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Launch of the Gundalow
PISCATAQUA

Saturday December 10, 2011
Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Click to view slideshow--more photos of the launch coming soon.

The word “Piscataqua” comes from the Native-American Abenaki – “Peske” means “branch” and “tegwe” is a river with a strong current.

LAUNCH SPONSORS
Appledore Real Estate
Piscataqua Savings Bank
RBC Wealth Management
Portsmouth Recreation

Launch In-Kind Support
CMA Engineers
Friends of the South End
Lamprey Energy
McLane Law Firm
PPMTV
Portsmouth Gas Light Company
Portsmouth Harbor Towing
Prescott Park
Strawbery Banke
Ron Walton, Signmaker

Launch Professional Services
Geddes Building Movers
Ralph Morang Photography
Gordon Webster, Bagpiper

Welcome to the launching of the new gundalow!

We can all feel fortunate today to live, work and play in a stunningly beautiful place – a place steeped in history and a place known as the Piscataqua Region that is defined by its connection to a network of rivers and bays. We – Gundalow Company board, staff, professional boat builders, and volunteers – built this new gundalow as a way to celebrate the past, present and future of the Piscataqua Region – this area of a dozen towns along 8 rivers, bays and harbors in coastal New Hampshire and southern Maine. A place which 350 years ago was known simply as “Piscataqua” – because the Piscataqua River is the thread that connects all the riverfront towns and because the Piscataqua was the major highway that supported the economic development of all the towns connected by water.

Gundalows – these flat bottomed sailing cargo barges – have been central to this place for almost 400 years- although it has been almost exactly 100 years since a gundalow has carried cargo between Portsmouth and upriver communities. Hundreds of gundalows dominated the rivers in the Piscataqua region – off-loading cargo from ocean going ships that arrived in Portsmouth, then carrying that cargo up the Piscataqua River to the Salmon Falls River to South Berwick, the Cochecho and Bellamy Rivers to Dover, the Oyster River to Durham, across Little Bay and Great Bay to the Lamprey River to Newmarket, the Squamscott River to Exeter, and the Winnicut River to Greenland. Gundalows traveled east along the coast to the York River and to the west to Hampton and Rye Harbors.

This is the Piscataqua Region.
We built this new gundalow for YOU!

A trip on the new gundalow will give people the chance to experience and care about our rivers – and if we care about our rivers we will protect them. This new gundalow will awaken in all of us a “sense of place” – a link to the past but also a bridge to the future as we confront the results of 400 years of human impact on our rivers. We want this new gundalow to be a sailing classroom for kids growing up in this area and we want it to be an attraction for locals so you can experience your rivers from the deck of a regionally significant historic vessel. And we want this to be a tourist attraction that sets the Piscataqua Region apart from other seaport towns. Where else in the WORLD can you go sailing on a gundalow but here?!

As of today it is time to stop calling her the NEW Gundalow and begin calling her by the name that combines the history of this place with a message of hope and action that will protect this sense of place for the future.

We launch thee Piscataqua – long may she sail and carry a message of hope and action to protect our rivers!

Molly Bolster, Executive Director, Gundalow Company