Ongoing Exhibits
You can try it on!
Lake Champlain: A Porthole to History
Lake Champlain has the nation’s best preserved and best documented collection of shipwrecks; over 200 of them have been counted in LCMM’s sonar survey of the lake. In this exhibit, nautical archaeologists decipher the stories of some of the most unusual and dramatic shipwrecks in the lake: a horse-powered ferry; Vermont I, the world’s second successful experiment in steam navigation; the tragic fire that sank the steamboat Phoenix in 1819; and the heroic rescue when the 1862 canal schooner General Butler ran aground on the Burlington Breakwater in a winter storm.
These exhibits contain artifacts recovered from the shipwrecks, as well as information about our changing diving technology. Even visit our "Virtual Diver", and navigate around the shipwrecks yourself!
The Key to Liberty: The Revolutionary War in the Champlain Valley
Visitors enjoy hands-on
learning activities.
Visit the exhibit Key to Liberty to read eyewitness accounts of the 1776 Battle of Valcour Island, and learn the fate of the fleet that dared to confront the British Royal Navy on Lake Champlain.
Entering the gallery, visitors find a 9 ft.-long scale model of a gunboat from the 1776 fleet on Lake Champlain. Ship models, interactive learning stations, videos, artifacts, and historical maps and images tell the story of Benedict Arnold’s 1776 naval fleet on Lake Champlain, and the fate of the historic shipwrecks of that fleet including the last surviving gunboat discovered in 1997.
A 15-minute video "Key to Liberty," based on eyewitness accounts, brings to life the crucial moments of the Battle of Valcour Island. Another video documentary “A Tale of Three Gunboats” presents the raising of the 1776 gunboat Philadelphia from Lake Champlain in 1935, the construction and launching of the replica gunboat Philadelphia II in 1989–1991, and the 1997 discovery of the last missing gunboat Spitfire from Benedict Arnold’s fleet.
Life Aboard A Canal Boat
On Display All Season
For 150 years, canal boats transformed communities, commerce, and culture in the northeastern United States, until they were supplanted by railroads, trucking, and airplanes. Maritime archaeology fieldwork and research, and the construction and operation of replica canal schooner Lois McClure have allowed LCMM to recapture many details of life in the canal era (ca. 1820-1940). Enjoy a “virtual tour” of schooner Lois McClure, and the latest archaeological findings from historic shipwrecks. Some three hundred artifacts recovered from the Sloop Island Canal Boat in 2002-03 provide a glimpse of daily life on board a canal boat. Peer through a window into the past, through the remarkably complete contents of the cabin where family and crew lived.
Fish Stories is an innovative exhibit that tells the stories of a number of Lake Champlain’s eighty-one fish species – through a fish-eye lens. From the perspective of the fishes that we know and love—and some that are less known and less loved—explore the changing habitats of the lake from glacial lake to salt water sea to modern-day waterway linked to other lakes and rivers by man-made canals and challenged by changes in human land use. Listen as small fish tell you whether or not they’re minnows or a lake sturgeon teaches you about ancient piscine history. Fish Stories includes gorgeous paintings by local artists; recordings of “fishing stories” by seasoned Lake Champlain anglers; descriptions of Abenaki and Iroquois fishing practices; and hands-on examples of fishing equipment used over the centuries.
Bridging Lake Champlain: Where Have all the Ferries Gone?
Early 20th century photo of the Champlain Bridge.
When the Champlain Bridge opened on August 26, 1929, over 40,000 people gathered to celebrate the dawn of a new era for the region—and created the Champlain Valley’s first traffic jam! For centuries, the lake had served as a highway for north-south travel and a link between communities on the eastern and western shores. But in the early twentieth century, people traveling by car and train saw the lake as a 120-mile long barrier, and wanted a bridge they could cross in any weather and at any time.
The bridge meant the end of a long tradition of ferries across the lake, and changes in the towns that had flourished at the ferry landings.
In December 2009, the Champlain Bridge was determined to be unsafe, and after 80 years in operation, it was demolished. Today, we're back to boats again; a ferry service has been instated at Chimney Point - Crown Point while new bridge is constructed.
This exhibition uses rare archival film, artifacts and historic photographs to revisit this momentous change in the Champlain Valley, including original film footage of the opening day parade, signal lights from the bridge, and treasured photographs and memorabilia from family members and regional archives.
Replica 1776 Gunboat Philadelphia II
Step aboard the 54 ft. long Philadelphia II, a full-sized replica of a gunboat from the American fleet that confronted the British Royal Navy on Lake Champlain in 1776. The original Philadelphia, which sank on the first day of the Battle of Valcour Island, was raised from the lake in 1935 and is now at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C. The replica, constructed by LCMM staff and volunteers between 1989–91, is usually moored at the museum’s North Harbor, offering visitors a hands-on encounter with the eighteenth century maritime experience. Read more about Philadelphia II.
Schooner Lois McClure
LCMM’s 1862-class Lake Champlain Canal Schooner Lois McClure is often on tour. Real all about this amazing watercraft, and see her full schedule for boarding times and locations.
Maritime Machines features interactive stations all around the museum that give visitors an opportunity to experience first-hand the ways that people have combined and refined simple machines—over the centuries—to make maritime tasks easier.
Steamboat Preservation
The year after Robert Fulton operated the world’s first successful steamboat on the Hudson River, the Winans brothers launched the first steamboat on Lake Champlain, Vermont. The lake’s 29 large steamboats ferries and launches served the lake’s waterfront communities and captured the public imagination. Other exhibits in this building feature the lighthouses of Lake Champlain, the 1929 Champlain Bridge, and powerboats, including a fully-restored 1954 Chris Craft Runabout.
Small Watercraft Collection & Boat Building in the Champlain Valley
Enjoy LCMM’s collection of over seventy-five historic watercraft built or used on Lake Champlain. Permanent and rotating exhibits interpret a wide variety of boats, including dugouts, a 1609-era birchbark canoe replica (along with other historic canoes whose designs share the cultural origins of this elegant prototype), rowing craft, and examples of the many types of small sailing vessels that once gracefully plied the waters of the Lake.
Rinehart Blacksmith Arts Center
Rinehart Blacksmith Arts Center Dedicated in 2009, the 60 ft. x 30 ft. Rinehart Blacksmith Arts Center includes facilities for group courses and workshops as well as one-on-one instruction. Four fully equipped work stations are available for student use, thanks in large part to donations of tools and time from local and regional blacksmiths outfitting our student shop. Special thanks to Warren Rinehart for his inspiration and generosity in founding the center, Judson Yaggy for manufacture of many tools used to equip the work stations, to Mike Bishop for donation of a blower.