Fort Ticonderoga celebrates National Maritime Day, May 22, with a new 2025 historic boat building program and narrated boat tours aboard the Carillon on Lake Champlain. The maritime trades program is available daily Tuesday-Sunday throughout the Campaign Season. The Carillon boat tours will begin by the end of May and run through October.
“In the midst of 250th Anniversaries of the Revolutionary War, events in 1775 played out on the waters surrounding Fort Ticonderoga, its strategic location deriving from this historic waterway. Visitors can explore the waters of Lake Champlain on board the classic 1920s-styled tour boat, Carillon, and discover the naval stories that surround Ticonderoga, and the archaeological discoveries beneath the lake,” said Beth L. Hill, Fort Ticonderoga President and CEO.
During this 250th period, this project will raise public awareness of Lake Champlain’s role in the Revolutionary War. Visitors to Fort Ticonderoga this year will be able to participate in daily maritime trades programs including historic boat building, allowing visitors a hands-on opportunity to explore sail-making, boat carpentry, and rigging in the earliest days of the Revolutionary War. Our daily maritime trades are funded in part by a generous grant from the National Park Service through the National Maritime Heritage Grant Program.
From July-October, our maritime trades will feature, Outfitting the Fleet for Freedom at Ticonderoga This project will produce components of the American gondola New York, including wooden framing pieces, rigging, and sails, which will serve as the basis for hands-on interpretation of the American fleet on Lake Champlain. Families will experience building the gondola New York, through hands-on exploration recreating components of this vessel of the 1776 American fleet on Lake Champlain as part of Fort Ticonderoga’s REAL TIME REVOLUTIONTM maritime trades program, celebrating 250th Anniversary milestones in the Revolutionary War. This project has been funded, in part, by the Lake Champlain Basin Program/NEIWPCC.
Students have the exclusive opportunity to explore hands-on maritime history during Fort Ticonderoga’s popular Maritime Artificers’ Apprentice program. Young learners can enjoy this immersive hands-on program, which connects networks of naval trades to applied physics and geometry thanks, in part, to support from the Lake Champlain Basin Program/NEIWPCC. Student learning opportunities in maritime trades are also available nationwide through Fort Ticonderoga’s Center for Digital History, thanks to support from the South Lake Champlain Fund of the Vermont Community Foundation.
Students and scouts can also experience rowing on Lake Champlain, aboard a bateau, the flat-bottomed wooden boat used by soldiers in the 18th century. This unparalleled experience teaches teamwork and discipline, along with maritime history.
Educators and Scout leaders can book these programs, and many more, by contacting Fort Ticonderoga Group Sales Manager, Ryann Wiktorko, at [email protected] or 518-585-1023.
About Fort Ticonderoga: Welcoming visitors since 1909, Fort Ticonderoga is an internationally renowned historic site, museum, and center for learning. As a multi-day destination and the premier place to learn more about North America’s military heritage, Fort Ticonderoga engages nearly 70,000 visitors each year on-site and millions through on-line programs and engagement. Presenting vibrant programs, historic interpretation, boat cruises, tours, demonstrations, and exhibits, Fort Ticonderoga is open for daily visitation May through October and special programs during Winter Quarters, November through April. Fort Ticonderoga is owned by The Fort Ticonderoga Association, a 501c3 non-profit educational organization, and is supported in part through generous donations and with some general operating support made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts. To view Fort Ticonderoga’s electronic press kit, click here.