Times of the Islands Fall 2016

astrolabe
newsletter of the Turks & Caicos National Museum
front street, p.o. box 188, grand turk, turks & caicos islands, bwi
tel 649 946 2160 • fax 649 946 2160 • email info@tcmuseum.org • web www.tcmuseum.org
This illustration depicts a Massachusetts fishing schooner from c. 1905 trailed by one of the Caicos Islands’ Ghost Fleet ships drawn as
“graffiti” on the wall of St. James Plantation in North Caicos. The resemblance is astonishing!
DONALD H. KEITH
Partnerships
By Dr. Donald H. Keith, President, Turks & Caicos National Museum Foundation
There is a lot of important work to be done here in the Turks & Caicos Islands—environmental protection
and conservation, cultural preservation, historical and archaeological research, and improvements
in education—to name but a few. The TCI Government is doing what it can to address these needs, but
it has its limits. Meanwhile, opportunities for charities, businesses, schools, and cultural institutions to
work together to build a better society abound.
As I was preparing this edition of the Astrolabe it occurred to me that virtually every article or item
in it represents a partnership between the TCI Museum and local or international entities. With the Royal
Bank of Canada and the Department of Environment and Coastal Resources to maintain the agricultural,
native plant, and medicinal plant garden at the Caicos Heritage House. With the British Library’s
Endangered Archives Programme to locate, preserve, and digitize documents important to the history of
the Islands. With high schools and travel agencies on Providenciales to sponsor the National History and
Cultural Heritage Quiz. And with individual citizens such as Capt. Willard E. Kennedy to preserve their
memoirs.
The potential of such cooperative partnerships is limitless. In fact, our article about the Ghost Fleet
opens the door to a major cooperative, interdisciplinary effort to investigate what remains of the Loyalist
period in the Caicos Islands. We are all stronger when we work together. a
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