POULSBO — Poulsbo’s heritage is rich.

From the earliest recorded Norwegian settler — Ole Stubb of Fordefjord, Norway, who was the first white settler in then Dogfish Bay in 1775 — to the thousands of inhabitants who live throughout Poulsbo’s outstretched arms today, the town chronicle reads like an adventure.

Luckily for Little Norway’s residents and visitors alike, the Poulsbo Historical Society is devoted to preserving the area’s past and making it available to the public.

Fortunately for the PHS, three North Kitsap High School students have been lending loads of volunteer hours, helping move projects forward.

“It has been rather exhilarating actually working with history,” said NKHS senior Kendall Jennings. “Knowing that these are the original photos from the late 1800s, and knowing that you are helping make history available to the public is exciting.”

Jennings and NKHS juniors Elizabeth Nodolf and Sophie Bonomi have helped the PHS on multiple projects during the past year, including an upcoming membership brochure (Jennings) and the Martinson Cabin Museum (Nodolf and Bonomi). The girls each joined on at different points in the year with similar ambitions in mind.

“It’s not enough to just read this stuff out of a book, you need to do something with it,” Nodolf said.

“And it’s helping out with something that is important while getting in touch with the community,” Bonomi added.

When asked about the highlights of what she has learned during her time with the society, Jennings replied, “The gamut.”

Under the guidance of museum curator Erica Varga, the girls have gotten a real life, firsthand experience of a career which the three agree they may likely continue. From the tedious office tasks of organizing artifacts and recording photos to the mind-opening adventures of talking to locals who have been here nearly as long as Poulsbo’s first cow, which arrived by raft in 1884.

“(The girls) are really taking the lead and prodding me so that we don’t keep these ideas and projects on the backburner,” Varga said. “They are changing the perception of what a historical society is.”

The youthful influence has added an element of vigor to the typical perception of a historical society, Varga noted.

While, for the girls, the society has rendered a huge influx of information.

Before getting to the nitty-gritty of Martinson Cabin, Nodolf and Bonomi also created a historical display featuring a 1950s letterman’s sweater and other school day necessities of that era which hung next to the modern-day prom display at NKHS.

“We thought it would be cool to bring back the old school part of school,” Bonomi said.

Now the duo is focused on bringing back the 1880s luster of the Martinson Cabin off of Viking Avenue.

To that end, they have been traveling throughout the North Kitsap community collecting artifacts, and listening to and recording the information about the items. The museum is set to open later this fall — tentatively late September to early October — providing a sanctuary for a piece of Poulsbo’s past.

“It’s the same story with everyone that calls, ‘It’s on the top shelf … just waiting,’” Varga said of the community’s response to the organization’s call for historic objects. “We’ve been kind of a white-gloved brigade going around town pulling the treasures out of the darkness.”

Meanwhile, Jennings has also been hard at work making those treasures more readily available to the public in addition to creatinga PHS membership brochure — called “Bringing the Past to Life” — which should hit the streets later this fall.

Jennings not only though up the project, she has also been in charge of its publication and the search for funding as she takes on a true leadership role.

“Originally, I was looking to complete the Girl Scouts Gold (leadership) award,” Jennings said of her ambition to volunteer. “I wanted to do it in an area where it would benefit the community. And I didn’t want to do it in just any area, rather in an area that I was passionate about.”

Bonomi, Nodolf and Jennings collective passion has been both well-received and very much appreciated by the society.

“I’ve never had student volunteers like this before,” Varga said. “If they were to leave now, I would miss them a lot … and not just their work.”