to electric system linemen and women. “A group that we depend on throughout the year and especially during the summer and fall months of hurricane season.”

The Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center has made it a priority to honor and celebrate those who make a difference in the community, past and present.

As part of that mission, the museum on July 9 during its annual All-American Shrimp Fry will again recognize active military and area veterans as well as thank health care workers, first responders, law enforcement, teachers and school personnel who have been on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The theme this year is a continuation of the 2021 theme, “Thank you, community, for leading us through COVID all these years!”

This year’s celebration is from 4 to 7 p.m.  at the Harkers Island museum. Those who are being honored will receive a complimentary dinner of a half-pound of fresh local shrimp with all the trimmings, dessert and drink and a chance to win a sunset cruise to Cape Lookout. 

Reserve a plate through the museum’s website by noon July 8 or call the museum at 252-728-1500. Additional plates can be purchased for $15 each. Hot dogs are offered for the children.

In addition to dinner, attendees can enjoy treats from the bake sale, participate in the silent auction, watch decoy carving demonstrations, check out Crystal Coast Antique Club’s cars and hear music from the 2d Marine Aircraft Wing Band from Cherry Point. 

Lisa Kittrell, director of elementary education and Title I for Carteret County Schools, told Coastal Review Monday that she was thankful educators were again being invited to the Waterfowl Museum’s annual shrimp fry.

“Along with so many others in the county, our teachers have worked hard during COVID. The opportunity to bring together so many heroes to say thank you, to enjoy delicious food and to fellowship is a great idea,” she said.

Down East resident and military veteran Paige Hurley Humphreys attended last year. She said in an interview that she and her family attended “as a way to enrich ourselves more in the wonderful history and community we live in.”

She added that it was a wonderful occasion with speakers commemorating locals who did so much through the pandemic and those who have served this county and the United States.

“It was great after a long pandemic to see people coming together to celebrate our county’s heritage,” she said, adding that she thought the Marine Corps Band was incredible and there were great vendors selling crafts. The museum itself was so enjoyable and educational.

“The perfect finish for our family was that we won passes to go on the ferry to Cape Lookout. It was a wonderful and memorable day,” she said.

The museum has been holding the shrimp fry for years as a community event around Fourth of July, Karen Willis Amspacher, executive director, told Coastal Review.

In the last decade, Ike Southerland, museum’s sponsorship coordinator, transformed the event to a veteran and active military appreciation celebration. 

Once the museum began offering the plates to veterans and active military that were sponsored by community members as a thank you, the event grew, serving around 200 plates to between 350 to 400 plates.

“There are so many veterans Down East and in Carteret County we are honored to do this,” Amspacher said.

Last year organizers opened the invitation to those on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, when they served almost 800 plates.

Amspacher explained that entering the third year of COVID-19, the organizers decided to extend again this year appreciation to these community leaders. “Once again we are honored to say, ‘thank you’ to the men and women who lead our community every day,” she said.

First responders, health care workers and school personnel continue to face this historic health care emergency with strength and resolve, and “we recognize their courage and fortitude in this continuing battle,” Sutherland said in a statement. “We appreciate the leadership and commitment of all the men and women who have faced this unprecedented threat to our community. We will also recognize the education community – teachers, principals, bus drivers, school administrators and all those who have helped our children through this very difficult time.”

Volunteers will be on hand to interview those who want to share how they faced this unprecedented time in history and memories of how this pandemic has changed the community. 

Volunteers are always needed to help with this event, including setup and cleanup. Desserts are needed and door prize donations are welcome. To help, email museum@coresound.com, or call 252-728-1500.

Sponsorship opportunities are available. Host sponsors are asked to donate $1,000. Plate sponsorships, which go to cover the cost of the food, are available at the following levels: $500 for 35 plates, $300 for 20 plates, $250 for 18 plates, $150 for 10 plates, $120 for eight plates, and $100 for six plates. All sponsor names are to be recognized at the event and included in promotional materials.

The museum offers programs year-round, from hands-on demonstrations of decoy carving and quilting, interactive community exhibits, outdoor experiences, field trips and summer camps for students and educators. The signature event, Waterfowl Weekend, is the second weekend of December. 

If you can’t make it out to Harkers Island, swing by the museum’s Community Outreach Center at 806 Arendell St., in Morehead City. 

In addition to carrying locally made arts and crafts, at 2 p.m. every Thursday through Labor Day visitors can enjoy Parlor Talks, which highlight different topics, at the outreach center. No reservations are needed. Handicap access is available via ramp outside and lift inside.

On the schedule 

June 30: Protecting our Dark Skies with Crystal Coast Stargazers Club

Related: Cape Lookout is now a certified International Dark Sky Park

July 7: “Menhaden Fishing, When Beaufort was a Money-making country” with Steve Goodwin, author of “Beyond the Crow’s Nest: The Story of the Menhaden Fishery of Carteret County” and Barbara Garrity-Blake, cultural anthropologist and co-author with Amspacher of “Living at the Water’s Edge: A Heritage Guide to the Outer Banks Byway.”

Related: Our Coast’s History: Menhaden Fishing Days

July 14: “The Tide IS Rising” with Swansboro Commissioner Frank Tursi, and former editor of Coastal Review.

July 21: Dynamics of Extreme Events, People and Places (DEEP) with UNC researchers Elizabeth Frankenburg and Nathan Dollar

July 28: Leaving the Banks with Joel Hancock, author of “The Education of an Island Boy.”

Aug. 4: Cape Lookout Lighthouse History and Restoration Status with Cape Lookout National Seashore Superintendent Jeff West

Aug. 11: Cabin Culture of the Southern Banks with Dr. Stan Rule

Aug. 18: The Value of Down East Culture in Arctic Alaska with artist Susan Mason

Aug. 25: Marshallberg Boatbuilding, story of the Albatross Fleet, North Carolina’s first charter fishing business, with Ernie Foster and Keith Willis

Sept. 1: Stories and Songs We Love with museum archivist Connie Mason

A new, temporary exhibit commemorating the history of African American military service in North Carolina opened this weekend at the Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City.

“We Wanted to Fight: Black North Carolinians in World War II,” which consists of 12 pop-up panels, opened Saturday and is set to close on May 11.

The temporary display is part of a grant project of the North Carolina Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, the North Carolina Museum of History, Elizabeth City State University School of Humanities and Social Sciences and the State Archives of North Carolina Military Collection in recognition of the African American Military and Veterans Lineage Project.

“All of our service members and veterans have a story to tell,” said North Carolina Department of Military and Veterans Affairs Secretary Walter Gaskin in a statement. “Black Americans have always answered the call to serve, and this program during Black History Month is a fitting tribute to their stories, patriotism and deep commitment to this country and to the great state of North Carolina.”

The State Archives of North Carolina preserves and makes accessible the personal accounts of North Carolina’s military veterans so future generations may hear their stories and better understand the realities of war. This project taps into the stories of African American military service members from North Carolina through a collection of interviews, correspondence, photographs and artifacts.

“Uncovering and sharing often-untold stories is at the heart of what the North Carolina Museum of History does,” said North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources Secretary Reid Wilson. “This collaboration with the North Carolina Department of Military and Veterans Affairs and the State Archives will give all North Carolinians the opportunity to learn of the proud and courageous tradition of service of Black Americans in the Armed Forces of the United States.”

To coincide with the museum display’s opening, the State Archives has published “Trials and Tribulations: North Carolina African American Soldiers and the Racial Divide.” The booklet that commemorates the history of North Carolina Black Americans’ military service.

More information on the African American Military and Veterans Lineage Project can be found online.

A North Carolina Humanities Council grant awarded to Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, which coordinates the travel of this exhibition at military bases, and cultural and educational institutions in the state, funded the exhibit.

The Museum of the Albemarle is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Saturday.

HATTERAS — One day about two years ago, a shoebox wrapped in plastic arrived at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum. Inside, there was a manual, written in German and stained orange by diesel fuel. Chillingly, it included maps of the North Carolina coast, marked with the locations of lighthouses.

With $4.2 million provided in this year’s state budget to fabricate and install the Hatteras museum’s exhibits, the public may soon be able to see the relic of the gruesome Battle of Atlantic, along with hundreds of other never-seen historic maritime artifacts. Bids for the exhibit plan are expected to go out soon.

“I am so pleased that this is done for Hatteras and North Carolina,” said North Carolina Maritime Museums Director Joseph Schwarzer, referring to completing the museum that was inspired decades ago to preserve the Outer Banks’ maritime history, “because this is important. Once you lose it, you never get it back.”

Standing earlier this year in the climate-controlled area behind the museum’s gallery, Schwarzer explained that the package of artifacts came from an unnamed diver who had retrieved the documents from the wardroom of the U-85, a German submarine torpedoed off Nags Head in April 1942 — the first U-boat the U.S. Navy had sunk during World War II.  

“They had all these books on the shelf,” the director said recently while showing off the manual the diver sent. “Fortunately, he put it in the freezer.”

‘Good stories, and there’s a lot of them’

Schwarzer was surrounded by remnants of many more astounding artifacts to soon be relocated from storage to exhibit space, ranging from detritus to whole pieces and memorializing centuries of dramatic maritime history off the Outer Banks that encompasses piracy, colonization, wars and thousands of shipwrecks, as well as history shown through its people — the U.S. Life-Saving Service rescuers, lighthouses and lifesaving stations, commercial and recreational fishing, diving and salvaging, and nor’easters and hurricanes.  

“The point is, there’s nothing here that isn’t historically significant,” Schwarzer said. “That comes back to, ’Let us tell our story.’ They’re good stories, and there’s a lot of them.”

As an example, he pointed to the stored equipment that had been used by the U.S. Coast Guard to conduct the last rescue with a breeches buoy, a type of seat developed by the lifesaving service to carry shipwreck victims to shore. That artifact, along with the Lyle gun that shot the line used to carry it, was interesting to see, but the saga afterwards made it much more so.

In the story Schwarzer summed up, the Honduran freighter Omar Babun was transiting off the coast near Rodanthe, heading to Havanna, Cuba, loaded with heavy equipment for a steel mill. The ship was caught in a gale and beached May 14, 1954. The Coast Guard rescued all 14 crew members with the breeches buoy.

The juicier part happened after the ship grounded. According to a Time magazine story that ran Aug. 2, 1954, a Buick dealer from Havelock and named Esveld “Nip” Canipe, had after flying over the ship in a chartered plane, decided to salvage the 194-foot Omar Babun, with an agreement with the insurance company that he would get 30 % of the value of the cargo he recovered. 

Miraculously, Canipe and a team of about 30 men, including 25 skeptical Outer Bankers, built a road to the ship and managed — just barely and with much effort — to pull cargo ashore. Canipe later refloated the Babun and got it to port in Norfolk. He was expecting to make about $100,000 in profit, over the estimated $40,000 cost of the salvage operation, the article said.

Meanwhile, Babun’s captain, who “may or may not have been working for the CIA,” Schwarzer said, later had one of his boats intercepted by the Cuban government, which might have been unhappy about the undelivered cargo. Another interesting tidbit is that Cuban leader Raul Castro is said to have been living in the captain’s old house in Cuba.

“This is a nothing shipwreck, but when you delve into it, it’s got all these aspects,” Schwarzer said.

And that what’s got Schwarzer so excited about finally being able to complete the exhibit work at the museum — the long-hidden-away artifacts can now tell the stories.

A long-incomplete but popular attraction

The genesis of the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum goes back to 1986, when Hatteras villagers decided it would make sense to have a facility to house artifacts from the wreck of the Civil War-era Monitor that had been discovered a decade earlier offshore their village. Most of the items salvaged from the ironclad ended up going to the Mariner’s Museum in Newport, Virginia, but considering that about 2,000 or more ships were believed to have wrecked off the North Carolina coast, mostly along the Outer Banks, the concept of a shipwreck museum nonetheless gained momentum.

In 1999, ground was broken on the proposed $7 million facility, situated on a 7-acre site owned by the National Park Service at the south end of Hatteras Island. Initial costs were provided by project partners, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the park service.

The museum opened to the public in 2003 with changing exhibits, albeit incomplete exhibit space. The 19,000-square-foot museum has proven to be a popular attraction. It was transferred to the state in 2007, joining the system’s maritime museums in Beaufort and Southport. Although NOAA had earlier provided $600,000 for an exhibit design, estimated costs for the exhibit design started at about $2.5 million and kept inching up over the years and it remained unfunded.

The exhibit plan, estimated at $4.2 million, was approved last year.

Named in honor of the nickname given to Diamond Shoals, the treacherous area off Hatteras Island where for centuries many hundreds of ships wrecked, the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is dedicated to preservation of not just shipwrecks, but to the 400 years of maritime history and culture of the Outer Banks.

The museum, which is free to visit and located across from Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry docks at the end of Hatteras Island, has featured new themed exhibits on a seasonal basis and offers year-round programs, including popular family-friendly scavenger hunts.

Despite being incomplete, the museum already has numerous detailed exhibits in its expansive gallery, themed on fishing, diving, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, piracy, lifesaving, Native Americans and storms. Artifacts on display include Civil War battle flags and garments, the bell from the Diamond Shoals lightship, an Enigma decoding machine salvaged from a U-boat, the original telegram sent from the Titanic that was discovered in the wall of the nearby weather station, and the partially restored original Fresnel lens from the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

There is also a large window in one part of the gallery where visitors can look at the artifact collection, which Schwarzer estimated totals more than 100,000 objects, in storage, with selected highlights rotated in front of the window.

In addition to the state appropriation, the museum depends on the $50,000 to $60,000 a year in donations that the public gives at the door, as well as funds raised by the museum’s nonprofit friends group, for programming and maintenance needs.

Once the installation is done, the hope is that members of the community, many of whom have lived on the island for generations, and whose family roots go back centuries, will donate treasured items, said Danny Couch, president of the museum’s friends group.

“We know that they’re there,” Couch said, adding that the issue is providing the assurance that the artifacts will find a suitable home. “We know that we can do that.”

In the past, Couch said, there were instances where community members had entrusted their family’s souvenirs after promises were made, but the objects were never seen again.

“That’s going to continue to be a sell to the local community, to make sure the comfort level is there,” he said.

Couch said he’s just glad that after years of struggle to finish the museum, they can now breathe easier and concentrate on programming rather than fundraising.

“It’s such a sense of relief,” he said. “After sailing around the world and coming into port, now we’re finally at the dock.”

Submitted by North Carolina Maritime Museums

A brief gathering on Wednesday morning unveiled another first for the North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport: tactile maps of the facility. 

The maps combine contrasting graphics and braille to allow visitors with low-vision or who have blindness to independently access the museum at 204 E. Moore St. in downtown Southport.

The map outlines the layout of the museum, including walls, doors, emergency exits and openings between exhibits and hallways. Its two pages, the map and its legend, will be mounted on either side a foam board and handed out to those who would benefit from having an aid in navigating the site.

The tactile map is just one of the tools recently added to enhance the museum experience. 

“We’ve taken a lot of small steps to offer greater inclusion,” Education Curator Katy Menne said, listing the semi-guided ASL tour, multilingual signage and dedicated spaces and tools for those with sensory sensitivities already offered at the museum. “After working to address those needs, we wanted to do something for those with low vision and/or total blindness.” 

She thought it was worth exploring tactile maps, which she had heard about during webinars and in talking to staff with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. She and Museum Manager Lori Sanderlin took the idea to the Southport Lions Club and the Friends of the Museum for financial support. 

Southport Lions Club President Ken Updike said it made sense for them to support the project since it so clearly aligned with the group’s mission to help with vision needs.  

“The whole project they presented just made it easy for us to get on board,” he said. “It’s a good fit for us and good fit for the community.” 

Updike, along with five other members of the club, joined museum staff and Friends President Tom Hale for Wednesday’s “unboxing” ceremony where Menne unveiled the maps for the first time.  

“To see this today,” Updike said, “it’s going to change how people come in here. They can be independent.” 

And that independence is one of the goals of both the maps and the other tools in use at the museum, Menne said.  

“You can wander and explore on your own,” she said, adding that the next step is creating 3-D reproduction of its artifacts.

The goal is to have at least one artifact per exhibit that is 3-D printed or a reproduction that visitors can interact with physically. It’s part of a larger goal to include an interactive or a game tied to each exhibit to help visitors of all abilities learn more by incorporating movement and touch. 

“Hands-on experience has a more lasting impact,” Menne said. “It’s making that personal connection.” 

The N.C. Maritime Museum at Southport is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Admission is free. For more information, call 910-477-5151 or visit ncmaritimemuseumsouthport.com.

The Pea Island Cookhouse Museum in Manteo is a small building. Built sometime in the late 1930s, it was once the cookhouse for the Pea Island Coast Guard Station on Hatteras Island.

The significance of the building, though, is far greater than its size, for this meticulously restored structure is a direct link to Pea Island Life-Saving Station, the first to be commanded by an African American. Capt. Richard Etheridge was named keeper in 1880 and from then until 1947, when it was deactivated, Pea Island was manned by an all-Black crew.

The museum, across the highway from downtown Manteo, is not a part of the usual visitor traffic.

A visit to the museum often includes the chance to talk in depth about the history of the station with the volunteers, many of whom are Pea Island Preservation Society board members and direct descendants of those who manned the station. The Pea Island Preservation Society is a nonprofit organization with the purpose to preserve and interpret the history of The Pea Island Life-Saving Station.

Darrell Collins, president of the Pea Island Preservation Society Board, has a personal connection to the station and the Coast Guard. His father, Frank Collins, served 16 years in the service before dying during Hurricane Donna in 1960.

He was in a car with three other Coast Guardsmen when tragedy struck.

“They were on their way back to the station (from Manteo) during Hurricane Donna. And evidently, they thought they could make it back to the beach,” Collins said. But they were in the eye of the storm, and when the eye passed “a wall of water came in and washed the car they were in over. Three Coast Guardsmen died that day. Oscar Berry, the driver, was the only one that escaped by clinging to a telegraph pole.”

There are other connections as well. His uncle, Herbert Collins, was the last man in charge of Pea Island when it was deactivated in 1947. Herbert Collins made a career in the Coast Guard, retiring as a lieutenant in 1976.

For Darrell Collins, though, the history of the Pea Island Station is more than a family story.

With a 40-year career in the National Park Service as a historian and interpreter, his ability to explain what the Wright brothers accomplished in ways that everyone could understand took him around the world before he retired in 2017.

That same storytelling he applies to the story of the Pea Island Life-Saving Station and its significance.

“These men found something in life that most African Americans would never find. They found a purpose in life in being there. They found pride and honor in what they did,” he said, adding, “This was a government-run organization. They had equal pay, which was unusual, and equal equipment. I think they actually, in a very little way, they changed the face of race in America. They interacted with other white stations. They became respected by the other white stations.”

The story begins with the Life-Saving Service General Supervisor Sumner Kimball’s effort to make the service a professional organization and hearing about the

After several shipwrecks off the North Carolina coast in the late 1870s when life-saving station keepers and crews failed to save the victims due to either negligence or incompetence, the Outer Banks were at the center of the call to reform the Life-Saving Service.

The Pea Island Station Keeper George Daniels was dismissed after the schooner M&E Henderson sank within sight of the station in 1879 and inspectors learned the station had failed to patrol the beach.

Kimball and his team were aware of Etheridge’s competence.

First Lt. Charles F. Shoemaker’s evaluation of Surfman No. 6 Etheridge, the lowest rank at the station, at the Bodie Island Station, acknowledged that no Black man held the position of keeper, but went on to say, “I am fully convinced that the interests of the LifeSaving Service he, in pain to efficiency, will be greatly advanced by the appointment of this man to the Keepership of Station No. 17.”

Etheridge was promoted to Pea Island Station keeper and the white crew immediately quit — allowing for the installation of an all African American crew.

Etheridge may have been the perfect person for the job. Born enslaved in 1842 on Roanoke Island, he listed in the Union Army as soon as the island was liberated by northern forces in 1862. He fought in the Battle of New Market, one of the most horrific battles of the war, rising to the rank of commissary sergeant, the highest rank permitted a Black soldier at that time, before mustering out in 1866 and returning to Roanoke Island.

“He was put in this position because they realized that he would go the extra mile to make sure that everything was run correctly by the book,” Collins said. “He was a real taskmaster is my understanding, He might not have been somebody you’d want to work for. He knew the stakes that were involved. That they could take the station away from him.”

That drilling paid huge dividends in a hurricane when the schooner ES Newman was driven aground Oct. 11, 1896, 3 miles south of the station. Unable to use their equipment because of wind, surf and overwash on the beach, members of the crew took turns swimming through the pounding waves to the Newman with a lifeline attached. All nine crew members on the ship were saved.

It took 100 years for bravery of the men that night to be fully recognized, but in 1996 the descendants of the Pea Island Crew were awarded the Coast Guard Gold Lifesaving Medal, the highest medal for bravery the service awards.

Although the Newman rescue is what the Pea Island Station is most noted for, to Collins, it is one part of a much larger picture, a mission that is more than simply retelling the story of Richard Etheridge and the all-Black crews that followed.

The museum has an outreach program focusing much of its attention on children under the direction Joan Collins, Darrell’s cousin. The Cookhouse Museum initiated an outreach program a few years ago.

“We created Freedmens for Heroes as an education initiative, recognizing that we’re not going to get much traction in making people understand history by just opening the Cookhouse when we can,” she said. “We came up with an initiative designed to reach out and teach.”

A regular part of the visitor experience at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island, the program is a live presentation of the significance of the Pea Island Life-Saving Station and its importance in history.

The program has been further expanded, Joan Collins explained. “We’re in all Dare County elementary schools. We’ve been doing that for the past three or four years. We do a live program with kids.”

The program is presented to fourth graders, and tells the true story Darrell Collins said. “We don’t pull any punches when they tell their story. We talk about racism. We talk about the difference between Blacks and whites in that particular era in history. And the kids are really into to this.”

The culmination of the program is an essay contest among all Dare County fourth graders.

This past year, two Latino children won first and second prize, Darrell Collins said.

“It’s a shared history, a shared history that still exists today,” Joan Collins added.

The North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport is hosting a Living History Weekend next month that on the early 20th century of the region and will share how that history ties to today. 

The Living History Weekend will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 18 and from noon to 4 p.m. Sept. 19 at the museum, 204 E Moore St., in downtown Southport.

This year’s theme is World War I and the U.S. Life-Saving Service and spans the first couple of decades of the 20th century. Reenactors, authors and documentarians will be onsite, as well as organizations that support veterans.  

“We are not only looking at things that occurred, we’re looking at the awards, medals and military services rolled out around that time,” museum Education Curator Katy Menne said. “It’s a way to learn about organizations that assist veterans in the world today, specifically those that formed in the wake of World War I.” 

Likewise, many of the medals that were awarded starting with World War I are still in use today. Learning about them, Menne said, was particularly interesting. 

“Getting to share about heroic men and women who were awarded these medals is really cool,” she said. “It’s been an interesting conversation starter.” 

There will be an interactive scavenger hunt taking place as well. The back of a site map will include a list of the stations on-site. Visitors will get a stamp at each site visited, and once the stamp section is filled the map can be taken to the front desk to receive a prize. 

“The scavenger hunt is designed so they deliberately interact with reenactors, items, booths and our staff members,” Menne said. 

Other interactive activities include a make your own poppy flower station, coloring cards of the two main World War I award citations and draft records of men from the five-county region. 

“We’re trying to get their history involved,” Menne said. “A lot of these names we still have in the area.” 

The museum started its Living History Weekend to offer a more interactive style of learning and schedules it annually on the third weekend of September. Over a five-year cycle, they adjust the theme to represent a different time period. 

“We want to give equal recognition to the region’s maritime history,” Menne said. “We’re hopeful that people will feel comfortable coming out to learn with us.”

For more information, call 910-477-5151 or visit ncmaritimemuseumsouthport.com.