Smithsonian Folklife Festival

 
For the two weeks preceding the Fourth of July, 2004 - the Long Island Maritime Museum boatbuilders had the extraordinary opportunity to participate in the Smithsonian Institute Folklife Festival.
This event, which brings together folk artists and cultural resources had as one of its themes this year - Water Ways: Mid-Atlantic Maritime Communities. 		   
 

For the duration of this festival, Museum boat builders worked on their current project, the twenty-two foot South Bay Cat. The Museum had shipped the boat, still on it's strongback, tools and raw lumber down to the National Mall and set up in a tent in front of the National Museum of American History.

  The two week experience was extraordinary! Thousands of people visited the site each day, many returning every few days to check on the progress.
The Volunteers work among builders from North Carolina, the Chesapeake region and the New Jersey shore.
  Additionally, maritime blacksmiths, model makers, wood carvers, net makers and sea chantey singers were presnt to demonstate why the Middle Atlantic region is so unique.
 
 
This site created by Angelsail
2005