Have you ever wanted to harness your inner Starbuck? BSA Scout Troop 26 did exactly that at Mystic Seaport Museum. As we walked the decks of the last surviving wooden whaling ship, Charles W. Morgan, we felt like 19th century sailors headed to sea. Our guide even showed us how to hold a harpoon and then throw it into the sea to the whaler’s cry, “Dart the iron!”
Ashore at the historically-accurate whaling port, we talked to a blacksmith as he stoked the forge and hammered hot metal into whaling tools. At the cooperage, we learned how iron hoops driven over hand-tapered white oak staves sealed barrels watertight. We saw plant fibers twisted into rope, discovered how sextants measure the stars, and explored the implements of 19th-century seafaring at the chandlery (a term taken from ship lantern “chandeliers” sold there).
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In the rotating exhibit Monstrous: Whaling and Its Colossal Impact, thousands of whaling artifacts showcase the outsize impact that whale oil and whaling had on 19th century American life. Brickwrecks: Sunken Ships in LEGO Bricks, visiting the Museum through early 2027, was a personal favorite of mine. LEGO recreations of 11 different sunken ships span time and technology from a Bronze Age trader to the giant containership Rena, which ran onto a reef near New Zealand in 2011. Interactive stations explore facets of each wreck, and buckets of LEGO bricks let kids of all ages build their own maritime disasters.
Mystic Seaport Museum emphasizes hands-on K through 12 education for schools, youth groups and individuals. Even a small group like ours, with seven middle- and high-school girls and a few adult chaperones, had a two-hour guided tour and admission for the day for about the same price as general admission. Our troop stayed two nights at Camp Kitchtau, a nearby scouting group campsite. Alternatively, we could have tented right on Mystic Seaport Museum’s historic village green, or slept inside the Treworgy Planetarium, or even bunked aboard the Joseph Conrad, a huge square-rigged training ship built in 1882. Visit mysticseaport.org for more information.
