The Whales Have Landed

The staff has welcomed two humpback whales to their permanent new home at the Maine State Museum for our 2026 exhibit, Vector: A Whale's Life in the Gulf of Maine. This exciting accomplishment brings us closer to the first phase of reopening the museum and provides the first evidence of the dramatic exhibits planned for the museum’s gleaming renovated space.

Whales and Nails owner and president Dan DenDanto (center) and his crew work on installing humpback whales in the museum's new 4,130 square-foot gallery. The skeleton pictured here, from a 35-year-old female humpback whale, weighs approximately 3,800 pounds. Photo by Sweet Thunder Productions.

This milestone represents eight days of extraordinary work by the Maine company Whales and Nails, as its five-person crew assembled and suspended the skeletons of two humpback whales. The adult was a 35-year-old female humpback well-known and affectionately named 'Vector' by researchers, and the calf was a female humpback about 6 months old. Both whales lived part of the year in the Gulf of Maine.

The Whales and Nails crew spent eight days completing all the detailed work necessary to fully articulate and suspend the two whale skeletons featured in the museum’s new whale gallery. Photo by Sweet Thunder Productions.

The exhibition of this whale pair will certainly be a first for the Maine State Museum and in many ways a first in the world. Stay tuned as we bring you more information about this exciting exhibit over the coming year, building up to a grand debut during the first phase of the museum’s reopening in 2026.

The skeleton of the humpback calf, pictured here, weighs about 280 pounds. On display together, the adult and calf humpbacks will provide visitors with a sense of humpbacks’ range in size. Photo by Sweet Thunder Productions.