Welcome to the Historic City of Marine on St. Croix!

Welcome to the official website for the City of Marine on St. Croix. Our city is located along the scenic St. Croix River, 12 miles north of Stillwater and 15 miles south of Taylors Falls.

The Village Hall, the community library, the Lutheran Church on the hill, the Stone House Museum, the Mill Site, the Fire Hall (built entirely by volunteer labor) are all sources of pride to the 700 or so residents of Marine.

Marine on St. Croix, founded as Marine Mills in 1839, was the site of the first commercial saw mill along the St. Croix River. The Mill Site is located behind and to the south of the Village Hall and has been declared a national historical site.

The ferry between Marine and the Wisconsin shore began operating in 1856 and continued until 1954. In 1870, the present General Store was built and has served the community ever since.

Crafts and articles from the daily life of early settlers are on display at the Stone House Museum which is staffed by members of the Marine Civic Club. The Stone House was built in 1872 and is an example of the stone architecture used by the early Swedish pioneers and was originally the town meeting house.

In 1888, the Village Hall was built. It continues to serve as the seat for community government and is the oldest village hall in the state still being used for governmental purposes. It is currently used for City Council and Planning Commission meetings, and houses the community library, which is also a branch of the Washington County Library system.

Once a busy river town with a population of 650 during the 1880's, Marine is now a community whose residents treasure the atmosphere of a friendly small town and county life with the advantages of being near a metropolitan area. In 1964, a group of residents established the Restoration Society to preserve the unique quality of this historical riverside town as it enjoys new growth and the advantages of both city and country living.

Catie Bursch – Marine Educator and Illustrator

An Artist in the Service of Science
By Riley Woodford

Catie Bursch belongs to a guild of artists who bring extinct animals to life, make the unseen visible, and put the enormity of the universe on paper.

Bursch is a scientific illustrator and a marine educator with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, working at the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve in Homer. She’s drawn her share of fish, plankton, plants and animals, but she said scientific illustration goes way beyond drawing critters for guide books.

“There are no photos of dinosaurs, but by studying and synthesizing all the information available, illustrators can reflect the findings of science,” she said. “It goes from drawing a virus, which no one can see, to drawing the solar system. You have to create a vision, using scientific facts.”

While art reflects culture, scientific illustration reflects the findings of science, she said. “Scientific papers are one form of communication; this is another form of communication, visual communication.”

“You’re an artist in the service of science, and you have a directive,” she added. “You’re trying to get something across scientifically. If someone is trying to key a fish out, you’re going to draw it differently than if you are showing how beautifully it moves through the water.”

Sometimes that means drawing a completely realistic rendition of a specimen, and sometimes it means taking liberties.

“Right now I’m working on illustrations of salmon, some of these might end up in the reg books, helping anglers to quickly ID between steelhead, coho, and king salmon,” she said. There’s no color, and the emphasis is on other details - the outline, where the spots are, the color of the inside of the mouth. “You take artistic license to communicate more effectively.”

Other times it means following accepted scientific illustrator’s protocol. A fish always faces left and every single fish scale is drawn. The artist shows the rays of the fins, and counts the rays so it’s the correct number.

Photographs are hard to work from, Bursch said, as it’s easy to distort or skew the proportions. “By far it’s best to work from a real specimen. Generally it’s preserved, and often I’ll have it pinned out – I carve the Styrofoam (base) so it lies correctly, then I pin it so the fins spread out. I need the measurements and proportions accurate. It can be time consuming.” That also involves periodic breaks to re-wet the specimen with alcohol or other preservatives.

Bursch began working for the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve in the spring of 2004. While drawing is often a solitary pastime, the bulk of her work at KBRR is in education, helping the public and school groups expand their knowledge of Kachemak Bay and its workings. She teaches classes and organizes Discovery Labs at the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center, where KBRR is housed, and goes into schools and biology classes, and takes students outside as well.

“I use illustration a lot with outreach, and incorporate drawing with many of our classes,” she said. “You can look at something forever, but if you have to draw it, you really get to know it. Asking kids to draw really slows them down, gets them to focus on observational skills.”

Bursch has also worked with Outward Bound Schools and the National Park Service. A few years ago she produced a series of botanical illustrations for Wrangell-St. Elias Park, a series on “What’s blooming this week.” In recent years she’s created a set of colored pencil drawings of marine invertebrates for display on the Alaska Marine Highway ferries. The illustrations have been reproduced and laminated as table-top displays. She also contributed a number of illustrations to a plankton guide that the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve uses in their lab classroom.

Bursch has also commercial fished for almost 25 years. “I went to college for one year in environmental education, and then I moved to Alaska in 1981 and started commercial fishing. I did a lot of different things, and then about five years ago, when my kids didn’t need me at home so much, I decided to finish my degree, and I studied both art and science.”

She took classes at Kenai Peninsula College in Homer, and then finished off in Anchorage at Alaska Pacific University. She earned a self-designed degree, liberal studies with emphasis in scientific illustrations. She’s still commercial fishing, and her family set nets for salmon in Bristol Bay.

An important part of her education came from outside academia, in the company of other artists. “I always drew my whole life, and I was mostly self-taught,” she said. “About eight years ago I heard about this organization, the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators. They have a national annual conference. I’ve been attending those conferences and learning from the people in that group. They’ve also published a big book that’s like my bible for scientific illustration, ‘The Guild Handbook of Scientific Illustration.’”

She’s been drawing a lot of fish lately, focusing on under-rated forage fish, as part of a larger project. “There’s been a lot done on sport fish, but we need to understand the fish these guys eat, one level deeper, the fish the sport fish eat, and that seabirds depend on.”

Bursch said she loves spending time outdoors poking around and then drawing what she finds. She and her husband and two daughters often spend their free time fishing, hiking, or skiing in Homer, Bristol Bay and the Wrangell Mountains.

More on Spending Uncle Sam's Money

This view of the Senate Chamber was painted by T. Dart Walker in the late 1890s after observing a busy congressional work day. The scene was then engraved for the front cover of the December 23, 1899, issue of Leslie’s Weekly and titled Spending Uncle Sam’s Money: Senators Introducing the Customary Batch of Miscellaneous Bills at the Opening of the Session of Congress. Walker was born in Indiana, studied in Paris, and was known as an illustrator and marine artist. His work appeared in popular magazines of the period, such as Harper’s Weekly, the Graphic, and the Illustrated London News, and included scenes of political life, national events, and everyday activities.

This scene, painted in the late 1890s, depicts the U.S. Senate Chamber as it appeared at the opening of a session of Congress. Senators have just introduced the various bills to be considered during the session, and the large number of papers indicates that a heavy workload lies before them. New York illustrator T. Dart Walker captured the scene from the press gallery located on the north side of the Chamber. Below this gallery, but not illustrated, is the rostrum where the presiding officer of the Senate sits. Until recent years the vice president of the United States, as president of the Senate, presided regularly over Senate debates from this vantage point.

In the center of the painting three Senate staff members sit in front of the presiding officer's desk. Most likely these men are, from left to right, the secretary of the Senate, the legislative clerk, and the reading clerk. Immediately in front, at two smaller tables below the rostrum, sit official reporters and press reporters. Meanwhile, in the background, senators talk with one another in the "well" of the Chamber or at their desks, which are arranged in a semi-circle with Republicans on the left and Democrats on the right.

Two Senate pages appear in the scene: One is seated below the clerks' desk, and another crosses the Senate floor. The position of Senate page was first created in 1829. By the turn of the century the Senate employed at least 17 young boys as pages. Dressed in blue knickers and jackets, the pages spent their days running errands for the senators, announcing impending votes, placing papers and pens on the senators' desks, and delivering messages throughout the city.

The New Maritime Museum

The new Western Australian Maritime Museum on Victoria Quay, Fremantle was opened to the public on Sunday, December 1 by the Premier of Western Australia, Hon Dr Geoff Gallop. The development of the new Western Australian Maritime Museum is a Western Australian State Government initiative.

The building looks out towards the western horizon, another symbol of the Museum’s intention to look outwards to Western Australia’s contemporary role in the Indian Ocean region. The site for the Museum was chosen because of its great historical and cultural significance and its position in the working port, making it the ideal place to tell the stories of Western Australia’s early explorers, trade routes, naval defence, migration and the cultural richness that has resulted.

The New Galleries

As the first Museum of the Indian Ocean, the new Western Australian Maritime Museum looks at the past and our future as a community on the edge of the Indian Ocean. With significant historic objects and boats that highlight Western Australias sporting and adventure heritage, the exhibitions tell the stories of human endeavour that bring to life our maritime past.The exhibitions have been developed by the Western Australian Museum in conjunction with Melbourne design company Cunningham Martyn Design.

The new Museum has six themed galleries:

• The Indian Ocean-
• Tin Canoe to Australia II
• Fremantle and the Swan River
• Hooked on Fishing- Cargoes
• Naval Defence

Maritime History and Archaeology

The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory's Maritime Gallery houses the largest museum collection of Southeast Asian historic boats and ethnographic watercraft in Australia and possibly in the world. The Gallery has a permanent display of 21 boats and canoes.Darwin is often regarded as being part of the Southeast Asian region because of its closer proximity to Asian cities such as Singapore and Jakarta, rather than Australian cities such as Sydney, or Melbourne.

The Maritime Gallery clearly reflects this regional bias, indeed the collection policy that has driven the acquisition of this unique collection over the last 25 years, has demanded it. The region, defined as "North Australia (the area to the north of Broome on the west coast and Townsville on the east coast), Southeast Asia (including southern China) and the westernPacific (as far east as the islands of Fiji) has the greatest diversity of boat types from which to choose anywhere in the world.

Individual craft displayed in the Gallery include, an Australian pearling lugger (actually gaff, rather than lug rigged), a Vietnamese refugee boat, a Chinese refugee boat, Indonesian perahu lambo (gunter rigged sloops) and a perahu lete lete (lateen rigged). In addition, there are several smaller planked craft and double outrigger canoes including a fine Balinese jukung.

One of the most outstanding Indonesian boats on display was specifically commissioned by the MAGNT and built in a traditional manner by a boat building community in south-east Sulawesi. Known as a perahu padawakang, this type of historic boat was the kind of vessel that the Makassans sailed the Timor and Arafura seas during the nineteenth century to reach northern Australia in search of trepang, turtle shell and other marine products.

Several examples of watercraft from the western Pacific are also on display. These include a very rare balangut, an inter-island trading canoe from Riwo near Madang in Papua New Guinea, a war canoe from the Solomon Islands and beautiful single outrigger canoe from Fiji. There are also a number of single outrigger canoes.Recognised by many scholars as a vital source for future studies in maritime technology and cultural studies, the maritime historian, archaeologist, anthropologist, school group or enthusiast will not be disappointed. The Maritime History andArchaeology section also undertakes maritime heritage surveys and administers the Historic Shipwrecks Program in the NT for the Australian Government.

Maritime Gallery

The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory's (MAGNT) Maritime Gallery houses the largest museum collection of Southeast Asian historic boats and ethnographic watercraft in Australia. The Gallery has a permanent display of 21 boats and canoes. Darwin is often regarded as being part of the Southeast Asian region because of its closer proximity to Asian cities such as Singapore and Jakarta, rather than Australian cities such as Sydney, or Melbourne.

The Maritime Gallery clearly reflects this regional bias: indeed the collection policy that has driven the acquisition of this unique collection over the last 25 years, has demanded it. The region, defined as ‘North Australia’ (the area to the north of Broome on the west coast and Townsville on the east coast), Southeast Asia (including southern China) and the western Pacific (as far east as the islands of Fiji) has the greatest diversity of boat types anywhere in the world.

Individual craft displayed in the Gallery include an Australian pearling lugger (actually gaff, rather than lug rigged), a Vietnamese refugee boat, a Chinese refugee boat, Indonesian perahu lambo (gunter rigged sloop) and a perahu lete lete (lateen rigged). In addition, there are several smaller planked craft and double outrigger canoes, including a fine Balinese jukung. One of the most outstanding Indonesian boats on display was specifically commissioned by the MAGNT and built in a traditional manner by a boat building community in south-east Sulawesi. Known as a perahu padewakang, this type of historic boat was the kind of vessel that the monsoon traders (known as the Macassans) sailed the Timor and Arafura seas during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to reach northern Australia in search of trepang, turtle shell and other marine products.

Several examples of watercraft from the western Pacific are also on display. These include a very rare balangut, an inter-island trading canoe from Riwo near Madang in Papua New Guinea, a war canoe from the Solomon Islands, and beautiful single outrigger canoe from Fiji. There are also a number of single outrigger canoes.

Marine Painting

As early as colonial times, Atlantic ports such as Boston, New York, Baltimore, and Charleston were established hubs of American commerce. It was common for wealthy ship owners, mariners, and merchants to commission pictures of the boats and activities by which they made their living. Following British and Dutch models, many artists specialized in marine paintings.

The first American marine paintings centered on the ports themselves, which were often viewed across the water as if from the deck of a ship. These harbor scenes frequently included ship traffic and illustrated mercantile activities along the wharves, suggesting the prosperity of America's flourishing maritime industry. In ship paintings, a harbor view might indicate the vessel's home port, as in Thomas Chambers' New York Harbor with Pilot Boat "George Washington".

Throughout the nineteenth century, proud ship owners commissioned individual portraits of their commercial vessels and racing yachts. Marine painters became skilled not only at precisely delineating the rigging of sailing ships but also at capturing effects of water and sky. The standard format showed the boat broadside, under full sail or steam, generally with other craft in the distance and perhaps a glimpse of the far shore.

In the mid-nineteenth century, marine painting shifted emphasis from man to nature. No longer interested in illustrations of commerce, artists like John Frederick Kensett and Fitz Henry Lane strove to capture the spiritual qualities of sea and sky. These scenes may include ships and human figures, but the true subject is the mood evoked by the crystalline atmosphere and pervading sense of serenity. Now called luminist works, these paintings indicate a change in the prevailing attitude toward the natural world.

Martin Johnson Heade and Thomas Moran were interested in more naturalistic representations. The unearthly calm of luminist works was replaced by realistic seascapes in which the viewer can almost hear the crashing surf. Winslow Homer added figures to this natural realism and reintroduced the human element to marine painting. His works focus on man's relationship with nature, and he uses the sea to embody nature's power. It is a constant and varied element, depicted both as provider of subsistence and a life-threatening force.

The impressionists favored another aspect of marine painting--that of leisure. Their interest in the sea had more to do with light and color than using a body of water as a dramatic device. Their stylistic methods provided artists with new ways to present intimate aspects of the sea, such as the picturesque coves and seasides dotted with revelers represented by Maurice Prendergast.

Twentieth-century artists experimented with a variety of styles and techniques in their interpretations of the sea. Modernist John Marin captured the ocean's energy with exuberant brushwork and abstract geometric shapes. Mark Rothko used surrealist-inspired biomorphic forms to suggest sea creatures in a primordial marine world. Albert Christ-Janer's lithograph combines the brilliant color of sun, sea, and sky with the rhythmic patterns of foaming waves. Vija Celmins approaches total abstraction in her quiet, meditative ocean views.