A 26-foot giant squid hangs inside the gallery at 301 Main Street. It is built entirely from plastic collected on Long Island beaches. A few rooms away, visitors work old ciphers to find hidden messages left in the spirit of the Culper Spy Ring. That activity is the last running piece of a year-long program the museum built for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The squid will stay into 2027. The spy hunt ends with December, and as of this week the museum is open four days out of seven.
The anniversary year runs on a four-day week
The Whaling Museum's fall and winter hours are Thursday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Two exceptions are posted: Veterans Day, Wednesday, Nov. 11, and Dec. 28 through 30, all 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Counting from Thursday, Nov. 5, through Dec. 31, the posted schedule adds up to 37 open days. In summer, nine weeks would mean far more. Every weekend errand, school break and holiday dinner competes for the same Thursday-to-Sunday slots.
That matters most for "Secrets & Spies," which the museum lists as running July through December during gallery hours. The activity is self-guided. Visitors move through the galleries hunting for hidden messages, use historical ciphers to crack codes, and earn a junior spy kit when they finish. It costs $5 for members and admission plus $10 for other participants.
Admission itself is modest. Adults pay $8, seniors 65 and over $6, children 4 to 17 $6. Children 3 and under, members and active military with ID get in free. The museum has no parking lot, but unmetered street parking is usually available on the block. Cold Spring Harbor's free town lot, next to the post office between 90 and 126 Main Street, is about a five-minute walk.
Why a whaling museum took on 1776
The anniversary program, called "Liberty at Sea," starts from local history. The museum describes Long Island whalers of the Revolutionary War era as the most ardent supporters of independence. They brought maritime skill and a readiness to take up arms, or sails, against British rule. The Whaling Museum Society was founded in 1936 to keep the community connected to whaling, one of Long Island's earliest major industries.
Earlier in the year the program included a Crafts & Cocktails night called Secret Signals, where guests sipped a "Three Dots & a Dash" and spelled a code into a beaded bracelet. It also ran a scrimshaw workshop, a Beyond the Book session on The Indispensables, and a 250 Passport Book whale stamp. The Culper code hunt is the part still open to anyone who walks in.
November, by date
The rest of the fall calendar follows the same approach as the anniversary program. Each event starts from something sailors actually did, ate or read.
| Date | Program | Time | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thu, Nov. 12 | Crafts & Cocktails: Corn Husk Figures | 6:30 p.m., adults | $35; $25 members |
| Sun, Nov. 15 | Pickle Party: Pickle-Making Workshop & Tasting | 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., all ages | $15 plus admission; $10 members |
| Wed, Nov. 18 | Beyond the Book: Gales of November | 6:30 p.m., adults | Free for members and eligible library patrons; $15 otherwise |
The corn husk night looks at the folklore of the corn husk doll, a craft rooted in the Indigenous agricultural traditions of North America. It comes with an apple-infused "Golden Harvest" cocktail or mocktail. The pickle workshop is timed for National Pickle Day. It covers what whalers ate at sea, including pickles, and the science of food preservation, and everyone goes home with a decorated jar of their own pickles. The 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. sessions register separately.
Both evening programs fall outside gallery hours. Nov. 12 starts well after the 4 p.m. close, and Nov. 18 is a Wednesday, when the galleries are closed. That makes them the easiest Whaling Museum dates to fit around a work week.
A Great Lakes shipwreck at a Long Island whaling museum
The Nov. 18 Beyond the Book session takes up John U. Bacon's Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The book revisits the 1975 sinking of the freighter. The museum says the discussion will cover the challenges of navigating inland seas, the dangers commercial mariners face, and how weather forecasting, ship design and maritime safety have changed since the wreck. Book club sessions are led by museum educators and include a close look at artifacts, documents related to the text, and a themed snack.
The fee structure makes this one of the best values on the calendar for anyone with a nearby library card. The session is free for museum members and for patrons of the Cold Spring Harbor, Huntington and South Huntington libraries. Everyone else pays $15.
The week the doors stay open every day
December starts the same way November does, with one adult evening and one weekend drop-in:
- Thu, Dec. 10, 6:30 p.m. Crafts & Cocktails: Cookie Decorating, sugar cookies with royal icing and a seasonal cocktail or mocktail. $35, or $25 for members.
- Sat, Dec. 12, noon to 2 p.m. Sea Glass Ornament Workshop, a drop-in on identifying sea glass by color, age and origin, then making an ornament. Admission plus $10, or $5 for members.
The schedule changes at the end of the month. Thursday, Dec. 24 through Sunday, Dec. 27 are regular open days. The special hours cover Monday through Wednesday, Dec. 28 to 30, and Thursday, Dec. 31 falls back into the normal week. On the posted schedule, that leaves no midweek closure from Dec. 24 through Dec. 31, the only such stretch of the off-season. It also lines up with the school break. The museum has put three drop-ins inside that window:
- Sun, Dec. 27, noon to 2 p.m. Needle Felted Penguins, with a hot cocoa bar and a look at penguin adaptations before visitors sculpt their own. Admission plus $10, or $5 for members.
- Tue, Dec. 29, noon to 2 p.m. Candle Dipping Workshop. Visitors hand-dip a tinted candle, decorate a holder, and see whale blubber and oil from the collection, which were once used for lighting. Admission plus $10, or $5 for members.
- Thu, Dec. 31, 11 a.m. to noon. Nautical New Year. The museum ties the New Year's Eve ball to an old nautical timekeeping tradition and counts down to 12 noon, with self-serve crafts all day. Included with admission.
Dec. 31 is also the last listed day for "Secrets & Spies." For a family that hasn't done the code hunt yet, that week is the most flexible chance left.
Medusa stays after the anniversary ends
The anniversary program ends with the year. The museum's current special exhibition, "Monsters & Mermaids," is on view until Labor Day 2027. It looks at how sailors used myths to explain nature. It also traces the long human interest in mermaids, from cave paintings to fashion trends to coffee cups, and lets visitors sketch sea creatures from historical descriptions.
Its centerpiece is "Medusa," the giant squid by Cindy Pease Roe, a Greenport multimedia artist and the founder of UpSculpt. She built it from debris collected on local shores. The museum credits the New York State Council on the Arts and Suffolk County with supporting the commission through an artist grant award. Families who see the squid this winter will have another chance through next summer. The spy kit won't be offered after December.
The same weeks around the head of the harbor
A few other dated events nearby fit around the museum's schedule:
- Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery & Aquarium fall crafts. A wood bird feeder on Nov. 7, a ceramic turkey on Nov. 21 and wooden binoculars on Dec. 12, each at 11 a.m. or noon. Prices are $5/$11, $6/$11 and $6/$10 for members/nonmembers. Spaces are limited, and registration must be in at least two days ahead. The Dec. 12 craft falls on the same Saturday as the Whaling Museum's sea glass ornament drop-in.
- Cold Spring Harbor Library's November–December programs. A make-and-take apple pie program on Monday, Nov. 23 has sessions at 5 p.m. for children with families, 6 p.m. for teens and 7:15 p.m. for adults. Gingerbread house decorating is on Saturday, Dec. 5. Both require registration, and adult programs require a valid library card. The Paul Effman Band plays a Holiday Jazz Concert on Sunday, Dec. 6 at 2:30 p.m., with light refreshments.
- The library's toy drive takes new, unwrapped toys through Dec. 13. Stuffed animals aren't accepted.
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's Cocktails & Chromosomes with graduate student Alex Cicala is on Thursday, Nov. 19, 7 to 8 p.m., at Six Harbors Brewing Company in Huntington. Seats are first come, first served, an Eventbrite reservation doesn't guarantee one, and CSHL doesn't provide food.
The Wednesday book club, two Thursday cocktail nights at the museum and the Thursday CSHL talk all fall outside the museum's daytime gallery hours. A resident who can't get to Main Street on a weekend still has evenings for the anniversary year's last weeks.
If you're planning a winter around the harbor and want a local's sense of how Main Street changes after the season, Maggie Keats is glad to compare notes. Let's Connect.
