Marquette Maritime Museum Great Duck Island Presentation

Great Duck Island (GDI) is located in the Gulf of Maine and is part of a group of islands that make up the “town” of Frenchboro. Most of GDI is owned by College of the Atlantic (COA), a private institution in Bar Harbor where all students major in Human Ecology. During the summer months, a handful of COA students particularly interested in ornithology live in the old Coast Guard station on GDI where they tag and track the herring and black-backed gull, guillamont, and eider duck populations on the island, as well as count and monitor the birds’ nests, eggs, and chicks as they develop each season. Brenna Womer, an MFA candidate at NMU and Assistant Manager of the Marquette Maritime Museum, was awarded NMU’s Excellence in Education research grant and used her funding, in cooperation with the English Department’s Field Program, to live on Great Duck Island for 10 days in June 2017. During her time there, Brenna did grounds maintenance, helped COA students with their field research, and began writing her thesis, a novel about the last woman on earth.