Guests visiting the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum on Sunday, Feb. 21, will once again have the opportunity to watch teams of experienced U.S. handler/dog teams train on campus, in addition to the chance to see CBMM’s numerous indoor and outdoor exhibitions. Campus will be closed to the public as part of the event on Friday, Feb. 19, and Saturday, Feb. 20.

From 10am–1pm, and again from 1pm–3pm, teams from various states across the U.S. will take part in K-9 Nose Work (also called scent work and search work), a sport for dogs and their owners that’s created, sanctioned, and organized by the National Association of Canine Scent Work. During the training, dogs will be tasked with searching for and locating specific items through just the use of smell.

This event, which is free for CBMM guests with general admission, is presented by Bob Boyles, a dog trainer, former law enforcement K-9 handler, NACSW and AKC judge, and founder of Art of Odor, LLC, and Cornelia C. Heckenbach of Fair Play Kennels, a NACSW champion dog handler/owner and local realtor. Due to the nature of this event, guests’ dogs will not be permitted on campus.

CBMM’s top priority is to provide a comfortable environment for our guests, staff,and the community. To that end, CBMM requires its guests to follow the Town of St. Michaels ordinance and to wear facial coverings inside buildings at all times and outdoors when within six feet of other guests. For membership contactless entry, please renew or purchase CBMM memberships online at cbmm.org/membership. Additional information on CBMM’s enhanced health and comfort measures and operational changes can be found at welcome.cbmm.org.

This spring, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum will be hosting a hybrid virtual and in-person workshop designed to teach you how to grow your own oysters.

Held via Zoom from 6–7pm on March 18 and on CBMM’s St. Michaels, Md., campus from 10am–noon on March 20, this oyster gardening program will provide attendees with all the information needed to successfully grow oysters off their own dock. Participants may register for just the virtual program for $25 or for both sessions for $200, with a 20% discount offered to CBMM members on both options.

In the virtual class, participants will learn the practical aspects of oyster gardening and why oysters are so important for the Bay’s health. Participants are then invited to CBMM for the in-person workshop to construct their own oyster cages. All in-person workshop participants will leave with three cages, seed oysters, and the necessary components to start their own oyster garden. To learn more, and to register, visit cbmm.org/oystergarden.

CBMM members play a critical role in supporting CBMM’s rich legacy of educational programs, fascinating and ever-changing exhibitions, and maintenance of the largest collection of Chesapeake Bay watercraft in the world, and have access to exclusive discounts, perks, and programming. To learn more about becoming a CBMM member, visit cbmm.org/membership.

The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Md., will begin its annual winter speaker series on Wednesday, Feb. 3, and continue on select Wednesdays through March 17. All sessions will be held virtually, and advance registration is required.

How do we remember the past? How does our historical record and memory influence us today? This year’s winter speaker series, titled “Lest We Forget: History, Memory, and an Inclusive Future,” unpacks stories of Chesapeake history with a focus on what our understanding of the past means for our future.

The speaker series kicks off on Wednesday, Feb. 3, at 7:30pm with “Loyalty on the Line: Civil War Maryland in American Memory.” The controversy surrounding the monuments and memory of Maryland’s Civil War legacy is not new. During the American Civil War, Maryland did not join the Confederacy but nonetheless possessed divided loyalties and sentiments. In this session, Snow College Assistant Professor David Graham will examine the place of Maryland in Civil War memory, and how that legacy has hinged on interpretations of the state’s loyalty.

“Archaeology and Memory at Mount Clare” is scheduled for7:30pm on Wednesday, Feb. 10. Slavery was a fact of life at Mount Clare, an 18th century antebellum plantation near Baltimore, Md. Despite efforts to ignore the presence and significance of enslaved Blacks there, historical and archeological research shows the integral role they played. National Park Service Archeologist Teresa Moyer will share this research, which offers opportunities to discuss historical structures and the ways they carry to the present.

At 2pm on Wednesday, Feb. 17, CBMM will present “Stolen: The Reverse Underground Railroad and Slavery in the Greater Chesapeake.” In retelling the story of five young, free Black boys kidnapped in 1825, University of Maryland Professor Richard Bell illuminates the Reverse Underground Railroad, a network of human traffickers and slave traders who stole away thousands of legally free African American people from their families in order to fuel slavery’s rapid expansion in the decades before the Civil War.

Baltimore, one of the South’s largest cities, was a crucible of segregationist laws and practices. In “The Struggle and the Urban South: The Legacy of Confronting Jim Crow in Baltimore,” at 7:30pm on Wednesday, March 10, Morgan State University Associate Professor David Taft Terry will explore the historical importance of African American resistance to Jim Crow culture in the South’s largest cities after World War II. This resistance, he argues, drew from the older protest traditions, and would ultimately inspire a national civil rights movement of the 1960s.

The final offering in the series, “The 1856 Project: Confronting the Ongoing Legacy of Slavery at the University of Maryland,” will be held at 2pm on Wednesday, March 17. The University of Maryland has recently established the 1856 Project, joining the Universities Studying Slavery consortium to facilitate collaborative research and academic scholarship. In this session, institutional co-leads Lae’l Hughes-Watkins, University Archivist, and Joni Floyd, Libraries Curator for Maryland and Historical Collections, will discuss how this initiative will create a path toward restorative history, allowing for the institution to engage in the work of moral accountability and reconciliation.

The cost per session is $7.50 per person, or $6 for CBMM members, who are offered a 20% discount on all programming. Register online for all five sessions for an additional discount. To sign up, or for more information, visit cbmm.org/speakerseries.

From 10am–noon on Saturday, Jan. 23, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Md., is offering a virtual version of its annual Electronic Navigation for Non-Technical People workshop. Registration is required at cbmm.org/electronicnavigation.

Participants will join Capt. Jerry Friedman, a USCG-licensed Master, via Zoom as he provides short non-technical descriptions of how GPS, GPS chart plotters, radar, depth sounders, and automated identification systems (AIS) work.

A retired electrical engineering executive, Friedman has held a USCG captain’s license for 60 years. During that time, he also operated an emergency service towboat for BoatUS, assisting boaters along the Chesapeake Bay in distress, delivering boats around the Chesapeake and from Florida and Long Island to Annapolis, teaching navigation courses, editing a monthly professional captains’ publication, and providing instruction to boat owners in the operation of their boats. He currently holds a 100-ton Master’s license and serves as the volunteer lead captain of CBMM’s 1920 buyboat Winnie Estelle.

The Jan. 23 Electronic Navigationworkshop is $25 per person, with a 20% discount offered to CBMM members, who play a critical role in supporting CBMM’s rich legacy of educational programs, fascinating and ever-changing exhibitions, and maintenance of the largest collection of Chesapeake Bay watercraft in the world, and have access to exclusive discounts, perks, and programming. To learn more about becoming a CBMM member, visit cbmm.org/membership.