The Past is a Foreign County

Young visitors come aboard the historic fishing tug ‘Hope’ at the Maritime Museum in Gills Rock.

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” This oft-quoted opening sentence from L. P. Hartley’s novel The Go-Between has become almost proverbial. For those of us in the history business, no truer words were ever spoken.

Those who have visited a foreign country know to expect differences, sometimes dramatic, in language, food, culture and customs. The senses are continually bombarded and challenged by a wide array of unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells. No matter how hard we try, our tendency is to observe and interpret this foreign place with our personal “filters” working at full strength. We judge, and sometimes condemn, based on our engrained values and standards – all those things we consider “normal”. However, these same travelers know that the most enjoyable moments come when the personal filters can be suppressed and all the extraordinary differences can be experienced and embraced with the pure and simple joy that comes from initial exposure to something completely new. In its purest form, this experience is akin to the uninhibited excitement and genuine happiness an infant enjoys as they move through their new and continually interesting world. Picture that beaming toothless smile and acute concentration on a baby’s face as they encounter something for the first time – and for them, every day is filled with countless such experiences.

As so eloquently and succinctly captured in the opening quote, the past truly is a foreign country. Our goal at the Maritime Museum is to be your travel agent for an extraordinary journey to this wonderful foreign land. We are your tour guide. Our exhibits and programs are your travel itinerary. If we do our job correctly, you’ll experience all the unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells the past has to offer. But as with any trip to a foreign place, you must turn off your filters to really get the most from your visit. Don’t judge the past through the lens of your modern day standards, values and prejudices. Don’t view the past as something old. Rather, view it as new and different. Embrace it as you would travel to any foreign country.

Our travel agent duties are made a bit more challenging because we must depend in part on your imagination to help us transport you to the foreign country that is the past. We need you to release your inner-child and experience these new sensations as an infant would, with pure wonder and the unabashed simple joy of the experience.

In our feature exhibit “Pirates – Ship to Shore” here at the Sturgeon Bay museum we have a costume room that encourages visitors of all ages to don period attire while taking in the rest of the exhibit. It is great fun to watch our younger visitors enthusiastically choose their costumes and be magically transported back to the nineteenth century to experience life in a Caribbean village or take the helm and man the guns on the pirate ship Fortune. It is even more fun to watch the adults who are willing to let down their guard, turn off their filters, don a costume and visit the golden age of piracy in that exciting foreign country, the past.

Bob Desh acts as lighthouse keeper and tour guide to the past.

But of course one does not need the costume to enjoy our guided tour. The joy of a new and foreign experience can be had by merely studying an historic artifact, comprehending the information on a reader board or enjoying a video display. One of my favorite things to do is to stand quietly in the wheelhouse of the historic wooden fishing tug Hope at our Gills Rock museum and take in the lingering smells that remain from its decades of stalwart duty harvesting the bounty of the great inland sea. It takes very little imagination to begin to feel the roll of the deck beneath your feet and sound of icy waves crashing over her bow as she braves an angry sea to retrieve the day’s catch from sturdy nets artfully set. Similar extraordinary journeys to the past can be enjoyed through countless other exhibits, displays and experiences at our museum locations at the Cana Island Light Station, Gills Rock, Sturgeon Bay, or aboard the historic tugboat John Purves.

We sincerely hope that when you next visit the Maritime Museum, or any history museum for that manner, you’ll allow us to be your travel agent and tour guide for an amazing journey to the foreign land that is the past. Turn off your filters; release your inner child; engage your senses and imagination; and enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of this new and exciting place. “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” We hope you’ll visit soon.

For more information about Door County Maritime Museum, visit http://www.dcmm.org or call 920.743.5958.

Peninsula Arts and Humanities Alliance, Inc., is a coalition of non-profit organizations whose purpose is to enhance, promote and advocate the arts, humanities and natural sciences in Door County.