Discover Greenland: Nature and History on Great Bay

Greenland borders Great Bay to the northwest. The bay is a common thread running through several of the town’s themes: it is at the heart of the exhibitions at the Great Bay Discovery Center and also features in the history explored at the Hugh Gregg Coastal Conservation Center. This gives the destination a clear focus on coastal landscapes, nature education, and local history.

Great Bay and Natural History

The visitor center at the Great Bay Discovery Center features interpretive exhibits about Great Bay, plankton, tides, and research in the bay. The Great Bay Discovery Center also serves as the education headquarters and interpretive center for the Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. Its themes therefore range from the bay as a landscape to natural phenomena and research. If you are particularly interested in Great Bay, you’ll find several ways to explore the subject here, rather than just a single perspective.

Another way to explore is the Discovery Tank, where children can touch estuary animals such as horseshoe crabs, oysters, and mud snails. Unlike the exhibits, this offers a direct encounter with individual animals. If you’re traveling with children, it’s a clearly defined activity alongside the broader themes of the bay, tides, and research.

Landscape on the Greenland Campus

The Greenland Campus covers a 50-acre site. It includes upland mixed forests, freshwater wetlands, and extensive salt marshes. This combination gives the landscape a more varied character than a single natural habitat: several distinct landscape types come together on the site. This is useful when deciding whether Greenland is right for your trip if you want to explore not only the exhibits but also the variety of the Great Bay landscape.

The campus also includes a pier, several trails, and a boat ramp. Together with its different landscape types, these features give a concrete picture of the Greenland Campus as a natural area and waterfront location.

History on Great Bay

A replica of a 19th-century gundalow is located on the Great Bay Discovery Campus. The basement of the Hugh Gregg Coastal Conservation Center houses a special exhibit on the history of hunting, fishing, and trapping on Great Bay. These two features offer different historical perspectives: the replica is a tangible object on campus, while the exhibit covers several activities connected with the bay. If you’re interested in history, these features complement the focus on natural history with a human perspective on Great Bay.

Weeks House in Greenland was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. This broadens the historical perspective beyond the Great Bay exhibit: a thematic presentation of hunting, fishing, and trapping is complemented by the listing of a specifically named house on the register.

Include trails in your trip planning

The Weeks-brick-house-trails are among the conservation easements held by the Town of Greenland. If you plan to visit these trails, please check in advance whether they are accessible and under what conditions.

Discover more destinations: Seabrook, Northwood, Atkinson, Hampton Falls, Candia, Rye, North Hampton, Londonderry.

For the broader travel guide: Rockingham.