Category: News

By Paul O’Pecko
Vice President of Research Collections and Director of the G.W. Blunt White Library

With the help from an Arthur Vining Davis Foundation grant over a decade ago, Mystic Seaport Museum developed a website called the National Maritime Digital Library. It consists of a number of elements including databases, digitized material and a portal to a new maritime history journal called CORIOLIS. The core of the site, though, was the American Offshore Whaling Voyage database. Judith Lund, former curator at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, had created a database of more than 16,000 whaling voyages and teamed up with Mystic Seaport Museum to put it online in a format that would be useful to researchers around the world. Fast forward to 2017 and the AOWV database took on a life of its own to become WHALINGHISTORY.ORG, an extraordinary collection of information and digital objects that has far surpassed our original dreams for the material.

Over the last two years, Mystic Seaport Museum and the New Bedford Whaling Museum cobbled together funding to expand the website with the guidance of web developer David Caldwell. Dave’s ability to organize the data and digital material that we have compiled over the years has been a herculean effort that is paying dividends by way of all the scholarly work done by users tapping into the site. In addition to the original database, other participants from around the world have begun sharing their data with us. This includes databases for the British Southern Whaler Fishery (1775-1859), the British North American Whale Fishery (1779-1845) and the French Whaling Voyages (1784-1866). Add a collection of new crew lists, links to hundreds of scanned logbooks and a new search function that links all the material together, and you have a virtual smorgasbord of whaling history at your fingertips. Quite interesting is the cross pollination of whaleships and masters between the different databases, especially among the Nantucketers who occasionally registered their voyages in both America and France, for example.

Other additions to the site include a new EXPLORE menu that offers new ways to dig into the Whaling History databases and features aspects of the data that might not otherwise be discovered. One of the first EXPLORE topics is “Women Who Went Whaling,” an opportunity to find voyages on which the master’s wife sailed. The EXPLORE menu also assists users in finding all the 1,300 voyage maps that are included on the site. These maps display voyage location information from the American Whaling Logbook database that combines logbook data from the Maury, Townsend and Census of Marine Life logbook projects. One of the most gratifying elements of the site for researchers is the ability to download any or all data to be manipulated for their own purposes, rather than having to construct tables from data that they would otherwise need to type out or cut and paste.

Goals yet to be achieved include linking art and objects to individual voyages and bringing in additional institutions to add their records and logbooks to the collection. Fund raising for this will start soon, so feel free to participate!

While some gray rain clouds formed in the distance, approximately 170 Mystic Seaport Museum volunteers, staff, and guests gathered in the River Room and on the outside patio at Latitude 41° Restaurant & Tavern to participate in the 2019 Celebration of Volunteers Awards on July 17.

EveAnne Stouch, associate director of Volunteer Services, welcomed everyone to the awards ceremony, an event that has been held since 1998. At that time, there was one award to present, while the number of awards has now risen to six. Stouch handed over the microphone to Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport Museum, who was happy to see so many gathered for this year’s celebration. After a few words, White introduced the new Chairman of the Museum Board, Michael Hudner. “Mike is a great friend of the Museum,” White said.

Hudner could feel the warmth of the volunteers, “who seems to feel so comfortable here tonight,” he said. “I would like to propose that we change the name of this group to the ‘Salty Dogs,’” a remark that was met with laughter from the assembled volunteers.

First up at the award presentation was Paul O’Pecko, vice president of Research Collections and director of the G.W. Blunt White Library, who spoke warmly about this year’s first recipient of the Volunteer Special Recognition Award, Martha Murphy, who volunteers in the Rosenfeld Collection.

Chris Gasiorek, vice president of Watercraft Preservation and Programs, who was presenting the second Volunteer Special Recognition Award, joked that he still feels like a stranger when he walks into the Museum’s Boathouse to talk to the volunteers working there. “They sometimes give me a cookie,” he said, “before I leave them to their task.” The second Volunteer Special Recognition Award went to Boathouse volunteer Andy Strode.

Molly Kulick was the 2019 Junior Volunteer Special Recognition Award winner, an award that was presented by Susan Funk, executive vice president and COO of the Museum. Molly is a dedicated and hard-working volunteer in the Sailing Center, Funk said. Funk read some of the remarks that Molly’s co-workers had mentioned about her, and one, that Molly always had a smile on her face, everyone among the gathered volunteers could see – Molly was beaming when she received her award from Funk.

Laura Hopkins, senior vice president for Advancement, spoke enthusiastically about the recipient of the Special Staff Recognition Award, her co-worker Chris Freeman, director of Development and Legacy Giving, who for the last 10 years has run the Museum’s PILOTS program. “Chris is a strong ambassador for the Museum, Hopkins said. She continued, “and who knew that PILOTS is an acronym for Passion, Integrity, Loyalty, Optimism, Tenacity, Service?” Chris Freeman was met with kindhearted applause when he went up to receive his award from Hopkins – many of the gathered volunteers this evening are also PILOTS in Chris’s program.

Left for the evening were the two most prestigious awards: the William C. Noyes Volunteer of the Year Award and the Rudolph J. Schaefer III Volunteer Lifetime Achievement Award. Susan Noyes, daughter of Bettye Noyes who for many year’s presented this award, which is named after her husband, was proud to give this year’s award to RJ Lavallee, a member of the Watercraft Gung Ho Squad. He is the one who has received most nominations throughout the years for this award, Susan Noyes said. According to his co-workers: “He’s always cheerful, a team-player, and truly unique,” Noyes mentioned.

When Steve White, who presented the 2019 Rudolph J. Schaefer III Volunteer Lifetime Achievement Award, read out the name of the award winner, the volunteers cheered loudly. The award went to Rebecca “Becky” Jackson, who has volunteered at the Museum for 35 years, the recent years in the Membership lounge. White went over to the table where Becky was sitting to escort her to the front where she received her award. With Becky’s consent – as one is never to ask or reveal a lady’s age – White informed the volunteers that Becky will turn 100 years old later this year! Becky was a more than worthy winner of the Museum’s volunteers 2019 Lifetime Award.

Mystic Seaport Museum announces it is honoring the Dark Harbor 20 class owners with the William A. Baker Award. The award is given to promote the awareness and appreciation of fine examples of one-design classes or boats of like kind, and to foster faithful preservation and restoration, and encourage their continued use.

The owners are being recognized for their effort to preserve and maintain a significant class of American sailing craft.

Antique and classic boat organizations throughout the country typically present awards for the preservation of wooden boats. As a rule, these awards are presented to individual owners or vessels, recognizing some superlative aspect of the work that has been done to keep them up, maintain original status, or examples of fine craftsmanship.

The William Avery Baker Award is unusual in that it is presented to a class association or group of owners. The purpose is to recognize the people and communities that do the bold, arduous, and often expensive work of keeping a large group or class of vessels actively sailing.

The Dark Harbor 20 was designed in 1934 by yacht designers Olin Stephens II and his partner Drake Sparkman in response to a request from members of the Tarratine Club of Dark Harbor in Islesboro, ME, for a new sloop for club racing. The resulting boat is a narrow, fin-keel hull with long overhangs and a Bermudan rig. The first group of 16 boats was built by George Lawley in Neponset, MA, during 1934-6. The design proved to be a success, both on and off the racecourse.

The boats are fast, easily driven with particularly good windward performance, and easy to handle. Boat number 1 (Widgeon) was built for Rebecca Crane Tompkins, daughter of famed yacht designer Clinton Crane. Mrs. Tompkins sailed with Donnie Durkee and Gilbert Leach as crew for more than 25 years. Widgeon was then raced by her family until recently when her great-grandsons Ned and Peter Truslow donated it to the Islesboro Central School.

A second group of five boats (Hulls 17-21) joined the fleet after World War II. They were built by Al Norton on 700 Acre Island at what is now Dark Harbor Boatyard. All but one of the original Dark Harbor 20s are still in existence – Hull 19 was lost in a storm. With no way to expand the fleet to new owners, and with maintenance costs of the aging fleet growing, there was talk of switching to a new model, but instead in 2003 under the leadership of Commodore Bill Elkins, research began on a fiberglass version. The new boats were designed and engineered by Sparkman & Stephens to be identical in all relevant aspects to the wooden boats to ensure fair competition. They were built by Shaw yachts of Thomaston, ME, and launched in 2005 (Hulls 22-25).

According to a 2016 article by Art Paine in Maine Boats, Homes and Harbors: The goal in developing the fiberglass version was to not only maintain the same weight, stability, and sailing characteristics, but also to preserve the classic feel of the existing boats while utilizing modern but conservative (low-tech) construction techniques.

Pendleton Yacht Yard weighed 11 different boats, soaking wet, in the fall of 2003. Then S&S Naval Architect Carl Persak spent several weeks documenting hull, keel, and deck geometry, testing construction materials, doing inclining experiments, and scale measurements of all the existing boats.

Based on these measurements, S&S produced a detailed weight study confirming the weight, vertical and longitudinal center of gravity, stability, and righting moments of existing wooden boats. This study was the basis for the calculations of the 3D hull file for the fiberglass version.

According to Stanley Pendleton, who oversaw the calculations for the new boats, the molds for the hull, deck, and rudder are now at Pendleton Yacht Yard, located in downtown Dark Harbor. Their first project with the molds was a restoration of wooden Hull 10 into fiberglass Hull 26. All of the bronze Lawley castings, bronze fittings, mahogany seats, mahogany main bulkhead, rudder and tiller, trunk house and mahogany coaming, and lead keel were removed and re-installed into a new fiberglass hull and fiberglass deck. The original bronze rudder post was also saved and used for a new fiberglass blade. The spars were stripped and refurbished, keeping the original castings but installing new bronze tangs and other fittings. The boat sails as #10 and is a perfect replica of a wooden boat. Special care was taken with the hull and deck joint so it could be hidden by a proper 3/4-inch wide toe rail and have a proper reveal between the toe rail and rub rail.

Pendleton Yacht Yard then splined and refinished the left-over original hull, handsome by itself, re-framed and flattened the deck, made a floor mount, and it is now used as a stunning tasting bar in a rum distillery in Massachusetts.

More new fiberglass Dark Harbor 20s are planned.

“The owners of the Dark Harbor 20s are to be commended for their dedication to authenticity and active use of the class. That so many of the inaugural fleet are still sailing is a remarkable accomplishment and yet there is room for a next generation to continue the class for the future,” said Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport Museum. “We are proud to honor the Dark Harbor 20 owners for their continued effort to allow future generations to sail and enjoy these fine boats.”

The award will be presented at a ceremony at the Tarratine Club on Tuesday July 31.

Mystic Seaport Museum announced today proposed changes to its grounds that will advance the Museum’s role as a leader in the maritime heritage field.

The three projects include construction of an underwater research and education center in partnership with the Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration (GFOE), the expansion of public display of its watercraft collection, and construction of a restaurant and boutique hotel.

The Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration is a 501c3 nonprofit organization whose headquarters is currently on the Mystic Seaport Museum campus. GFOE designs, builds, and operates some of the most advanced underwater technologies used for scientific exploration. GFOE proposes to create an Underwater Research and Education Center on land to be leased from the Museum next to the James T. Carlton Marine Science Center. Phase One of this facility will house a work area for the research and development of underwater technologies. In addition, GFOE will provide interactive, hands-on displays in the Museum’s Clift Block building, which will demonstrate to Museum visitors and school groups some of the cutting-edge technologies that GFOE uses in ocean exploration. Phase Two will include a pool for testing underwater robots and other technologies, while providing a space for hands-on activities for students and the public.

One consequence of possessing the nation’s largest collection of historic watercraft is the challenge of finding the room to store and display it. Presently, 460 of the more than 500 historic vessels are stored in the Collections Research Center across the street from the main campus. Due to its configuration, public access is limited to occasional public viewing events, scheduled tours, and research visits by appointment. The plan calls for the conversion of 38,000 square feet of warehouse storage in the center to exhibit space suitable for the display of boats in the collection. This permanent exhibit will feature a rotating selection of watercraft and be open to Museum visitors on a daily basis.

The new hall will fulfill a longstanding desire on the part of the Museum to provide greater public access to the watercraft collection.

The proposed restaurant and hotel is being developed in partnership with Greenwich Hospitality Group and would be built on the site of Latitude 41° Restaurant & Tavern. The present building is not a historic structure. It was built by the Museum in 1964 as the Seamen’s Inne Restaurant & Pub.

Plans call for the demolition of Latitude 41° and the construction of a 20-25 room hotel with a restaurant and event space. The new building will continue the Museum’s role as a superior venue for weddings, corporate meetings, and group events in the Mystic area and the restaurant will provide a fine-dining destination for Museum visitors and the public. The building will be set farther back on the property from Route 27.

“We are excited to announce these three strategic initiatives, which will add significantly to the visitor experience of the Museum, support and share the important work of the Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration, and provide new sources of revenue to help sustain Museum operations,” said Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport Museum.

Mystic Seaport Museum is located within a Maritime Heritage District in the Town of Stonington. The Museum submitted an amendment to its master plan to the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission to address the proposed projects.

By Steve White, President of Mystic Seaport Museum

At the Annual Meeting of the Members on May 18, we witnessed a significant leadership change for our Board of Trustees. J. Barclay Collins, II fulfilled his six-year term as Chairman of the Museum’s Board of Trustees and Michael S. Hudner was elected to be the next chairman.

Looking back on Barclay’s tenure as chairman, it is remarkable to see what we achieved during those years: We completed the restoration of the Charles W. Morgan and took the ship back to sea for her 38th Voyage—an unprecedented event in the maritime heritage community. The McGraw Gallery Quadrangle and its anchor, the Thompson Exhibition Building, re-envisioned the north end of our grounds with a new focus on indoor exhibitions, and we are leveraging that capability with the Era of Exhibitions and the display of ground-breaking shows such as The Vikings Begin; Science, Myth, and Mystery: The Vinland Map Saga; and Death in the Ice: The Mystery of the Franklin Expedition. That is quite a list. It is a testament to Barclay’s leadership, and we are grateful that he will continue to serve on the Board.

The Museum is also fortunate to have Mike Hudner ready to take over the gavel. Mike has been a trustee since 2004. As the leader of the team that oversaw the Gallery Quadrangle project, one needs only to look at the striking façade of the Thompson Building to know we are in good hands with Mike at the helm. Mike has also served the Museum well as chair of the Exhibitions Committee for many years. He is a maritime businessman and a lifelong sailor who cares passionately about the sea and our mission.

I ask the Mystic Seaport Museum Community to join me in thanking both men for all they have done — and will continue to do — for the institution. Both are striking examples of the Museum’s outstanding Board of Trustees who serve so generously.

Lynn Noel returns to Mystic Seaport Museum’s Viking Days in 2019, performing as both her alter ego, “Gudrid the Wanderer: First Viking Woman in the New World,” and also as herself, lecturing on Viking songs and their significance. She will appear both days of the festival, June 1 and 2.

In 2018, Lynn answered five questions for us in advance of her debut at our first Viking Days. We have updated this post for her return this weekend.

1.Tell us a little about your background – where you grew up and when your interest in Viking culture and history first started.

I am a “Daughter of Norumbega,” from Newton, MA. I grew up a mile from Norumbega Tower, built in 1889 by Eben Horsford, who believed that the Algonquin word “Norumbega” was a variant of “Norvega” or Norway, and that Leif Eiriksson had reached the Charles River in Boston. I used to ride my bike to Norumbega Park and climb the tower with a book of Norse myths and an apple, and dream of discovering new worlds.

I went to Dartmouth College, where my anthropology professor Elmer Harp and his wife Elaine introduced me to Newfoundland through their work excavating Port aux Choix Historic Site on the west coast. In 1986, I went to Newfoundland myself as a graduate student to work as an environmental educator in Gros Morne National Park, and wound up writing my master’s thesis on the Newfoundland  fishery and the national parks movement. L’Anse aux Meadows had been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978, and I was at Gros Morne for its UNESO designation in 1987. When the Viking Trail tourism association connected the three parks on the west coast, a lot of my own life came together in that road from Gros Morne to Port aux Choix to to L’Anse aux Meadows as well.

2. How did you decide to create the character Gudrid the Wanderer?

In the 1990s, I was invited to return to Dartmouth as a Research Fellow of the Institute of Arctic Studies to write a book on Canada’s Heritage Rivers. My sponsor, the Atlantic Center for the Environment, arranged for me to lecture on a cruise to Newfoundland and Labrador, and Gudrid’s first appearance was the night before we arrived at L’Anse aux Meadows by sea. I wanted the passengers to understand the significance of two very particular artifacts that linked the site to Vikings. When archaeologist Anne Ingstad found the ring-headed pin at L’Anse aux Meadows, it meant that a European metal-working people had been there. When she found the spindle whorl, it meant that a woman had been there. The sagas tell us the names of two women in Vinland: Freydis and Gudrid. I wanted to put those artifacts in context. So I set the Vinland sagas to Scandinavian dance tunes, to tell the story of the woman who dropped them a thousand years ago.

When Dartmouth sponsored the International Arctic Archaeology Conference, I was invited to present Gudrid the Wanderer to the Greenland archaeology team that had just excavated the church where Gudrid was married. That thrilling exchange led to an invitation from the Canadian Museum of History to participate in the Smithsonian VIKINGS IN THE NEW WORLD exhibit by telling saga in their replica longhouse for a week, surrounded by original artifacts.

I’ve completely revised and reworked the GUDRID THE WANDERER program with new research and more songs, built a new website with interactive saga maps and lots of source materials on Viking music, and added a map talk on VISIT THE VIKINGS with the latest in Norse archaeological digs, heritage sites and museums, and Viking reenactment festivals from California to Russia.

3. Gudrid has traveled the world – tell us about some of your favorite spots that you have brought her to.

I’ll never forget lying down in a Viking era stone ship burial on the island of Gotland, or plucking a thorn to pin my cloak from the hawthorn bushes on the island of Birka in Sweden. The first sight of the timeless craftsmanship of the Oseberg ship in Oslo is breathtaking for anyone. I’ve been out in the North Atlantic off Greenland in a hurricane, and I did my best to imagine tossing on 30-foot seas in an open longship. Whoo!

The site of Gudrid’s home farm on Snaefellsness, in western Iceland, is off the beaten path and definitely worth the trip. But my heart belongs to L’Anse aux Meadows, and the broad flat bay you can see from the doorway of the turf-roofed house. The archaeological finds tie the place to the sagas, and a thousand years melts away into the moment where you stand there in Vinland.

4. What is your mission with Gudrid? What do you hope to achieve?

Gudrid is part of a program series on women’s history and geography that celebrates voyageurs, vikings, pirates, explorers, and other traditional women’s roles. A WOMAN’S WAY: The First Millennium of Adventurous Women asks the question: How did she do it? How can I do it? I hope that Gudrid’s story will inspire listeners to become explorers themselves, to experience far travels and past cultures directly in person, as well as through the amazing digital resources we have today for history, geography, and archaeology. To look at a grubby lump of rock or a corroded bit of metal from a thousand years ago, and to see a mother and her child boarding a ship to leave a beloved place: that’s the magic of archaeology and of storytelling. I hope visitors may learn to become their own storytellers and students of the past, and to see the Vikings less as violent raiders, and more as farmers and traders seeking new lands to settle.

5. What has been most surprising to you throughout the evolution of this character? What have you learned?

As a chantey singer, an outdoorswoman, and one of the earliest classes of women at Dartmouth, I’m well versed in being One Of the Boys. People sort of expected me to take on the character of Gudrid’s sister-in-law Freydis, who is closer to the Viking stereotype. Freydis is the fierce warrior who demands the best share of her brother Leif Eiriksson’s houses and kills five women with an axe to get her way. Freydis is the one who bares her breast and slaps it with a sword, and does all the macho stuff that even Disney warrior-princesses do these days. So as a tough cookie myself, I have learned from Gudrid to respect both women’s traditional work, and her spiritual practice.

Gudrid is a peaceful explorer, a trader, a wife and mother, and a Christian—the complete opposite of Freydis, or of Lagertha the shield-maiden from the History Channel Vikings. I have come to see her as a very strong and powerful woman in a more introverted mold, leading through moral courage, inner strength, and quiet grace. She’s extremely important in the sagas as a singer, and the search for what she sang has led me down some fascinating research paths on pagan sei∂r, a female practice of magical prophecy that connects to the Norse texts of the Poetic Edda. Most maritime singers collect work songs about boats, so I didn’t expect to find myself digging in to the history of 10th century Christianity, studying trance-inducing chants, practicing my hand spinning, or learning lullabies. I’ve learned how to find a deeper center for interpreting “women and the sea,” and to find “women’s work” woven into the fabric of seafaring, from spinning and weaving sailcloth to foretelling the fate of a voyage.

ABOUT GUDRID THE WANDERER

All events in this program are drawn from the Vinland Sagas, two independently written Icelandic manuscripts now in the Arní Magnússon Institute in Reykjavik. The Greenlanders’ Saga is probably earlier and was used in Erik the Red’s Saga, which features Gudrid more prominently.Current saga scholars place Gudrid’s journey to Vínland ca. 1009-1012 AD.

Gudrid the Wanderer was originally developed in 1991 for a cruise to L’Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland. This UNESCO World Heritage site is still today the only verified Norse archaeological site in North America. Gudrid the Wanderer has been featured in the Smithsonian VIKINGS IN THE NEW WORLD exhibit at the Canadian Museum of History, the Dartmouth International Arctic Archaeology Conference, in Viking Heritage Magazine, on cruises from Iceland to Boston, at Scandinavian-American festivals and clubs, and at Gudrid’s homestead of Arnarstapi in Snaefellsness, Iceland.

• Learn more at www.lynnoel.com/gudridthewanderer
• Follow Gudrid at facebook.com/gudridthewanderer
• Contact Lynn Noel at lynnoel@me.com

At the 2018 Viking Days held at the Museum, William R. Short was scheduled for a one-hour lecture on Saturday morning, and again on Sunday morning. Seating capacity in the lecture room was about 65. It filled up 20 minutes before the lecture was scheduled to start and we had to turn away dozens of disappointed people.

Well, don’t say you can’t teach an old Museum a new trick. For this year’s Viking Days (June 1-2), we have Dr. Short scheduled for TWO lectures on Saturday and TWO lectures on Sunday and we have moved the talks to the Greenmanville Church, which has a much larger capacity.

Short is an author, filmmaker, lecturer, and independent scholar specializing in Viking-age topics, notably medieval Icelandic literature, Viking-age material culture, Viking-age weapons, and Viking-age combat techniques. He is the manager of Hurstwic, LLC, an organization that researches, practices, teaches, and demonstrates the fighting moves of Viking-age warriors at their training and research facility in Millbury, MA. He took a few minutes to answer five questions for us.

1. Where did your interest in Viking history and culture first begin?

Short: It started when I discovered the Sagas of Icelanders, the stories of Viking-age Iceland, and the interest was firmly cemented when I took a summer course in the sagas at the University of Iceland.

2. How do explain the current modern-day fascination with Viking and Norse culture?

Short: I cannot. Popular entertainment paints a fantasy portrait of these people, but the actualities are far more adventuresome, bold, and exciting.

3. Your lecture topics this year are: “The Viking Belief in the Afterlife”; “The Making of Iron in the Viking Age”, and “Trolls and Zombies: The Paranormal Creatures that Inhabit the World of the Vikings.” Can you give me a bumper-sticker sized description of each talk?

Short: “Viking-Age Iron: Making and Trading, Using and Sacrificing”: Iron was difficult to make in the Viking age, and thus precious, yet it was essential for life. The evidence of Viking-age iron-making in Newfoundland is a sure sign that Vikings crossed the Atlantic to visit and to repair their ships there. How did Viking-age people make and use iron, and what special significance did this magical material have to these people?

“Ghosts, Zombies, and Trolls in the Viking Age”: The sagas tell tales of everyday people in the Viking age, but the saga
landscape is also populated by ghosts, zombies, trolls, and sorcerers. What did it mean to be a troll? These beliefs in zombies and magic shed new light on aspects of the ancient northern religion and Viking society, and they still reverberate today in modern-day Iceland.

“Viking-Age Beliefs in the Afterlife”: If you lived in the Viking age, and a loved one died, what did you expect would happen to him or her? To the body? And to the essence of the person, the part of them that lives on after death? This presentation discusses what is known about these Viking-age beliefs.

4. Whats the biggest misconception people have these days about Viking culture?

Short: Sorry, it’s hard to answer. Most people have no idea of the mindset of the Viking people: the unwritten rules carried in their hearts that guided their behavior. And so they have an expectation of how these people behaved
that probably differs from what really happened.

5. Whats your favorite aspect of Viking culture?

Short: They were fabulous story-tellers and poets, and their stories and poems continue to fascinate and entertain today.

On Saturday, June 1 and Sunday, June 2, the grounds of Mystic Seaport Museum will be transformed in a celebration of all things Viking for the second year in a row.

We are thrilled to welcome back a highlight of the 2018 Viking Days – Draugar Vinlands, a historical reenactment and living history group based out of Exeter, N.H., that is dedicated to the accurate portrayal of combat and culture during viking-age Scandinavia. We are re-posting our 2018 interview in advance of the 2019 Viking Days.

Bjorn Mroz, a member of the organization, took a few minutes to answer five questions.

1.       Tell us about Draugar Vinlands – how did the group form, and what is its main purpose?

Draugar Vinlands (translating roughly to the Ghosts of Vinland) first formed in 2012. Of Jarl, the founder of the group, had been reenacting for well over a decade, and he wanted to start his own group that explored a time period that he held a lot of interest in. he also had a personal connection, his family came from Lithuania and Sweden and he grew up hearing many old Scandinavian and Slavic tales and folk songs.

The main goal of the group started as a militaristic endeavor, working to understand the method of combat used during the Viking Age, a time before any of the treatises or written doctrines from the medieval era cover. As we gained more experience and welcomed more people into the group, our interests evolved and we had the ability to view the Viking Age as a whole, and uncover what life was like for the Norse men and women away from the raiding that was well known; the life that existed behind the sword.

2.       Now tell us about yourself – how did you get involved? What’s your connection to Viking culture?

I got involved with Draugar Vinlands in 2013. I was going to college in Lowell, and was studying Viking history as I had a long-standing interest in the age well beforehand. I met two of the members at a concert by chance who were dressed in kit, and I immediately began talking to them, and the following weekend after I had made contact with the Jarl and had thrown myself into the fire, so to speak. I’ve been going regularly ever since.

3.       Why are Vikings so popular right now?

The dark age has long been an area of fascination, there’s always some form of popularity from that age since it was such a formative age in history, so many nations existed and a wide variety of cultures were exchanged. Before the last few years, the Vikings hadn’t been showcased as a part of this interest, and they’ve only really come under the mainstream spotlight relatively recently. Before this time, general knowledge of the Vikings only dictated them as raiding berserkers at best and dirty, godless barbarians at worst. I think a lot of people are excited and fascinated to know that there is far more to them than what they’ve been told, to see the culture and lifestyle explained, and to learn that in many ways the Vikings were more civilized than most of their contemporary societies at the time.

4.       What are the biggest misconceptions people have about Vikings and Viking culture?

The one I hear the most is ‘Did Vikings have horns on their helmets?‘ The answer is simply no. As I mentioned, common knowledge says Vikings were raiding barbarians. But most commonly they were craftsmen, tradesmen, and merchants. Raiding was only common for younger sons who received no inheritance and therefore had to raid to make a living and be able to gain their own wealth.

They also had an amazingly advanced culture that lays huge importance on one’s given word and sworn oaths. To break these oaths would damn the individual to Hel, and they had a very progressive society that allowed for a lot of social freedom. They granted women the rights to own land and property as well as divorce their husbands, something that wouldn’t be seen in neighboring countries for hundreds of years. Their native religion was also immensely rich and complex, full of cautionary tales as well as stories that can bring out tears of laughter or sorrow.

5.       What’s the most fun about being part of Draugar Vinlands?

While I enjoy so many things about Draugar Vinlands, the best thing about it is the camaraderie among all of us. We can spar, craft, cook, and anything else that we can think of but when you boil it down we’re always together doing it all, sharing common interests and indulging not only ourselves but one another, making lifelong friendships and stories to share. Draugar Vinlands is a family, brought together by our shared passion for history but united by the friendships that we forge together.

The Mystic Seaport Museum Sailing Center has launched an initiative to gather together examples of classic sailing dinghies to augment its Dyer Dhows and FJ15s.

“These boats will be part of a working fleet,” said Ben Ellcome, supervisor of sailing programs at the Museum. “The boats will be used as a hands-on experience in our sailing classes to develop an understanding of the impact of design on sailing.”

The first boat to be added to the fleet was Blue Jay #5677, which was donated in the fall of 2018 by Peter and Diane Rothman of Old Saybrook  in honor of Peter’s late father, Edward A. Rothman. Ed volunteered at Mystic Seaport Museum in the John Gardner Small Boat Shop for more than a decade, until his death in February 2017. The boat has been named Ed in his memory.

Since it was first designed in 1947, the Blue Jay continues to be one of the leading one-design, sloop-rigged sailboats in existence today.  It was created by Drake H. Sparkman, head of the New York designing firm of Sparkman and Stephens, Inc., after he chaired a yacht club junior sailing program. Designed as a “ baby Lightning” it became an all-around junior training boat and now has numbers over 7,200. Originally constructed of wood, the International Blue Jay Class Association  voted in the early 1960s to allow fiberglass, however, wooden boats are still being made today.

The Rothmans’ boat was built by McNair Marine Inc. in 1971 for Robert Gehlmeyer of Roslyn Heights, NY. Ownership may have changed hands between 1971 and 1998 but the next known owner is Charles Wenderoth of West Mystic, CT.  More recently, Brian Carey of Waterford, CT, had ownership, and in the early 2000s, Carey hired Guck Inc. of Bristol, RI to structurally restore the boat. The Rothmans bought the boat from Carey in 2008, and customized the boat and trailer to its current state both cosmetically and in regards to equipment/design.

“For my 13^th birthday, my dad got me a Blue Jay,” said Diane Rothman. “We love them. Some kids just don’t want to sail by themselves. For kids who aren’t really gung ho, sailing is more of a social thing. So if you stick them in a boat by themselves, it’s not fun. They might be scared. It’s a lot more fun in a Blue Jay – you can put three kids in a Blue Jay and they will have a ball. They’ll go out there and laugh and sing, but they are still learning. So the Blue Jays have a place, and I still believe that.”

If you have a classic sailing dinghy you would consider donating to the Museum, please contact Chris Gasiorek, Vice President for Watercraft Preservation and Programs for further information: chris.gasiorek@mysticseaport.org or 860.572.5344.