Current and Upcoming Exhibits at the Abbe Museum
Wabanaki Guides
Illustration derived from a photograph courtesy of David Moses BridgesFebruary 7, 2013 through December 2013
Wabanaki Guides focuses on the legacy of Wabanaki people serving as guides for European and American explorers, cartographers, tourists and artists from the 1600s to the present day. Visitors will be invited along for a simulated canoe ride down a Maine river. The journey will shine a spotlight on ways in which Wabanaki knowledge of land and waterways influenced Maine’s early visitors and illustrate how this legacy is linked to the modern-day tribes, tourism and environmental sustainability in Maine.
Visitors will “climb into a canoe with their guide” and begin their journey. Along the way, they will stop at “portages” on the river bank. At each portage, visitors will learn about the various things a guide needs to consider when planning a trip and what one might expect to encounter along the way. The exhibit will focus on the following themes: mapping, tracking, tourism and economics. Stories and historic accounts from various view points will weave throughout the exhibit incorporating the voices of Wabanaki guides both past and present as well as explorers, artists and cartographers such as Henry David Thoreau and Joseph Treat.
N'tolonapemk: Our Relatives' Place
November 2, 2012 through October 2013
Native Americans have lived on Meddybemps Lake at its outlet to the Dennys River for at least 8,600 years. The Passamaquoddy people have named this site N'tolonapemk, which in Passamaquoddy means, "Our Relatives' Place."
This exhibit tells the story of N'tolonapemk through archaeological evidence and the stories and knowledge of the Passamaquoddy people. The scientific methods used by archaeologists, contrasted with traditional Passamaquoddy stories, work together to create a more complete picture and a richer understanding of this important place.
Learn more about N'tolonapemk:
A Visit to Our Ancestors' Place >
N'tolonapemk: An Ancient Native American Village on Meddybemps Lake, Maine >
This exhibit is made possible thanks to support from:
EASTER Foundation/Anne and Fred Osborn III
2013 Waponahki Student Art Show
April 18 through October 31, 2013
A collaboration of Maine Indian Education and the Abbe Museum.
The Waponahki Student Art Show brings together a wonderful variety of art created by Passamaquoddy and Penobscot students from early childhood education through high school. Using a wide array of media, these young artists incorporate traditional beliefs and values with the modern, multi-cultural world around them.
Special thanks to K.A. McDonald Custom Picture Framing, Bar Harbor
IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas
May 23 through August 4, 2013
From the Smithsonian comes an important and enlightening exhibition about the intersection of American Indian and African American people and cultures. IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas explores historical and contemporary stories of peoples and communities whose shared histories are woven into the fabric of American identity, but whose presence has long been invisible to many in the U.S. The exhibition sheds light on the dynamics of race, community, culture and creativity, and addresses the human desire to belong. With compelling text and powerful graphics, the exhibition includes accounts of cultural integration and diffusion as well as the struggle to define and preserve identity. IndiVisible was developed by the National Museum of the American Indian with the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and organized for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.
Visit IndiVisible on the web >
St. Sauveur: A Meeting of Nations
Opening May 23, 2013 at the Abbe at Sieur de Monts Spring
In 1613, a small group of French Jesuits, sailors and settlers arrived at Mount Desert Island, looking for a place to establish a mission and build trade relations with the Wabanaki. At the urging of Wabanaki leader Asticou, the group chose a spot somewhere around Frenchman Bay to establish their new outpost. Less than three months later, the fledgling settlement was destroyed by English colonists from further south. Echos of these encounters continue to resound today, in Wabanaki communities, in shaping Maine history and identity, and in our understanding of international relations.
The first European residents of Frenchman Bay came and went in a very short time. But this episode is part of a much larger story of Wabanaki-French-English interactions in eastern Maine from 1500 until 1762, when English settlers finally established a permanent settlement on Mount Desert Island. The exhibit brings together current Wabanaki perspectives and historic documents to present multiple perspectives on history, and investigates the debate among historians and archaeologists about where the St. Sauveur Mission was actually located.
St. Sauveur: A Meeting of Nations will also introduce Abbe Museum visitors to the newly-renovated Abbe at Sieur de Monts Spring, where we have almost doubled the exhibit space. Hands-on, interactive activities for children and families will accompany the exhibit. The exhibit opens on May 23, 2013 at Sieur de Monts Spring, and will travel to the Abbe Museum in downtown Bar Harbor when the Acadia National Park location closes for the season in the fall.
Layers of Time: Archaeology at the Abbe Museum
Ongoing
How did people live in the past?
What can we know about their lives and history from the archaeological record?
This exhibit follows archaeological research conducted by the Abbe Museum starting in 1928, and considers how excavations at various sites have tried to answer these questions. Through a combination of artifacts, images and text, you can explore the questions that were asked and what we have learned during eight decades of archaeological investigations. Layers of Time also features a variety of hands-on, interactive activities for children and families, letting visitors step into the role of the archaeologist to ask and answer intriguing questions.
Click here to visit the online Layers of Time exhibit.
Dr. Abbe's Museum
Ongoing
Visit the original Abbe Museum, built as a trailside museum in 1928.The exhibits focus on the archaeology of Maine and are reminiscent of the way the museum would have looked when it originally opened. See how bone and stone tools and pottery were made, explore artifacts from the museum's early collections, and find examples of artifacts from many towns around eastern Maine.
An introductory exhibit gives you a brief history of the Abbe Museum, and is complimented by a giant map of Mount Desert Island and the surrounding area, made by museum founder Robert Abbe. A visitor favorite, four dioramas depict life on Mount Desert Island before the arrival of Europeans.
The Abbe at Sieur de Monts Spring is open daily 10-5 from late May through early October.