Since the next active programming was not scheduled until the fall of 1993, to the west on Oneida Lake, "Discovery" spent the rest of the summer on loan as a field exhibit of the State Museum at the Erie Canal Village.

Click on any image to enlarge

The Erie Canal Village Museum at Rome provided a venue for "Discovery" that was in the historic Erie Canal next to a replica canal boat of that era.

On July 10th, as part of the Canal Days program at the Museum, the crew of "Discovery" came out to talk to the public and demonstrate operation of the batteau on the old canal.

At the mooring post in the Old Erie Canal, the batteau was prepared for a rather confined demonstration navigation in a waterway designed for mule-drawn barges in the 1840s.

As always, any time two or three people gathered to see what we were doing, we stopped being boatmen and started being educators.

By the end of the exhibit period, on September 15th, hundreds of people had seen the State Museum's boat, had read the interpretive signs, and had come to understand inland transportation in the 1790s.

---