Wilson Museum

10/12/2026

We didn’t quite get our new outdoor exhibit done for Indigenous Peoples Day, so we’re sharing some teasers! We hope to have these up within the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned! Norma Randi
James Eric Francis
Jennifer Neptune
Maine State Archives
Semiquincentennial Commission

10/12/2026

While the Wilson Museum is closed for the season, it’s not that far to visit the Abbe Museum, with special programs for Indigenous Peoples Day!

REMINDER!
Join us at the Abbe for Indigenous Peoples' Day - Monday, October 12, 2026.

Pay-what-you-can admission. Open 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Presentations at 11:30 am and 2:00 pm featuring special guests Grammy Award Winner Defoe (Ojibwe + Oneida), and Passamaquoddy Storyteller @ Minquansis Sapiel. (Presenting together, both times)

The Abbe is grateful for the partnership of Smithsonian Folklife. Ty Defoe presentation funded by NEFA

10/03/2026

Great day to take a trip across Penobscot Bay to check out SardineFest with our friends at the Penobscot Marine Museum!

SardineFest is this Saturday!
October 3 | 10 AM–4 PM
Free admission

Come explore a full day of food, exhibitors, samples, music, demonstrations, talks, and family activities celebrating Maine’s sardine industry and the coastal communities connected to it.

Food vendors:
The Moody Dog
Stone Fox Farm Creamery Mobile Cone

Exhibitors:
Downeast Lobstermen's Association
Hamilton Marine
The Sail Locker
WOW Collective

Samples:
Bleecker and Greer
Pineland Farms Dairy
Sardines, sardines, sardines!

SardineFest is presented by Hamilton Marine, with support from First National Bank, Safe Harbor Front Street, and Sprague Operating Resources LLC.

Come hungry and ready to explore!

09/29/2026

We are so excited to introduce a great selection of field trip options at the Wilson Museum! We’d love to welcome your students to the museum with one of these free programs.

https://www.wilsonmuseum.org/field-trips-youth-learning

09/25/2026

We are pretty proud of Lisa, who also happens to be a Wilson Museum trustee!

Thank you to the American Library Association for honoring Lisa Ladd, Director of the Buck Memorial Library in Bucksport, with a tribute resolution for being the Maine Library Association's Librarian of the Year! Lisa represents so much of the dedication and vision of being both a Maine library director but also a passionate advocate for library services. Congratulations for this honor, Lisa!

You can read the official tribute resolution athttps://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/2026-08/Tribute%20Resolution%20Honoring%20Lisa%20Ladd_FINAL.pdf

09/25/2026

Great story about eastern Maine’s French apples! Folks who came to Todd Little-Siebold’s talk at the museum will recognize this apple.

The members of a self-assembled apple detective team—including a historian, several apple hunters, two dedicated homeowners, and a crew of geneticists and breeders—combined efforts to identify a mystery apple tree growing on Verona Island in Maine. The ancient tree was found to be a living lost progenitor of hundreds of apple varieties, contributing its characteristics to American apples for centuries.

The discovery might help save the future of American apples.

Apples are the fruit Americans eat the most and one of the top commercial crops in the U.S. And they are under threat. With crops more vulnerable to diseases and environmental stresses, retrieving genetics that have been lost to time and market contraction is crucial to apples’ survival. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-apple-detectives-solved-the-mystery-of-an-ancient-tree-and-rewrote-the-history-of-fruit/

09/13/2026

Great find to celebrate the wonderful Doris Russell!

Today is Doris Russell's 100th birthday! She is the recipient of Castine's Boston Cane. Today at 1 pm at Emerson Hall, her family and the community have invited folks to attend a screening of a short film about her life and fête Doris on this momentous day!

Happiest of birthdays, Doris!

09/11/2026

On this 25th anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001, we encourage you to listen to the deeply personal and powerful stories of the people who were impacted. The work of organizations like StoryCorps are essential to documenting and sharing our collective histories.

In recognition of the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, we have put together a few stories from our September 11th Initiative.

09/10/2026

Looking for something great to do this weekend? Check out the Castine Film Festival!

WE ARE thrilled TO ANNOUNCE OUR 2026 PROGRAM! View fullsize Saturday SEPTEMBER 12th, 2026 CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS on the coast of Maine Featuring four film programs, lunch, and a special conversation with filmmaker Ricky Leighton As we began planning this year’s festival, we were excited to reveal ...