The Gulf of Maine Expedition Institute
The Gulf of Maine Expedition Institute
was launched with the 2002 Gulf of Maine Expedition,
a sea kayaking journey organized to raise awareness
and caring about the ecology and cultural legacy
of this vast international watershed and to promote
low-impact
coastal recreational practices, safety, and stewardship
principles. For more information, see
Gulf
of Maine Expedition.
The Expedition sought to help people understand
the Gulf of Maine, its ecology, oceanography,
shoreline, watersheds, habitats, people, and
places. It was an ecological and cultural awareness
trip. The Expedition team hoped that in traveling
slowly, by kayak, they could gain, and convey
to others, a sense of the Gulf that could not
be obtained by other means of travel-a personal,
immediate sense of time and place.
Starting in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the
1,300-mile journey followed the shores of Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova
Scotia, ending five months later at Cape Sable
Island, Nova Scotia.
Team members met with over 3000 people either
through formal programming or impromptu educational
opportunities along the shore. Along the way,
the Expedition team stopped in 25 communities
where they presented the Gulf of Maine in an
evolving slide-show, delivered safety and stewardship
workshops, and learned from local residents about
the issues affecting them in these changing times.
The Expedition captured the imagination of people
far and near through media coverage in over 60
newspapers, radio and TV stations and website.
Maine Sea Grant was the lead sponsor of this
unique and successful educational effort. The
Expedition was a partnership of many organizations,
agencies, and businesses including the Maine
Coastal Program of the State Planning Office,
the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment,
Rippleffect, and the Maine Association of Sea
Kayak Guides and Instructors.
The team maintained a website for duration of
the journey. Field logs, photos and much more
are still available at www.gomexpedition.org.
The 100-page Gulf
of Maine Expedition Final Report (PDF
1.68 MB) covers the journey extensively.
Team members explain: "In
this account, the Expedition team hopes to provide
readers with a snapshot of the Gulf of Maine, as
we observed it during the summer of 2002. This
is not a comprehensive analysis of the Gulf; rather
it is a representation of the diverse people and
places we met during the Expedition. We hope that
the stories we have captured will form a basic
understanding of the important issues facing the
Gulf at the beginning of the 21st century, ranging
from fisheries to coastal access, from recreational
use to pollution, from coastal land use to tourism.
We encourage you to use these stories and data
to trace the Gulf of Maine's changing land and
seascape, and to help find solutions to complex
problems, both locally and regionally. For those
interested in the nuts and bolts of planning expeditions,
in general, or the Gulf of Maine Expedition, specifically,
we have included information on our safety and
Leave No Trace protocols, as well an overview of
our educational methods."
