Episode 57: Museum of the White Mountains

Join us for an enlightening journey through the rich history and diverse ecosystems of the White Mountains, also known as the "Switzerland of America." Discover the ancient origins of the Appalachian Mountains and their profound geological and cultural significance. We'll highlight the invaluable contributions of Indigenous Abenaki communities, whose enduring legacy is under threat from an invasive insect species.

🧺 Of Baskets and Borers: Abenaki Basketry and Conservation Efforts  🌲
At the Museum of the White Mountains, we delve into the “Of Baskets and Borers” exhibit, exploring the severe threat posed by the Emerald Ash Borer to ash trees, disrupting delicate ecosystems and endangering the tradition of Abenaki basketry. Discover the natural history of ash trees that makes them a favorite among these skilled basket weavers and learn how the Emerald Ash Borer is decimating these vital trees. The exhibit also highlights promising conservation efforts, including naturally resistant ash trees, the use of parasitoid wasps to control the borer population, and protective insecticide injections.

🔗  Episode Links
Museum of the White Mountains (MWM): https://www.plymouth.edu/mwm/

MWM Youtube lecture series: https://www.youtube.com/@mwmpsu

Chapters

• 8:29 Of Baskets and Borers
• 13:20 Emerald Ash Borer
• 17:55 Abenaki Basket Weaving
• 23:05 Light at the End of the Borer Tunnel
• 24:43 Lingering Ash
• 30:37 Cement Forest Map

Transcript

[00:00:00] 

Meghan Doherty: /there's a lot of stories in the media about, , the aging populations , the declining populations , the opioid rural America, right? There are all these, , narratives in the media about how rural America is dying. And so for me, both personally and professionally, it's really important to find ways to counter that narrative and to say, actually, , there are things happening right now. , and if we let the past inform the future, we can all make better choices for our communities

Ayla Sparks: hi, I'm Ayla Sparks, and this is Curator's Choice, a podcast for history nerds and museum lovers. From ancient relics to modern marvels, each episode of this show features a new museum and a curator's choice of some amazing artifacts housed there. These guardians of history will share insights, anecdotes, and the often untold stories that breathe life into the artifacts they protect. Thanks for tuning in to this Mighty Oak Media Production, and enjoy the show.

Ayla Sparks: Hello and welcome to another episode of Curator's Choice. Today on the show, we're at the Museum of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. With Director Megan Doherty as our guide, we explore the rich and diverse Ecosystems of the slice of the Appalachian Mountains and the incredible skills of the basket weavers that call it home.

Megan takes us through her journey of creating an exhibit that started as a single postcard and grew Into a collaborative effort to share the skill of the Abenaki [00:01:30] weavers, their love of ash trees as a basket building material, and how all that is under threat by an invasive, boring beetle. She offers glimmers of hope through dedicated conservation efforts being made not only to preserve this incredible ecosystem, but the community's cultural heritage as well. So without further ado, Let's jump right in with Megan. 

Please tell us of these amazing white mountains, why is there a museum dedicated to them? They must have obviously significant history,

Meghan Doherty: yeah, so it's an amazing place in northern New Hampshire, sort of central and northern New Hampshire. At this point, sort of centers around the White Mountain National Forest, which is about 800, 000 acres, but there's a lot more to the region than that. just the forest. It's obviously a piece of what we are and why people come here. , a museum that's dedicated to the art culture and environment of the White Mountains region. 

So this is a landscape that for Really close to two centuries now. People have coming to visit, to experience , the mountains. So there's many places in the White Mountains where you can get up above treeline and have that kind of alpine experience , in the middle of the 19th century, it was, , and even into the 20th century was advertised as the Switzerland of America.

So this was a way you could come and Get above tree line, have The ability to [00:03:00] see so many different environments and habitats in one area, because you do have the mixed hardwood forest. , you have all the conifers in the area and then you can get up above tree line, have those Alpine zones. , unique plant communities, aquatic communities in some of these environments and, , part of how the national forest was created was. To protect the headwaters. So there are four main river systems that have their headwaters in the White Mountains.

Ayla Sparks: What mountain chain is White Mountains part of?

Meghan Doherty: So we are part of the Appalachian

Ayla Sparks: You are okay.

Meghan Doherty: part of the country. I spent close to 15 years in Kentucky, living in the Bachan Mountains. It's the same mountain range. And the, the Appalachian Trail comes right through the White Mountains.

Ayla Sparks: Okay. , so moving here to Maryland where my husband is from, he always bragged about all the amazing mountains out here, but I come from Nevada, right? Right. Where we have. what I called real mountains, which were incredibly high peaks, these insane views. But he always comes back at me saying that the Appalachians are older than bones. So they're actually way cooler. And it's hard to argue against that.

Meghan Doherty: Yeah. ? Right? they are incredibly old mountains. 

Ayla Sparks: So you guys tell the story of this ancient, older than bones mountain area, and particularly the White Mountains. How do you go about talking mountain ranges and their [00:04:30] origins and geology and Indigenous communities and their cultural heritage and practices and combine them with the importance of future conservation. How do you make all this work

Meghan Doherty: Yeah. So I like to talk about how we're, as a museum, about a place, we're thinking about Not only the environment, the geology, right? The mountains themselves, but also the peoples that have called this mountain range home 

Talking about the glaciers receding. 12, 000 years ago and indigenous people who came north as the glaciers receded, following the, animals as they moved north, right? And there's been a lot of archaeological work done in the region that have, found these paleo sites, and so we can really show that, and see that history on the landscape. and we're also really interested in and showing people that that wasn't the only moment in which there were indigenous peoples here, right? And, You can see it and hear it on our landscape. Plymouth, where the museum is, is on the banks of the Pemijawasat River, which is an Ebenaki word. we, are just south of Mount Moosilauke, which is the mountain where the moose were, right? So,these, Abenaki words are all over our landscape and so what we're trying to do is to say, yes, there was this [00:06:00] paleo, moment that we can see in archaeological research.

We know that there were indigenous communities here when the colonists sort of worked their way north. and we know that. Those communities, even once they were in exile. So we've been working with the, Abenaki Band Council at ODINAC, so a First Nations community in ODINAC, Quebec, as a kind of exile community from this region. And many of them would come down in the summers. to sell baskets to tourists in the region. , , one family in particular for 110 years came from Odenak to Intervale, New Hampshire, to sell baskets, , that they would spend all winter making baskets and they'd take the train down , and sell baskets. so looking for ways to tell stories, That have both the past, present and future, right? That this isn't a place that only has a past. 

That's something that's very important to me. I grew up north of the mountains here in New Hampshire, and, as a teenager felt very strongly that I had to get out. I went halfway across the country for college. stayed in the Midwest for my master's and PhD. and then two and a half years ago moved back for this job. , but it's really hard as a young person in a rural area to see that future sometimes. There's a lot of stories in the media about, the [00:07:30] aging populations , the declining populations , the opioid epidemic in rural America, right?

There are all these, , narratives in the media about how rural America is dying. And so for me, both personally and professionally, it's really important to find ways to counter that narrative and to say, actually, , there are things happening right now. , and if we let the past inform the future, we can all make better choices for our communities. So I'm really, yeah, I'm really passionate about , the role that history, , and environmental awareness. Can have in planning for the future and as well as the kind of stories we put out for the young people in our communities.

Ayla Sparks: Think that's perfectly shown by the exhibit that you guys have right now Which is just it looks adorable It's of baskets and borers and I would love for you to talk a little bit about how you're Literally doing all of that in this one exhibit, which is just ingenious to me.

[00:08:29] Of Baskets and Borers

Meghan Doherty: Yeah, thanks. , for me, this is a great example of how . I use our collection as a springboard for our exhibitions. this exhibition started.  Because I had seen a single postcard in our collection, which as far as I can find is the only photographic record of Indigenous Peoples in our collection. It's one item, which collection came to be. Says a lot about the dominant narratives of the history of our region you know, the, the [00:09:00] majority of the tourists coming to the region were, wealthy white Americans. , um, so the exhibition started with this one postcard. The caption on the postcard says, Abenaki Indians, White MTS NH.

so White Mountains, New Hampshire. And it shows a kind of mixed age family group. Some people are standing, some people are sitting in front of a building with big, wide open doors. And across the top of the building, it says, Camp Number Two. And on one of the doors, it says, Abenaki Indians. And it's a family group in front of the camp where they would sell their baskets every summer.

When I first saw this, I didn't know where the postcard, where the photograph had been taken. Just somewhere nearby. , Not long after I came across this postcard, I then saw the photograph again in a talk given by Daniel Nolette, who is the executive director of the Abenaki Band Council of Odenak, and he was giving a talk about the history of families coming down from Odenak to, , sites all across the U. S., , to sell their baskets, and he had identified, , some of the adults in the photograph, , because we don't have a date for the photograph, it's hard to know exactly who the kids are. , but the adults he was able to identify, based on, other photographs in the museum in Odenak. and so then I had, names for these people.

 I started [00:10:30] asking around and, went, on a research trip to the Bethlehem Heritage Society in Bethlehem, New Hampshire, showed it to them and they're like, Oh, well, that's on Strawberry Hill. Here's another photograph. And here's three other photographs of those folks. , they came every summer, you know, for 50 years. and so that postcard really was the springboard. for this whole exhibition.

Ayla Sparks: So take me through the creation of this kind of exhibit from this springboard idea of a postcard to the future of conservation

Meghan Doherty: I'd had, I don't know how it is for other folks, but for me, I often have a lot of ideas, seeds of ideas,  for exhibitions that are they're just in their envelopes, There's something there. I don't know quite what it is yet., but it's something. so this postcard had been kind of in the box of seeds waiting to find its right moment.

And then I was approached by a group of faculty , they were applying for a grant in the National Endowment for the Humanities Spotlight on Humanities Track, and they were going to apply, , to support a program they were developing in sustainability studies that was already designed to be interdisciplinary. So it was a group of faculty from environmental science, from sustainability studies, from public health, from English, from art, , from anthropology, who were all working together to develop this new major in sustainability studies. And so they approached me about being the kind of [00:12:00] venue for a series of talks and including, , support in the grant for three semesters worth of exhibitions as well.

I was like, yeah, this is exactly what I want to be doing. This is what we're already doing. You know, all the things we say we do talking about art, culture, and the environment are really about how do we , better care for our environment by knowing about its history. Count me in. , so then they Got the grant, which was awesome.

And then I was like, Oh, I guess I need to come up with some exhibitions that are going to work. And, I had been following along, with the progress of a research group out of, , the University of Maine at Orono. That's called the Ash Protection Collaboration Across Wabanaki. So APCA and this is a collaboration between Indigenous and non Indigenous, , foresters, forest science folks, , there's some anthropologists involved, there's basket makers, there's Indigenous tribal leaders, , working with the four federally recognized tribes in Maine, , and really focused on, , seed saving and trying to preserve the genetics. of basket quality brown ash trees because of the threat of the emerald ash borer.

[00:13:20] Threat of the Emerald Ash Borer

Meghan Doherty: So the emerald ash borer is an insect that in all likelihood came into the US from China in a pallet, like a wooden [00:13:30] pallet, , through the port of Detroit. And those pallets came, the material was unloaded, pallets were put in a heap. Insect eggs hatched, larvae ate their way out, adults emerged, found not exactly the same species of trees, but similar enough that they could then be a host species for them. , This is in the late nineties that the insect comes over. It's discovered in 2002 in Michigan and has been kind of working its way across the whole range of, North American ashtrays and, it's now. in every state and province where, , ash trees grow. 

and so I knew about, I knew we had this postcard. So I have this little seed in our envelope waiting for its moment. I had started going to the online programming that APCA was doing, cause I was just generally interested. And then we get the money , from the NEH grant. And I was like, Oh, Well, this is the exhibit, you know, this is the moment I can, I can plant this seed and see what, comes of it because what APCA is doing in a lot of ways is what this grant wants students to be thinking about, right? So in this case, it's how can traditional knowledge keepers help inform, , conservation efforts surrounding the brown ash or black ash , so yeah, this one [00:15:00] postcard was the sort of springboard for this whole exhibition. And again, because I want us to be thinking about the past, present, and future of the region, it was really important to me to include contemporary basket makers and not just say, oh, this is a historical thing that happened during the kind of height of tourism.

And everything's threatened because of this. beetle. and so I want, one, I kind of am always looking for the like glimmer of hope in a story. , and two, I really feel like it's important for people , to see when they come to the exhibition that this is a living, vibrant tradition of basket making still practiced , within the, , Abenaki community.

So , doing research for the exhibition. I went up to Odenak. In Quebec. , and met with Daniel Nolette, who's the executive director of the Abenaki Band Council at Odenac. And he introduced me to his aunt, Annette, , who is 85 years old, still making baskets, , still teaching workshops, still in high demand for, her knowledge and her baskets., so we have a few baskets of hers , in the exhibition. We also have one, , that was made by her grand niece, , when she was eight years old in 2020. , to really, again, show that this is a, a vibrant living tradition Annette is a, a knowledge keeper and , is passing this knowledge on to future generations. we don't have as [00:16:30] many baskets of hers as I might like in the exhibition, in part because, , this year, a lot of her energy has been going into making baskets for all the new babies that are being born in the community this year. So each new baby in the community, I know, 

Ayla Sparks: I guess that's an okay excuse to not be 

Meghan Doherty: So there's 12 babies being born in the community this year. So she's making each of them a basket

Ayla Sparks: very

Meghan Doherty: Another nephew of hers, uh , , ended up loaning us some of his baskets that she'd made so that we could have, , have a wider range and, and it turned out for the best because the baskets he had to loan us, one of them was, almost exactly the same form as a basket from the Abenaki Indian shop in Intervale that had, , been selling baskets for 110 years coming down from Odenak. So that same form really showing that continuity. , and then another basket that he loaned us is actually a form that she developed to it's kind of a Oval or a rounded rectangle that has a loop on it to hang on a nail by the door so that you could hang the basket and put the day's mail in it as you come in. So, , a form for a modern problem. , and and to really again show that this is a living vibrant tradition. This isn't a, , archaeological, fossil that we're talking about, but really a living tradition. 

[00:17:55] Basket Weaving with Ash Trees

 So, the Abernacchi, when they were working on these, baskets, I saw on the [00:18:00] website, there was something particular about the quality of the ash trees. 

Meghan Doherty: Yeah. So the, , Abenaki and other, , indigenous communities kind of throughout the upper Midwest and , the Northeast, , use the brown or black ash. It's the same tree. It just depends where you live, what color you think it's buds are. 

Ayla Sparks: it's Appalachian or Appalachian or Appalachian or,

Meghan Doherty: yeah, exactly. the brown ash is, so there are a couple of things about the tree that make it, good for basket making. One of them is that it's what's called a ring porous species. This is actually something that, , is important for the ashes role, , in a habitat. Ash are one of the last trees to leaf out, , in the springtime, which means that under ash and,especially under white ash, is where you'll find a lot of the spring ephemeral flowers. So the. Trout lilies, the trilliums, all really like it under there. And there's a lot of research being done about what exactly is it. Is it because they get more light? they also are, uh,their leaves break down very quickly. So if you go in the winter, , and look on the forest floor, you won't find ash leaves because they break down so quickly. , so they, like, add a lot of nutrients to the forest floor very quickly.

Unlike, say, a beech leaf, which, , beech trees will hold their leaves all winter long. They only come [00:19:30] off when the new buds push them off. And then there are these really tough rigid leaves that will be this kind of rustly understory for a long time. so the, the last, one of the last to leaf out, and part of that is because they are this ring porous, , type of wood, so it means that , the structure of the wood makes it so that more moisture can move more quickly through it. So it's like the straws that take the moisture up are big and wide open in the springtime. So they're not trying to put leaves out at the beginning, they're trying to grow. and so they, that's part of why they come out so late is as the spring melt happens, they're taking that water up. To grow the tree and not their leaves until until later.

 The result of that is that a brown ash doesn't get very big, not like a white ash, which will be the tallest biggest trees in the forest. Brown ash tend to be in swampy. Damp. They sort of like to have their feet wet.

Meghan Doherty: and tend to be smaller, kind of denser trees.when you down an ash and peel the bark, you can then pound the layers apart, the growth rings apart. So there's a video in the exhibition that shows, , two men just with the , backside of an axe, pounding the tree and the layers just pop apart. and then you can kind of, [00:21:00] further scrape them down. , and then they're very pliable and strong. And so you have this. naturally strong, naturally supple material that can get incredibly thin. ,

the kind of, , utilitarian baskets that were and still are made tend to be with a thicker , split, so they aren't kind of stripped down as far as the fancy baskets that were developed, in part for the tourist trade. There are some forms that are very particular to the tourist trade. in the exhibition we have a knitting basket. That's a form that was developed in the 19th century. the story goes that, basket makers would see these women on the train, as they were coming down and they'd be knitting away on the train and their yarn would roll away. They developed this basket that has two rings that you put your arms through. it has a tube with a lid and the lid has a hole in it. you take the lid off, put your ball of yarn in, put your lid back on, pull the working yarn up through the hole in the basket and put your arms through the rings.

So your basket and your yarn are right there. And you can just, yeah. Knit for all the hours on the train. so that's, you know, a fancy basket that was developed in response to the tourist trade. and those tend to be just incredibly thin, fine pieces of wood. all of which is kind of broken down from a whole [00:22:30] tree. With hand tools, and it's still all done with hand tools. but it has to do with how the tree itself grows is a big piece of being able to do that. and in part, that's why the Emerald Ash Borer is so important. Detrimental for the basket makers is because when you have an insect that lays its eggs under the bark and then the larvae, when they hatch, eat their way through the outer growth rings and make them brittle. So they all just break apart rather than coming apart in these long, supple rings.

[00:23:05] Light at the End of the Borer Hole

Ayla Sparks: 

and you were talking earlier about trying to find the hope or the goodness at the end of it. So looking at the devastating effects that the borer can have on the ash and the fact that it's basically all over the United States where there are ash trees, is there a light at the end? Is an opportunity for us to do something about 

Meghan Doherty: Yes. Some would say not really, an entomologist at the University of New Hampshire recently described it, we took a group out for a tour, at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, where he's one of the, lead researchers on the ash protection experiment there. And the way he described it to us is that. He thinks it's going to end up being like the elm tree. rather than the chestnut. So for elms, right, Dutch elm disease came through, wiped out all these huge [00:24:00] majestic American elm trees, but it they aren't extinct. They still exist in the wild, in the landscape, , but they only get to 30 or 40 years old, maybe 50 years old, and then they'll still succumb to The disease, whereas the chestnut is functionally extinct.

so he thinks It's going to be more like the elm and part of that has to do with the kind of ongoing multi pronged approach to, , both saving the genetics of the trees through seed saving and scion wood collection and through breeding programs. 

[00:24:43] Lingering Ash

Meghan Doherty: So one of the things that's a kind of glimmer of hope is, what's described as lingering ash. So when, when we talk about wiped out all the trees, it's actually 99%, that 1 percent means that it's not every tree. And what they're finding is that there are some trees that do have some amount of natural resistance, to the emerald ash borer. Because in its native habitat, the ash borers and the ash trees, Coexist, right? They co evolved the ash species in China, Russia, sort of across, northern Asia. they co evolved and the trees produce, chemicals that don't taste good. And so they just get a [00:25:30] little bit eaten up, but not killed by them. , and so they're finding that there are some trees that are demonstrating a resistance. And the, USDA is kind of leading efforts through the Forest Service, leading efforts to do breeding work. With those trees to then breed further resistant populations of trees to then be planted back out, , into the landscape.

So that's one. The lingering ash is kind of one glimmer of hope. , another is, So what Which is another part of the USDA, APHIS is the, the part of the USDA that controls what comes in and what goes out in terms of, pests and is sort of looking for pests , in imported materials, but they also are the people who will Import good insects that control the bad insects.

, and so what they've done over the years is done a lot of research in the native range of the emerald ash borer and have identified four wasp species that are, , parasitoid wasps. So these are wasps that lay their eggs either in emerald ash borer. larvae, or in one case, emerald ash borer eggs. And then when the wasp's eggs hatch, their first meal is the emerald ash borer. And so they don't, they'll never wipe out a population of emerald ash borers, [00:27:00] but , they will control the numbers and then give those Lingering ash trees, a better chance of surviving. , and then the third kind of prong , of this hope trident. don't know whatever, however, we want to go with that metaphor.

, so the 3rd prong is, , insecticide injection. That is when, they inject insecticide into ash trees that make them unpalatable to the emerald ash borer, , part of this is also about building a seed bank and continuing to be able to grow out and replant trees, and continuing to have them as part of the ecosystem because they provide a lot of ecosystem services, particularly the white ash.

Meghan Doherty: Um,a lot of research has been done to show the, vast numbers of insect and bird species that depend and plant species that depend on white ash for their habitat.

Ayla Sparks: it's a good trident. I'm always so nervous when you are planning on doing any kind of species introduction to combat another species. But I think by this point in time, we have learned a lot of lessons. And so I'm sure that they are actually making absolute sure it's not going to be detrimental to any of the native species that are there, but who makes me sweat a little bit.

Meghan Doherty: I know. And you're not alone. You're not alone. And actually, there's a whole section of the exhibition that's kind of additional [00:28:30] resources. And. I would say 80 percent of the additional resources are peer reviewed articles on the biocontrol program because I know that that is the part that the people, that people are going to be the most concerned about, , in the exhibition. With good reason, right? There's all kinds of, of horror stories, and You know, I think that they, they have learned their lessons and they have, done a ton of, you know, it was 10 years of research before they released any, it's only in the last couple of years, they've started releasing them and it's been, you know, going on 25 years. They've known about the emerald ash borer and the parasitoid watch. So

Ayla Sparks: Really sounds like they've done their due diligence.

Meghan Doherty: yeah,

Ayla Sparks: We're not going to have a Kate and Toad situation happening.

Meghan Doherty: Yeah, exactly. It's aren't mongoose or, you know, Polynesian rats or, you know, 

Ayla Sparks: hmm. Mm hmm. 

Meghan Doherty: they've, you know, researched , , the predatory relationship pretty well and know that this is like a targeted species and they are a predator in the native habitat. , yeah, unlike Polynesian 

Ayla Sparks: yeah, well, it's a fantastic way to marry all of these concepts together in an exhibit as well, because you do have a lot of the history, the geology, conservation, ecology. social sciences.. And if people were to come to the museum to see, what kind of things can they expect at the museum , when they come in and visit?

Meghan Doherty: Yeah, so we have this, changing exhibitions. It's roughly four exhibitions a [00:30:00] year, that are thinking about different aspects of the White Mountains, of this kind of triad of art, culture, and environment, past, present, and future. Those are the sort of two triads that stack and interlock for our exhibitions. Downstairs in the museum, we have a sort of spotlight on the collection. So we'll have objects from our permanent collection and a sort of thematic display that we rotate annually the museum is in a renovated Methodist church. So the gallery was the sanctuary space and then downstairs and what was the fellowship hall is where we have events, lectures, and additional displays 

[00:30:37] Cement Forest Map 

Meghan Doherty: on view in the classroom downstairs, it will be there forever because I've been told it will never move again, is a, bas relief map of the White Mountain National Forest. That is made of cement, which is why it will never move

Ayla Sparks: Makes sense.

Meghan Doherty: that was initially, first made in the 1930s, as part of a Civil Conservation Corps project to map the National Forest. And they built multiples of this concrete map. And then it was updated in the 1960s. And it is Eight feet wide and eight feet tall. the scale of it is astonishing. So every little ephemeral stream is on there. you know, it shows the area, because it was last updated in the 1960s. There's all kinds of [00:31:30] roads that. exist, you know, that exists now that weren't there. Then, there's some dams that have been built since that changed the shape and flow of some of the rivers. now there's an interstate where once there was just a two lane road. So you see the kind of. Before, in all of that. I love showing everyone where my house is, where I grew up. and because it's in relief, you get a sense of, the height of the mountains relative to one another and the kind of peaks and valleys and the watersheds, right?

Because it's really all about water. , you can really kind of see all these little streams lead into the rivers and really get a sense of that. kind of feel of the headwaters that, that they really were trying to protect with the creation of the White Mountain National Forest.

Ayla Sparks: really neat. And like you said, it's gonna stay. It's gonna stay

Meghan Doherty: Yeah, it's going to be right there forever. Physical plant that like folks on, the campus, facilities people, told the previous museum director that that was the last time they were ever going to move it, so. It's right there. Always, a great thing to come and see and really see the kind of full scale, feel yourself in the middle of the mountains and in this amazing relief map. 

Ayla Sparks: You guys also have an awesome YouTube channel that people can go and see some cool stuff.

Meghan Doherty: Yeah, this is where we record all of the talks that go along with our exhibitions. I always think of the, if the exhibition is like a closed circle, right? Once you put it up, it's done. You can't change anything, despite people who bring things in and [00:33:00] want to add them to exhibitions. It's, it's a closed circle. And the talks that we plan for it, I always think of as Tangents, right? It's something that the exhibition briefly touches on, but we can never dig all the way into it. So there's mention of in the exhibition of Ash as, you know, providing ecosystem services. , but it doesn't really talk about how or why. So there's a, there's a talk that we had a Dartmouth college grad student come and talk about White Ash's role in the forest. And, , I briefly mentioned Joseph Laurent, who started the, , Abenaki Indian shop in Intervale, New Hampshire. Well, to many, he's best known for his publication in 1884 of the first Abenaki English Dictionary. So that gets brief mention. There's a copy of the dictionary in the exhibition, um, but we're having, we'll have a talk, , at the museum and that will end up on our YouTube channel of a scholar from Northwestern who's done a ton of research on the kind of journeys that book went along and kind of where Laurent's, , research went and ended up. So, , there's always ways to learn more about the closed circle of the exhibition, , through our lecture series that all end up on our YouTube channel.

Ayla Sparks: So it's a great way to, I mean, like you said, you can never go as in depth on everything as you want to. So it's a great way to provide extra resources for people who want it.

Meghan Doherty: Yeah, and all of our events are hybrid, so folks can join in person or can, , register and [00:34:30] join online. , we have folks from all over the country, , join our talks that go along with the exhibition, and then lots of folks watch them on our YouTube channel as well.

Ayla Sparks: Well, I'll definitely include the links to that in the show notes as well.

Meghan Doherty: Thanks.

Ayla Sparks: Well, thank you so much for sharing this awesome history and really telling about how, an entire exhibit. Can start from a seed and then really come into something awesome. That was neat to kind of learn the flow of how that happens at a museum as well. So thank you so much. This was great.

Meghan Doherty: Yeah, my pleasure. 

Ayla Sparks: thank you so much for tuning in and supporting Curators Choice, a Mighty Oak Media production. If you enjoyed the show, please consider subscribing and rating the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you love a museum and would like to hear it featured in an episode, shoot me a message at CuratorsChoicePodcast at gmail. com. I'll do my best to reach out and see if I can get them to be on the show. You can also view articles, artifacts, and more. by following us on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks for listening to Curator's Choice, a podcast for history nerds and museum lovers.