McCurdy Smokehouse Museum

Discover

McCurdy Smokehouse Museum makes Lubec's waterfront history specific through the work of preserving a small fish. The museum occupies the former skinning and packing shed of a herring-smoking business, placing interpretation inside part of the process it explains. This is an industrial-history visit, not a working commercial smokehouse or a seafood tasting promise. Confirm the current seasonal opening with Lubec Landmarks, then come prepared to follow a sequence of labor from the arrival of a catch to the packing of a finished product.

The process began with fish brought in by boat and placed in brine. From there, workers prepared them for hanging on long wooden sticks, drying and smoking. Each stage asked something different of the buildings and the people using them. A useful way to follow the interpretation is to keep asking what had to happen next. The final product depended on a whole chain of tasks, rather than simply putting fish above a fire. That sequence turns modest equipment into evidence of coordination, skill and repeated physical work.

The buildings' waterfront position matters just as much. Parts of the complex stand on pilings beside the Lubec Narrows, relating production directly to a tidal shore. From an authorized visitor position, consider the relationship between structures, water and the movement of materials. Do not interpret an old industrial building as an invitation to explore unsupported edges or closed spaces. The museum's permitted route provides the framework for understanding a working landscape whose surfaces and structures were designed for purposes quite different from casual sightseeing.

People give that landscape its strongest voice. The museum describes interpretation shaped by former employees, and its docents explain the labor of pickling, smoking and processing. When available, those memories can connect a tool with a gesture or a job with a working day. Ask about divisions of labor and the stages that required particular experience. A museum demonstration or explanation can make a sequence clear without claiming that historic production has resumed. The distinction is part of the visit's appeal: preserving a record of work after the business itself has ended.

McCurdy's ceased commercial operation in 1991, and the skinning and packing shed opened as a museum in 2007. Those dates frame a transition from making a product to preserving knowledge about how it was made. The nearby Mulholland Market building, once a grocery and later used for storage, adds another layer through a gallery and gift shop supporting preservation. Check its separate opening arrangements if you want to include it. The two spaces can connect the area's historic economy with the cultural work involved in caring for its surviving buildings today.

Leave time to look again at the waterfront after the explanation inside. A stick, a packing container or a building on pilings can now suggest a sequence of people and tasks, rather than simply an attractive remnant of an old coast. The museum and gallery rely on volunteers, so confirming access before a special trip is worthwhile. McCurdy's is most rewarding when the fish remains at the center of the story: caught, salted, handled, smoked and packed by people whose work linked Lubec with markets far beyond the narrows.

Fun facts

1. Commercial herring smoking at McCurdy’s ended in 1991.
2. The skinning and packing shed opened as a museum in 2007.
3. The complex’s buildings served different stages of herring processing.

Read the official sources →

Visitor perspectives

1. On a 2016 College of the Atlantic field trip, students valued a former owner’s account and the processing artifacts for making the industry’s labor understandable. This was a course visit; the same guide and displays are not guaranteed today.

Capture

1. From a permitted visitor position, compose the buildings’ relationship with the tidal waterfront without entering restricted structures or approaching unstable edges.
2. Ask the docent before photographing a processing artifact; use its context to show function without staging equipment or implying active production.

Social

McCurdy Smokehouse Museum tells Lubec history through the work of processing herring.

The museum occupies the former skinning and packing shed, linking interpretation with a working space.

Brining, hanging, drying, smoking and packing formed a chain of skilled tasks.

Look at how the waterfront buildings relate to the movement of fish and materials.

Former employees’ knowledge helps connect equipment with the people who used it.

Commercial operation ended in 1991; museum interpretation began in the packing shed in 2007.

The Mulholland Market Gallery adds another use for the preserved complex. Check its own hours.

Confirm current volunteer availability before a special trip to the museum.

Hashtags

1. #Cre8Travel
2. #Maine
3. #Lubec
4. #McCurdySmokehouse
5. #IndustrialHeritage

Sources & visitor information

• www.mccurdysmokehouse.org
• www.maine.gov