Whale of a time at national museum

Albany’s Katelyn Weinert will soon head to Sydney to undertake a highly sought-after internship role at the Australian National Maritime Museum.

Ms Weinert, who works as an archivist at Albany’s Historic Whaling Station, received the opportunity through her workplace.

During her internship, Ms Weinert will gain insight into conservation work and heritage objects and develop educational material for the museum.

“The internship role is all paid by the maritime museum and we will be doing different things every day,” she said. “We will work with a whole range of experts to learn exhibit design or to conserve wet specimens.”

Ms Weinert will use the knowledge she gained from the internship to develop Albany’s Historic Whaling Station.

“All the exhibits we have in the station are quite old, so we’re looking at updating those,” she said.

“We have the technology to update things like that, so it’s great to have the knowledge from people who work at a larger museum which does it on a daily basis.”

Albany’s Historic Whaling Station has also received a grant to assist the development of a new interactive experience on the Cheynes IV whale-chasing ship.

The opportunity comes after Albany’s Historic Whaling Station celebrates the 40th anniversary of the closure of the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company and the end of whaling in Australia.