Exhibits at the Calvert Marine Museum 
Curator of Exhibits
James Langley
410/326-2042 ext. 25
email
Main Exhibit Hall Maritime Patuxent | Changing Galleries | Discovery Room | Visit the Otters MARITIME PATUXENT: A RIVER AND ITS PEOPLE This permanent exhibit tells the story of human activity along the Patuxent River from the seventeenth-century colonial period to present. The exhibit explores a wide range of topics such as river transportation, trade, shipping, boatbuilding, commercial fishing, military engagements, community life, and recreation. Over five hundred artifacts and photographs are featured, including a twenty-eight-foot three-log canoe, a tobacco press used to pack tobacco for shipment, a steam engine, an underwater mine and torpedo from World war II era testing in the river, and a 1956 Cruis-Along power boat built at the M. M. Davis & Son Shipyard in Solomons. Also on display are tools used in the shipbuilding trades, scale models of steam and sail vessels, gear for harvesting and processing seafood, and many documents, maps, photographs, and paintings. Please stop by and see our new integrated Outboard Motor Exhibit in the main Maritime History Hall. _________________________________________________________ CHANGING EXHIBIT GALLERIES
Current Exhibition: Mezzanine Gallery For 150 years the seafood industry has been an important part of Southern Maryland’s economic and cultural landscape. “ ‘It Ain’t Like It Was Then’ – The Seafood Packing Industry of Southern Maryland,” a new exhibit, explores the colorful history of businesses big and small that prepared the watermen’s seafood harvest for the market. Over the years, hundreds of packing-houses have come and gone in Calvert, Charles, and St. Mary’s Counties. Now only a handful still exist, struggling in the face of declining harvests. Through photographs, archival materials, oral history and objects, the people and places behind this fascinating story are explored. 
Lobby Gallery February/March 2008
Youth Art Month Exhibit: "Life on the Chesapeake"
The exhibit is a celebration of Calvert County Public School's K-12 student's artwork based on growing up in and around the Chesapeake Bay. Lower Gallery
Secrets of the Mermaid's Purse:
Skates and Rays of the Mid-Atlantic Located in our newly renovated lower exhibit gallery, this exhibit will feature close encounters of the batoid kind. That's right, "batoids." If you don't know what that is, you better come by and find out. Calvert Marine Museum is taking a step into the computer age with a new 40-inch touch screen information station. Stop by and try to identify the other species of batoids through an interactive photo wall. In conjunction with this new exhibit a commemorative coin has been struck. We hope this new collector coin will be the first in a series of affordable exhibit tokens. Please come and experience "Secrets of the Mermaid's Purse: Skates & Rays of the Mid-Atlantic." 
_________________________________________________________ DISCOVERY ROOM A "hands-on" Discovery Room for children of all ages (preschool to adult) is located on the lower level of the Exhibition Building. Here the visitor is encouraged to explore the three themes of the museum by touching and doing. 
Thanks to a grant from the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network, combined with support received at the museum’s annual Bugeye Ball and a generous contribution from long time supporter Barbara Benning, the Discovery Room features a touch tank housing creatures from the Chesapeake Bay. The plumbing and systems required to operate the tank and keep the creatures alive are in plain view, allowing interpreters to explain how they work to mimic the natural environment.
One of the exciting features in the Discovery Room is a model of the Cove Point Lighthouse. Visitors will be able to climb inside to activate the light, or dress as lighthouse keepers and enter the keeper’s cottage. A boat, constructed by the museum’s small craft guild, will be installed for children to practice their voyaging skills as they climb aboard, raise and lower the sail, or steer the tiller. 
In the paleontology zone, a segment of the Calvert Cliffs will emerge from the mural that decorates the entire wall. At the foot of the cliff visitors can search for fossils in the beach box, and then take their treasures to a fossil identification station to learn about the creature it came from eight to 20 million years ago.
_________________________________________________________ VISIT THE OTTERS 
| This outdoor exhibit features two live otters and introduces visitors to these playful, though seldom seen mammals. Visitors are able to view the otters both below and above the water. On very hot summer days the otters are often brought in early. Feel free to call to verify that they will be on exhibit. |
Museum Grounds
Museum Map | Drum Point Lighthouse | The Bugeye Wm. B. Tennison
Woodcarving and Model Boat Shop | Boat Basin and Marsh Walk
Small Craft Building | Boatbuilding Skills Preservation Center
BOAT BASIN AND MARSH WALK View the museum’s collection of traditional Chesapeake Bay wooden vessels while strolling the boat basin. See floating exhibits of vessels that once were part of an abundant fleet on the bay.
This outdoor exhibit is a living study of the plant and animal communities that inhabit saltwater, freshwater, and upland marshes. Watching for crabs, fish and water birds, smelling bay leaves and petting cattails, help visitors understand the importance and distinctive beauty of the wetlands. The Patuxent River Small Craft Guild and Solomons Island Model Boat Club occasionally demonstrate small craft handling and model boat racing in the basin. Go to the Model Boat Club for a schedule of races. |  |
Click here to take a virtual tour of the marsh walk _________________________________________________________ WOODCARVING AND MODEL BOAT SHOP  | Located near the parking lot is the woodworking shop. Here visitors may look into the exhibit fabrication shop and see the museum's resident master woodcarver and model maker at work. The Southern Maryland Shipcarvers' Guild and the Solomons Island Model Boat Club maintain headquarters in the woodworking shop where their skills are demonstrated to the public. Half models, scale boat models, figureheads, and trailboards are examples of their craft. |
Off Site Exhibits Lore Oyster House | Cove Point Lighthouse | Flag Ponds Pound-Net Fishing Exhibit FLAG PONDS POUND-NET FISHING EXHIBIT Located ten miles north at Flag Ponds Nature Park (admission fee), the museum interprets one of the major pound-net fishing camps along the Chesapeake Bay. A fisherman's shanty, the "Buoy Hotel No. 2", dating from the 1920s, contains an exhibit about a fishery, which operated at this site from 1915 to 1958. From there a "Fisherman's trail" leads to other historical sites in the park. (Call the park at 410-586-1477 for hours of opening.) | 
