Lake Champlain Maritime Museum opened its first building, a historic stone schoolhouse, in 1985 with the mission to preserve and share the cultural and natural heritage of the Lake Champlain region. Today, the Museum serves a broad community throughout the Champlain Valley and beyond, working to connect all people with Lake Champlain through learning experiences, exhibits and collections at its 3-acre waterfront campus, digital engagement, boat building, underwater archaeology research projects, and more.
Mission
Lake Champlain Maritime Museum connects all people to Lake Champlain, inspiring them to learn from the past, build together in the present, and create a sustainable future.
Vision
Inspired, empowered, and equitable communities that realize social and environmental justice through their connection to Lake Champlain.
Values
We believe in the power of history
We research, document, preserve, and share an inclusive maritime history and archaeology of the Lake Champlain region. Our work is to repair the harm caused by history being told from a singular, dominant perspective.
We believe in the power of connection
We bring people together to learn from the lake and build skills of collaboration, communication, and critical thinking through equitable experiences that connect people to the world around them, to themselves, and to each other.
We believe that all people are history makers
We inspire people to see new possibilities and to build a future that realizes justice for individuals, our communities, and the environment.
About Our Land and the Lake Champlain Basin
We are in the homeland of the Abenaki people. The Abenaki have been here since time immemorial and continue to be a thriving Indigenous culture in this region. Lake Champlain Maritime Museum acknowledges with gratitude their generations of stewardship, past, present, and future.
As an organization committed to sharing the history, culture, and ecology of the Lake Champlain basin, it is essential to us to recognize that there were Abenaki people on this land first, regardless of who is here now. Read more about our relationship and commitment to our local Abenaki community.
Our Work At A Glance
Education programs empower thousands of learners of all ages each year to take action and make a difference in their communities. Through camps, expeditions, field trips, boat building, and more, kids and teens learn through experience on the water, build problem-solving and life skills in the boat shop, and become stewards of the lake.
Exhibits let visitors get hands-on with the history, ecology, and archaeology that ties the story of Lake Champlain to our larger shared history. Our 3-acre campus encourages adventure and discovery with multiple exhibit buildings, workshops, and maritime artifacts.
Research and collections are driven by our world-class archaeologists who research, document, protect, and make accessible Lake Champlain’s underwater cultural resources. Through their ground-breaking work, the museum is able to conserve and present over 300 shipwrecks in the lake and 10,000 objects and archives in our collection.
Strategic Plan
In 2022 we completed a strategic plan to guide the Museum over the next five years. We invite you to read through our full plan below.