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It’s Field School Time: The Basin Harbor Edition!

Student, Rich, getting ready to go diving (Ropp, 2017)

Welcome to the 2017 Lake Champlain Maritime Museum Field School season!! These first two days have been a whirlwind of activity. We have walked all around the museum complex exploring the exhibits and learning about the long history of life on Lake Champlain and the archaeological remains. We have discussed how to build a boat and examined the creation of the museum’s two replica vessels, the gunboat Philadelphia and the sailing canal schooner Lois McClure. We practiced recording on a river bateau. Finally, we all jumped in the water! We completed the checkout dives along the outer edge of Basin Harbor, spotting all sorts of artifacts from the club’s presence on the harbor.

Students, Scott and Rich, exploring our replica gunboat with Co-Director Erick Tichonuk (Ropp, 2017)

Soon we will begin working on our site. This year our team of archaeologists from the LCMM Maritime Research Institute, an AmeriCorps Member, and their students are in for an adventure! We are exploring an unknown wreck in Basin Harbor, the wreck that coincidently provided the spark for our fair museum. The students, Richard and Scott, come to us from very different places and with different experiences. So far they have been very excited to learn and are excited to keep learning and exploring the mysteries of the Basin Harbor Wreck and its place in Basin Harbor’s history!

Students Scott and Rich, listening to Chris Sabick discuss the Revolutionary War on Lake Champlain (Ropp, 2017)