A Day at the National Museum

We had very special guests at the museum today. A family flew in from Pine Cay to see Grand Turk and the museum. We gave them a behind the scenes tour and suggested they go up to the Bohio for Lunch. more...

Today we had a visit from Ray and Anita Spencer. They had been touring around off the Carnival Glory, visiting the northern tip of the island. In 1961-62, Ray was stationed at the US Navy Base, so he went looking for familar landmarks. more...

Yesterday, Mario and Angela came to the museum and were thrilled with the exhibits and the behind the scenes tour. They were off the Holland America Westerdam, but they enjoy "micro excursioning" where they plan their own activities and contact local companies before they cruise. Mario was scuba diving with Blue Water Diving in the afternoon, so they came early to the museum. more...

This morning we had two geo cachers stop by the museum off the Holland America Eurodam. Known on Geocaching. com as Teampolarbear and Papoosky, these two guys have registered over 1500 caches by downloading the information from the geocaching website into their Ipods and then using Garmen GPS units to locate the various caches that are in the places they travel. more...

The Salinas kiosk has gone up. The kiosk provides cultural information on the history of the Salinas as salt ponds and their importance today as a migratory bird habitat. Already there have been several visitors and islanders alike standing reading the panels. more...

by Jessica BrodyToday's task between hosting cruise ship visitors: assembling the archives. Tiffany and I spent August through December arranging and creating order in the museum's paper collections. We sifted through governmental reports, church records, salt industry ledgers, and personal accounts of the islands. more...

by Jessica Brody The library is in heavy use today. We've had a number of visitors, some just perusing, and others working from it's shelves as we speak. To our visitors I showed off the work Tiffany and I did over the fall and winter - cataloging and adding books to the database - and adding the latest update:Just yesterday I completed a small victory for man over machine when I figured out how to use the database to print book labels just the way I needed them. more...

Last night was the second Spring 2 Collections event at the museum. We watched 10 minute of silent footage, recently donated to the museum, of the Navy base being built on Grand Turk and then talked about photographs in the museum collections. We talked a lot about the airstrip that used to run where Cee's Grocery store currently resides on Grand Turk which prompted stories about the planes running on the islands. more...

by Jessica Brody A member of the museum stopped by to drop off the annual dues and left us with an unexpected gift! She had a couple things her husband was willing to part with: a commemorative ship's bell and an old spy glass. The ship's bell is probably a significant addition to the museum collections since it has the name of a ship on it, but I couldn't keep my eyes off the spy glass. It was so cool! I'd never seen one before and it looked right out of the Mary Poppin's movie. more...

We now offer a behind the scenes guided tour at the museum in Grand Turk. The tour is available through our website on the Cruise Ships Tours page. The tour has been developed for people who want a more detailed and longer experience at the museum. more...

On Tuesday we had a local musician's jam at the museum. Often during these events visitors will show up and sit in. On this particular night Wally Jarvis, a Renaissance musician from Michigan, came and played a 13th century wooden flute. more...

By Rory McEathron The archaeological excavation continued today, mindless of the overcast weather--which I thoroughly enjoyed. The whole group worked incredibly hard today, digging 22 new holes (most of which had nothing of substance in them) and covering almost two acres. Had it been hot and sunny like yesterday, I think that we may have had casualties—I am exhausted anyway. more...