Chimacum's First Mariners

The Beginning of a Lasting Partnership

The roots of Chimacum’s long-standing connection to the Northwest Maritime Discovery Program (MDP) stretch back more than 20 years, beginning with a simple question: What if students could learn by doing, together, on the water?

During the 2004–05 school year, Chimacum Middle School (CMS) teacher Robin Mills was exploring ways to bring more experiential learning into the seventh-grade curriculum. As part of fall teacher training, she took a group of Chimacum educators out on a longboat through what is now the Northwest Maritime Center. Predictably, the response was immediate and enthusiastic.

“They loved it,” Mills recalls. “The teamwork, the shared challenge, the way people connected so quickly—it was powerful.”

This big idea was grounded in her earlier experience. Before earning her teaching degree in the early 2000s, Mills, who is now the Program Director at Northwest Maritime, had served as a captain with Puget Sound Explorers, a maritime program connected to Chimacum’s Pi program. She worked alongside fellow captain Daniel Evans (now a Chimacum Teacher) and now retired Pi teacher Marci Van Cleve, helping high school students succeed in rigorous, water-based learning environments. Those experiences made it clear that students, when supported and challenged, would thrive learning on the Salish Sea.

When they started, Mills was teaching a seventh-grade exploratory elective in the spring. Because students needed to be over age 12 to participate, seventh grade was a natural fit. She also knew firsthand that middle school students could succeed in maritime-based learning and be profoundly impacted. Prior to earning her teaching degree in the early 2000s, Mills had served as a captain with Puget Sound Explorers, working with secondary students in hands-on, water-based programs. She was able to marshal other similarly passionate and experienced maritime folks to join in.

In the spring of 2005, Chimacum seventh graders traveled to Port Townsend and climbed into longboats for what became the first iteration of MDP. For a full quarter, students learned seamanship, collaboration, and leadership—skills that extended far beyond the classroom. Those Chimacum students were the first to participate in what would grow into a flagship youth program.

“I still run into former students,” Mills says. “One stopped me recently and told me that experience led her to commercial fishing in Alaska.”

The program soon expanded and shifted to broader Port Townsend-based programming, but Chimacum’s role as the starting point has never been forgotten. Today, Chimacum seventh graders continue to participate in the Maritime Discovery Program each year. They carry forward a tradition they helped begin and a legacy of learning rooted in courage, connection, and the sea.