Cranberry Celebration Day

Saturday, September 26

10 am-2 pm

Enjoy a fun-filled day at Heritage featuring live music, kids’ activities, hands-on crafts, and the chance to explore cranberry history and culture. Highlights include:

• Visit a real cranberry bog – on wheels!– The Massachusetts Cranberries organization’s Traveling Bog brings live plants to Heritage, including exhibit information and the opportunity to learn about growing cranberries from an accompanying expert. https://www.cranberries.org/traveling-bog
• Make your own “bog in a cup” to take home – Create a miniature, contained environment to grow a cranberry vine, replicating the soil layers of a natural cranberry bog.
• Dance to performances by the Sound Dunes Big Band – This multi-piece band will play a variety of music – including favorites from “The Great American Songbook.”
• Take part in kids’ activities – including story times, hands-on cranberry experiments, take-home cranberry craft making, and trying on waders for a fun photo op!
• Explore Hidden Hollow’s cranberry theme, Bog Squad – Learn about members of the Bog Squad and how they help cranberries grow!
• Experience the Cranberries: From Cape Cod to American Icon exhibit – Did you know that the first cranberry farms began right here on Cape Cod? Watch historic harvest video footage, try your hand at using a real antique cranberry harvesting scoop, see a giant bottle of cranberry juice cocktail, take home a vintage recipe, and more as you learn how cranberries have shaped the culture, economics, and environment of Cape Cod for hundreds of years.
• Explore artifacts from Heritage’s cranberry collection with the curatorial team: See artifacts from Heritage’s cranberry history collection – the largest museum cranberry history collection in the country!
• Winners of the cranberry sauce contest will be announced at 11:30 am.

Wampanoag Heritage Day

Saturday, August 22 - This date has now passed.

10 am-2 pm

Join us for the sixth annual Wampanoag Heritage Day, a fun-filled celebration of Wampanoag culture at Heritage featuring a variety of activities from 10 am-2 pm, including:

• 11:30 am-12:15 pm: Watch a performance by the Wampanoag Nation Singers and Dancers of eastern social songs and dances (with audience participation encouraged!)
• Craft a corn husk doll to take home
• Explore the wetu, a reproduction of a historic dwelling, the mush8n, a reproduction dug-out canoe, and the Three Sisters demonstration garden, all created in collaboration with local Wampanoag partners
• View and learn about historic Wampanoag artifacts found on the land that is now Heritage Museums & Gardens
• Visit a native artisan to shop for handcrafted contemporary wampum jewelry

All activities are free with museum admission or membership.

About the Performers:

The Wampanoag Nation Singers and Dancers are a group of musicians, educators, and artisan from the tribal communities of Mashpee on Cape Cod, Aquinnah on Martha’s Vineyard, and Herring Pond in Bourne. Their performances of eastern social songs and dances have both educated and entertained audiences of all ages in museums, schools, and various multicultural events. They dress in traditional clothing and their songs are accompanied by a water drum and handcrafted rattles. They encourage audience participation and prefer to dance with the people instead of for the people.

In addition to their performances at Heritage, they have appeared at Jacob’s Pillow, the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, The Peabody Essex Museum, Cambridge Arts Council, The Mary Baker Library, Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, Mashpee Powwow, Aptucxet Trading Post Museum, Stonehill College, Brown University, and more. They have toured throughout New England and as far away as Bermuda, Hawaii and the United Kingdom. For three years they have participated in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, heading up the First Light Float and delivering the televised land acknowledgement.