OGDENSBURG -- The Greater Ogdensburg Chamber of Commerce invites the public to a reception to meet the captain and crew of the schooner Lois McClure from 10 to 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 14 at the Dobisky Visitor’s Center.

Tim Horton’s will be serving coffee and pastries for the public reception. The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum’s schooner Lois McClure will be offering free tours Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Visitors can board the schooner to explore the 88-foot long boat.

The Lois McClure is on tour commemorating the War of 1812 Bicentennial. This year’s thematic and interpretive message is “1813: the Shipwright’s War.”

The shipbuilding races and naval battles of 1813 helped to determine the outcome of the War of 1812 and left a legacy of shipwrecks beneath the waters of the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence River and Lake Champlain.

Many ports on the tour have played significant roles during the War of 1812. In recent years, a tangible legacy of shipwrecks from the war has been discovered at the bottom of the lakes and waterways where naval history was made. These shipwrecks and related sites on land form a powerful connection to the little known war which closed the final chapter in North American boundary disputes and ushered in two centuries of peaceful alliance between United States and Britain and Canada.

The Lois McClure was built by LCMM shipwrights and volunteers on the Burlington waterfront based on two shipwrecks of 1862-class schooners in Lake Champlain.