May 2014 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 9.


Historic Photographs of Schooner BOWDOIN Donated Commercial Fishing News


tion, and returned it to Maine by donating it to the Penobscot Marine Museum. The schooner BOWDOIN was built in East Boothbay in 1920-21 and designed specifi cally for Arctic exploration at Ad- miral MacMillan’s request after he spent four years stranded in northern Greenland. MacMillan made over thirty expeditions to the Arctic and, according to the Peary-Mac- Millan Arctic Museum he “pioneered the use of radios, airplanes, and electricity in the Arctic, brought back fi lms and thou- sands of photographs of Arctic scenes, and put together a dictionary of the Inuktikut language.” Together, Admiral MacMillan and the Bowdoin made over 26 voyages and sailed over 300,000 miles. The schoo- ner BOWDOIN is currently owned by the


Maine Maritime Academy in Castine and used as a training vessel. In 1989 she was designated a National Historic Landmark. Penobscot Marine Museum is grateful to Mrs. Mildred Jones of the Bowdoin Col- lege Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum for her invaluable research on the John Booras Collection. Penobscot Marine Museum has one of the largest archives of histori- cal photographs in Maine, with more than 140,000 negatives, prints, slides, postcards and daguerreotypes available for research, reproduction and licensing. Revealing many aspects of life from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, the collections range from vast archives to the works of individual professional photographers and intimate family albums.


Weather’s impact on maritime history is focus of MMM Symposium


Historic Photographs of Schooner Bow- doin Returning From Greenland Now Online at


Penobscot Marine Museum


SEARSPORT – The John Booras Collection of historic photographs of the schooner BOWDOIN, probably taken in 1924 on a return voyage of Arctic exploration from Greenland, is now online at www. Penob- scotMarineMuseum.org. Most of these one hundred and forty photographs were taken at a stop the BOWDOIN made on Monhegan


Island, and they provide an intimate look at an Arctic expedition making its way home. A native-made kayak, a young girl in na- tive Greenlandic dress, and northern dogs are seen on board ship. The BOWDOIN’s famous captain Admiral Donald B. MacMil- lan, who was recruited for Arctic exploration by Robert E. Peary, is being presented with fl owers by local children. John Booras, a retired postman who collects and researches old photographs, found these negatives in a shop in Massachusetts, bought the collec-


NEW BOOK RELEASED


SEA TRIALS: A Lone Sailor’s Race Toward Home By Peter J. Bourke


How one man discovered sailing – and soothed his own stormy seas “I found myself savoring every word, lingering on one page after another. Sea Trials is beautifully written, fi lled with wisdom, humility, and human spirit.” –John Kretschmer, author of Sailing a Serious Ocean and At the Mercy of the Sea Peter Bourke bought a boat -- even though he was still a novice sailor. Sailing, he discovered, helped him to work through the grief of his wife’s sudden death. After three years he had transformed into able seaman; in 2009, Bourke entered OSTAR, the Oldest Singlehanded Trans-Atlantic Race, at the ripe age of 58. SEA TRIALS: A LONE SAILOR’S


RACE TOWARD HOME (International Marine; June 2014: HC, $24.00) is a nautical memoir, Bourke’s account of those 40 days of racing on his 44-foot sailboat Rubicon. It’s a story of passage: of adventure, time, grief, remembrance, and fi nally facing the future.


As a travelogue, we share the wheel with Bourke as he crosses The English Channel, following his passage in the race which ends in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. Told with grace, insight, and humility, SEA TRI- ALS bares both the boredom and adventure of racing solo and provides insights to the value of going to sea. For Bourke, it provides refl ection, solace, adventure, and a renewed passion for life which allows him the full return referenced in the subtitle. Writes Bourke, “The captain of a sailing vessel must be a craftsman who can fashion his boat and his behavior to the rhythms of the sea. At the end of a passage, that ephem- eral construction that was the passage goes to memory, where it cures and refl ects who you are.” This is the essence of his experi- ences in SEA TRIALS.


Bourke will donate all author payments to the Semper Fi Fund, an organization that provides assistance to injured soldiers, sail- ors, and marines and to their families. About the Author: Peter J. Bourke (Newport, RI) was born in London, and came to the United States at age 6 when his family emigrated from the U.K. Following three years in the Marine Corps, Bourke went to college on the GI Bill and discovered economics. He retired from the fi nancial ser- vices industry to sail. This is his fi rst book.


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BATH -- Weather – that usually sublime, of- ten fi ckle and occasionally monstrous com- panion of every mariner - will be the central theme of discussion at the 41st


Annual Albert


Reed & Thelma Walker Maritime History Symposium at Maine Maritime Museum on Saturday, May 3.


The symposium, titled “These Contrary


Winds: Weather and its Effects on Ships, Mariners, and Maritime History,” will be held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Museum’s Long Reach Hall – come rain or come shine. For more than 25 centuries, humans have relinquished the security of terra fi rma and set sail on the vast oceans of the world. On each and every journey - whether for exploration, trade, fi shing, war-waging or just for pleasure, one companion has made every voyage – weather. Even in today’s technological world of satellite weather imagery and advanced forecasting, weather continues to be a factor in every maritime


activity, whether good or bad.


Scheduled speakers – which includes academicians, writers, historians and pro- fessional mariners - will present on weather and climate topics at both the micro and macro levels, discussing specifi c instances when weather was the overriding element of a maritime event or about long range climate trends that changed the course of maritime, and therefore human, history. In addition to the day’s lectures, regis- tration fees ($70 nonmembers, $60 mem- bers, $35 students) include a continental breakfast, lunch, coffee and a concluding reception. Registration is available online at www.MaineMaritimeMuseum.org. An exhibit of the same name is currently on view at the museum and all attendees will have an opportunity to view the exhibit, which features paintings, photography and artifacts highlighting the prominent place weather occupies in a mariner’s eyes.


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