BY ABIGAIL CURTIS
FOR THE MIDCOAST BEACON

SEARSPORT — The sharp smell of sawdust filled the 1845 Town Hall at the Penobscot Marine Museum recently as staff labored to get the summer’s next big exhibit under way.

It’ll be called “Gone Fishing ... The Story of Maine’s Sea Fisheries,” and museum operations and communications director Pam Delehey is looking forward to its completion later this month.

The exhibit, which will have its grand opening on July 23, will bring to life an old fishing pier on the Maine coast and showcases replicas of a sardine carrier and a lobster boat.

“It’s going to look great,” Delehey said. “Our exhibits try to remind everybody of where we came from. We’re really tied to the community, and we’re trying to remind our visitors that Maine has an incredible maritime heritage to be preserved.”

That work goes on despite the economic challenges that come with the global recession, Delehey said.

Though the museum’s endowment has gone down significantly, thanks to constant fundraising, grant writing and hard work, Delehey said, the Penobscot Marine Museum is continuing to teach area children, local visitors and tourists about Maine’s maritime heritage.

“We’re trying to keep our heads up,” Delehey said. “We’re thriving on hard work. We’re not thriving because we have a lot of disposable funds.”

The museum’s busy, neatly kept campus of 10 buildings includes a new drop-in family center for children to do hands-on activities related to marine science, a gallery now featuring the woodcarvings of folksinger Gordon Bok and the popular “Yard in the Yard,” the scaled-down model of a square-rigger’s mast.

On a recent day, kids buzzed around the yard, hoisting the sails and pretending to steer the boat while adults admired Bok’s detailed woodcarvings in the gallery.

“We are a museum for everyone — families, people who are maritime heritage buffs, everybody,” Delehey said.

The special woodcarving exhibit will help support Maine’s maritime heritage, as half of the proceeds of each sale will be donated to help preserve the museum’s 83-foot Maine-built sardine carrier, the Jacob Pike.

Museum officials would like to raise $200,000 for restoration and operating costs of the vessel, Delehey said.

“We’d like to use her as an educational tool around the coast, for school groups to come aboard and learn more about the fishing heritage of Maine,” Delehey said.

Already, three of the 15 pieces have sold, she said.

“It’s been huge. We were all celebrating in the parking lot this morning,” Delehey said. “Bok really catches the components of what fishing in Maine is all about.”

Sales of the woodcarvings will help preserve the Jacob Pike, the stretch of rainy weather in mid-June helped bring more people to the museum, and plans to expand educational outreach programs should help keep the museum viable in the long-term, Delehey said.

An education partnership with SAD 56 has brought the museum staff out to area schools, 500 students came to the museum during end-of-the-year field trips and its Downeaster Days day camp program has doubled in size this year.

“Education is certainly a catalyst,” Delehey said. “Somebody showed up this morning saying that it seems the Penobscot Marine Museum is more out there these days. Our goal is to encourage that trend.”