New museum blends mythology of mermaids with ocean ecology

Weird museums are everywhere. There’s one devoted to mustard, one celebrating bad art and at least two focused on barbed wire.

A museum devoted to a mythical creature, though, brings things to a whole new level.

Enter Aberdeen’s International Mermaid Museum, which opened March 29.

The museum, on the grounds of the Westport Winery Garden Resort, features mannequins of the mythical half-human, half-aquatic beings, including a child-sized one costumed as Ariel, Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.” (More on that later.)

It also has a mermaid throne and a tail visitors can don to be mermaids for a minute.

But facts have their place there, too. The non-profit museum’s 40 displays cover ocean science. There’s an exhibit devoted to diving equipment and another that explores Westport’s charter boat industry.

“We’re pairing mermaid mythology with ocean ecology,” said museum director Kim Roberts, who with her husband, Blain Roberts, also owns the Westport Winery and Ocean’s Daughter Distillery. “It’s approachable for kids and informative for adults.”

More than 1,000 people per day visited the museum Saturday and Sunday, when special activities included appearances from professional mermaids and an Easter egg hunt, Roberts said, with visitors coming from as far away as Alaska.

“I think it really resonates with people,” she told The Olympian. “It’s not huge. It’s not well funded. It’s not like the Museum of Flight. But it completely conveys the magic of the underwater world.”

Mermaids figure in the mythologies of many cultures and in the displays at the museum. “It’s kind of like with Bigfoot,” she said. “Every culture has a story.”

One is devoted to Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea, said to have been thrown overboard by her father, who chopped her fingers off to prevent her from climbing into the boat. Her fingers, so the myth goes, became seals.

“Some of the mermaid stories are kind of dark,” Roberts said.

Ariel, the Disneyified version of a Hans Christian Andersen character, falls into that category.

The redheaded mermaid hangs out with Flounder, whose name inspired one of the museum’s displays. Though the animated Flounder is an angelfish, real flounder are fascinating creatures. The fish are born swimming upright and with one eye on each side of their bodies, but as they grow, they transform into flat bodied fish with both eyes on the same side.

The museum also covers manatees and dugongs, marine animals which are said to have led lonely sailors to imagine beautiful fish-women.

Besides the informational displays, the museum includes a selection of marine-themed art by local artists, a gift shop and a tasting room where visitors over 21 can sample Westport Winery wines and Ocean’s Daughter Distillery spirits.

When she decided to start the museum, Roberts could find no other museums devoted to the fish-tailed figures, except a pop-up one inspired by the television show “Sirens,” so she was disappointed when another one surfaced recently.

The Mermaid Museum in Berlin, Maryland, opened March 27 — two days before the Aberdeen museum.

International Mermaid Museum

• What: Fixtures in the myths of many cultures, the half-woman/half-fish creatures — and ocean science — are the focus of a new museum between Aberdeen and Westport.
• Where: 1 South Arbor Road, Aberdeen
• When: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. daily
• Tickets: Free
• More information: https://www.mermaidmuseum.org/ or 360-648-2224

This story was originally published April 8, 2021 at 5:45 AM.