Oswego, New York. The H. Lee White Maritime Museum and New York Sea Grant have announced new features and hours for the 2025 Lake Ontario Waterfront Festival to be held on Saturday, May 17, 2025 along the Oswego Port Authority West Pier at 1 West First Street in Oswego, New York. The free admission event will include live raptors, boats, e-bikes, historic maritime vessels, boat tours, water rescue emergency services, Great Lakes conservation and science exhibits, and free admission to the museum. The new hours for the event are 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. The Lake Ontario Waterfront Festival is sponsored in part by Eagle Beverage and Adventure at Burritt’s Marine and Powersports in Oswego.
Live Raptors: New Festival Feature
Live birds from the Braddock Bay Raptor Research (BBRR) program be at the 2025 Lake Ontario Waterfront Festival from 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. BBRR studies raptor migration along Lake Ontario through raptor counts and banding research. Education is a key part of its mission, using non-releasable raptor ambassadors for outreach about migration and conservation issues. Braddock Bay is among the bird migration sites along Lake Ontario.
Children’s Activities: Happy Pirates, Build a Toy Boat for Sailboat Sprint, T-Shirt Art
The Happy Pirates entertainment troupe of Rochester will be sharing seafaring fun, activities, and laughter with Captain Gully and his ukelele, the prankster Scuttle, and a silly Sharkbait crewmate. The children’s activities area will also have a maritime theme t-shirt art area staffed by retired Oswego City School District art teacher Julie Smith.
The Lake Ontario Waterfront Festival Sailboat Sprint returns with the opportunity for ages 5 to 15 to assemble a wooden toy boat to race in pairs in a long tank on the pier. To make a boat ahead of the event, pick up a free kit at the H. Lee White Maritime Museum, the Children’s Museum of Oswego at 7 W. Bridge Street, and SNAX at 167 W. 1st Street in Oswego. Supply permitting, kits will be available to build at the festival. The Oswego Middle School wood shop has provided the kits.
Boating Safety, Water Rescue Demonstrations
May 17-23, 2025 is National Boating Safety Week. The Oswego Fire Department will have a crew at the festival with water rescue vessels and fire and water safety and rescue information. Weather permitting, the firefighters will conduct mock rescue demonstrations in the water off the pier. The U.S. Coast Guard Station Oswego and U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 2-6 will have exhibits and boating safety information available. New York Sea Grant will have New York State Boating Guides available for free, information cards on boating and beach hazards, and a display of electronic visual distress signals and other boating safety equipment.
Outdoor Recreation, Great Lakes Science, and History on Exhibit
Adventure at Burritt’s is adding e-bikes to its marine recreational vessels exhibit with a fishing boat and pontoon for the 2025 Lake Ontario Waterfront Festival. Fair Haven Kayak will have rental kayak and paddleboard equipment for exploring such waters as Sterling Creek and Little Sodus Bay on display.
Information will be available from Oswego County Tourism, the City of Oswego and Oswego’s Historic Maritime District, the Oswego Yacht Club, New York State Dive Association, Sodus Bay Maritime Captains Association, and the Antique and Classic Boat Society: Finger Lakes Chapter. SUNY Oswego’s Great Lakes Institute, Rice Creek Field Station, Oswego County Soil and Water Conservation, St. Lawrence-Eastern Lake Ontario Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation will be there with Great Lakes science and conservation exhibits.
Tour Lake Schooner and Derrick Boat, Reserve Tickets for Boat Tour to Oswego Lighthouse
H. Lee White Maritime Museum volunteers will lead tours of a replica of the traditional 1850s-era topsail schooner Ontario being refit on the dock for on-water youth and adult education and sail training. Visitors will also be able to tour the steam-powered Derrick Boat 8 built in Syracuse in 1927, in service on the New York State Barge Canal until 1984, designated by the National Register of Historic Places in 2014, and now dockside at the museum.
Weather-permitting, boat tours to historic Oswego Lighthouse will be available from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. from Wright’s Landing for $20 per adult and $15 for children ages 5-12. Contact the museum at 315-342-0480 to reserve a time.
New Exhibit Honors Erie Canal’s 200th Anniversary
Rain or shine, the H. Lee White Maritime Museum will be open with free admission during the festival. Visitors will see the new “Enterprising Waters: New York’s Erie Canal” exhibit presented in partnership with the New York State Museum. The Erie Canal was built as the first navigable waterway from the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River to the Great Lakes at Buffalo. The exhibit chronicles the Erie Canal from conception to present day with interpretive panels and unique artifacts that include a silk ribbon worn by an attendee at the “Wedding of the Waters” in 1825 at New York Harbor when Governor Dewitt Clinton poured water from Lake Erie into the Canal. The 23.7-mile Oswego Canal connecting the Erie Canal at Three Rivers to Lake Ontario at Oswego was opened in 1828.
The H. Lee White Maritime Museum in Oswego’s Historic Maritime District captures the fascinating history of more than 400 years of local and American maritime heritage with exhibits and an extensive collection of artifacts, images, archival records, original artwork, models, and historic vessels that include one of the last remaining tugboats used in the WWII invasion at Normandy. The Museum’s Treasure Chest gift shop will be open during the festival.
New York Sea Grant is a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York and one of 34 university-based programs under the National Sea Grant College Program. Its statewide network integrates research, education, and extension services focused on coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability, and citizen awareness and understanding about New York's Great Lakes and marine resources, www.nyseagrant.org.
Braddock Bay Raptor Research (BBRR) will have live birds at the Lake Ontario Waterfront Festival on May 17, 2025 in Oswego, New York. Jill Helmrich of BBRR holds a small but mighty member of the falcon family known as a merlin. Photo: Braddock Bay Raptor Research.
Sharon Braun of BBRR holds a broad-winged hawk that is now an educational ambassador due to a wing injury. Braddock Bay Raptor Research (BBRR) will have live birds at the Lake Ontario Waterfront Festival on May 17, 2025 in Oswego, New York. Photo: Braddock Bay Raptor Research
The children’s area at the 2025 Lake Ontario Waterfront Festival will include performances by the Happy Pirates, maritime theme t-shirt activity, and toy boat building for Sailboat Sprint races on the pier. Photo: H. Lee White Maritime Museum