The Unusual Views at the Libby Museum

Happy weekend everyone. Last Tuesday I took you all on a visit to the Libby Museum which is a natural history museum in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. I want to take you back today and show you some unusual things .

Like these Inuit (Eskimo) masks. I am not sure if they are from Alaska, Canada or Greenland.

And a little bit of Inuit art too.

 The ones in this last photo are pretty scary looking. I wonder if they  represent evil spirits or if they are supposed to scare away evil spirits.

I've never heard of  birthing eggs before, but I imagine Mom did a lot of squeezing.

And this emu egg looks pretty cool and I like the carved kangaroo.

 Then there are these fish bills-one off a swordfish  and one from a marlin. And then there's this carved scrimshaw cribbage board made of carved ivory or whale bone. This is no longer legal to produce from ivory and whale bone I believe. Now they sometimes get made from plastic or other animal bones. But back in the days when there was a lot of whaling in New England the sailors would spent  their sailing time craving these. The carving are amazing but also the fact they are made from whale a little sad.

And this mastodon tooth fossil.

Not the best photo but this giant shark tooth. I know there is nothing to compare it too, but it was much bigger than my hand, The card says the shark was 75 feet long (almost 23 meters). Holy cow.

And this chunk of wood may not look like much but it is a Native American dugout canoe. The Abenaki who lived here (but had moved north by the time Europeans settled New Hampshire) made this. They would take a tree and hollow it out to serve as a canoe. Now the coolest thing about this canoe to my husband and myself was that it was found and dug out of some sand in the shallows of the lake.just down the lake from where my mother-in-law lives. My husband had been going there all his life before his Mom moved in to live there year round.

An excuse the light reflections, this is cool piece of mulberry paper from Fiji.

 And lastly, a bit of Egyptian tomb paraphernalia.

 Mummy hands. It seems weird someone would have just the hands. And the rings are rather fascinating.

The case of a mummified  ibis bird. 

 And the bird itself.

This museum's collection really was eclectic.

And fascinating. And even a little weird.

Thanks for visiting.

Enjoy your weekend.

T Stands for a Curiosity

Happy Tuesday my T Day friends. Time to share our drink related posts over at 

Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog.

But before we have T this week, first we're going to go on a little outing.

This past Saturday was Smithsonian Free Museum Day here in the US. If you went online and supplied your email you could print out a ticket to let 2 people visit the museum of your choice. (Not all museums participate so this only applies to participating museums.) It was one set of tickets per email. Since my husband and I both have our own emails, we got tickets to 2 different small museums  in the town next to ours. Maybe w are cheating a bit but neither museum we visited was very large and could be visited in about and hour. He picked the Antique Boat Museum and I picked the Libby Museum of Natural History.

I took lots of photos, but today I thought I would share a few photos from the Libby Museum.

This museum was started by a Dr. Libby, a man who lived from 1850-1933 and during his life he collected many natural specimen. I think that was a common habit during the late 1880's and early 1900's. Between his collection and other donations, this museum has quite an  eclectic collection.

Like this polar bear.

I have never seen the extinct passenger pigeon before either.

A moose, although I wouldn't want to come this close to a wild moose. But back in college there was a baby moose that had been abandoned by his mother  in the wildlife sanctuary area. They had named the moose Alfie and he gave me a big lick once. (The area wasn't open to the public but a friend of mine worked there and took me back for a visit.)

And the museum had various owl species that live here in New Hampshire.

The expressions on some these owls are full of personality.

Most of these specimen are from when the museum opened in 1912.  I loved reading the old display info on the exhibit cards.

 A gator. Not a local animal here in New Hampshire.

 This cute face is a juvenile fisher or what we locally refer to as fisher cats. They are not cats but are actually related to weasels, only larger. And not so cute when they are adults. In fact you have to be careful they are not around if you let your cats or even small dogs outside.

 A raccoon and then a black bear.

 And this beaver looks pretty funny in this position.

Hope you enjoyed these animals. 

I still have some of the  unusual items they had to share with you. I'll show you more of those another day soon.

But first, after all that museum going, you probably need to sit down and relax with a little early dinner.

What do you say, Mexican food? We haven't had that in quite some time.

Let's start with a margarita and some chips and salsa. It is Saturday night after all.

Then we'll move on to a burrito and some rice and beans. Yum.
It was a good dinner and a great relaxing way to wind up a good day.
Thanks for visiting my blog.
Have a great day!