AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Wood Island Life Saving Station is a maritime heritage museum on a one-acre island where the Piscataqua River meets the Atlantic off Kittery Point, Maine. Built in 1908 to house the U.S. Life-Saving Service's "surfmen"—the storm warriors who rowed out into breaking seas to rescue shipwrecked mariners—the restored station opened to the public in 2024 after a years-long, several-million-dollar campaign to save it from demolition.↗↗↗
Reached only by boat, the station is one of roughly a dozen surviving Duluth-style life-saving buildings in the United States and offers exhibits on daring rescues, original crew lockers, a restored marine railway, a 1930s rescue boat and a lookout tower with sweeping views over Portsmouth Harbor and the nearby Whaleback Lighthouse. It is family-friendly, wheelchair accessible via added ramps, and run under a long-term agreement with the Town of Kittery.↗↗
