Tuna museum not just about the past
Wedgeport facility will be busy place during tuna tournament and festival
Visitors to the Wedgeport Tuna Museum get to see and learn about the community’s rich sport tuna-fishing heyday, but there’s also a good deal of interest in what’s going today, a museum spokesman says.
For several decades – from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s or so – Wedgeport was known as the world’s sport tuna-fishing capital and the museum has plenty to offer those who want to learn, or perhaps reminisce, about this period, a time when Wedgeport attracted some of the world’s most famous people.
Museum visitors tend to be curious about a few things in particular, says Franklin Cottreau, the museum’s manager.
“They’re interested in the size of the tuna, the old (international) tuna tournament and the tournament that we have now,” he said, “and a lot of them ask questions about the ( current) state of the fishing here, rockweeding and stuff like that. They’re really interested in the actual fishing that’s going on nowadays.”
The museum opened in 1996, two decades after the last big tournament was held and eight years before the present- day Wedgeport tournament was launched.
The museum will be a busy spot during tournament week.
“Usually around tournament time we see a lot of people in the museum,” Cottreau said.
In the summer, the facility draws visitors of just about all ages, he said, including tourists travelling with their families.
“After September, when school starts, we get a lot of older visitors, people who are travelling without kids, so it’s a different clientele,” he said.
Apart from showcasing the village’s sport tuna-fishing heritage – and serving as the focal point of activity for Wedgeport’s modernday tuna tournament and festival – the museum is used quite a bit as a community centre, Cottreau said, where meetings and the like are held.
“We get really good support from the locals,” he said.