Please note: This training includes traveling by boat to an island in eastern Penobscot Bay.
THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN POSTPONED - CHECK BACK FOR A NEW DATE!
The Wilson Museum is excited to be partnering with Midden Minders and Maine Coast Heritage Trust to offer hands-on training for future “Midden Minders” on Thursday, August 8.
Midden Minders is a citizens-science project to document and monitor erosion of Wabanaki ancestral shell heaps along the coast of what is now Maine.
Over thousands of years, Indigenous hunters/gatherers/fishers have relied on the rich resources of the region’s ocean, coastline, marshes, and adjacent forests. The record of their occupation and the environment in which they lived is preserved in shell heaps (or middens). However, these irreplaceable cultural spaces are disappearing as sea-level rise and changing weather patterns impact the Maine coast.
Photo: An eroding shell midden in Mid-Coast Maine.
The Maine Midden Minders seek to engage local citizens individually and in partnership with conservation and other organizations to monitor and document change at shell heaps along the coast, and to preserve information about this cultural heritage in a database to be used by the Wabanaki in collaboration with researchers and cultural resource managers.
For this new partnership, the Wilson Museum will host Midden Minders for a training that will include an introduction to the program and its methodology. We will then travel with Maine Coast Heritage Trust to an island they steward in eastern Penobscot Bay for field training on the methods used to monitor vulnerable shell heaps.
The day will start at 9:00 am at the museum’s Hutchins Education Center for a short introduction. We will then make the short trip to the Castine town dock and board the boats to head out to the island. We expect to return to Castine by about 4:00 pm.
Photo: Midden Minders Training Group
There is a limit of 10 participants. Please dress for the weather, keeping in mind that it will probably be cooler out on the water. Long pants and long sleeves are recommended as there are lots of rose bushes on the island. Bring your own snacks, drinks, and lunch, as well as a clipboard so you can take notes! Also, if you happen to have a handheld GPS, bring that along as well. You will need to be physically able to move from a boat to a dingy and back, and from the dingy to shore and back. Water shoes will be helpful in addition to sturdy shoes or boots for use on the island.
The museum will work with the trained Midden Minders to carry out ongoing monitoring of these shell heaps, and perhaps more in the future.
Please email director@wilsonmuseum.org to sign up or if you have questions. If the training is cancelled due to weather, we will reschedule to a future date.