The collections of the Seaside Open-Air Museum include more than 20 000 items reflecting a very wide variety of aspects of the life of Latvian and Liv farmers and fishermen. About 600 exhibits are on view in the indoor and outdoor exhibition (total area: 4.8 ha).
The largest is the windmill, and the smallest is a needle for attaching floats to a net. In 1958-1959 the first fishermen's houses and outbuildings, boats and anchors were transferred to the new location and restored. In 1962 the open-air museum was opened to the public.
The museum has an impressive collection of anchors (60 anchors of different types, of which the oldest possibly dates from the 17th century). In 2002 the collection was significantly augmented, with 31 more anchors, the heaviest of which weighs 13 tonnes, while the oldest of the new acquisitions is from the 19th century. The exhibition hall was built in 1970. It contains an indoor exhibition telling of the main phases in the development of fishing and the methods used to fish for herring, cod and flounder, and how boats were built. The exhibition hall also contains a small gallery for temporary exhibitions of works of art and items from the collections. Also on display at the museum are a very wide variety of boats - one of the fishermen's main items of equipment, which, unlike the rest of the fishing equipment, was made by boatbuilders. The traditions and skills of boat-building were usually passed down from generation to generation, and the makers were very able at building boats suitable for fishing at the particular village. Fishing success largely depended on how stable the boat was in the waves, how easily it could be rowed and steered, and not only that. Even more important was a successful return home. A boat can be steep sided, with a flat bottom, or pot-bellied. No item of fishing equipment has preserved so many interesting names for the different components. Also on view is the so-called 'Oscar's Boat', featuring in the film 'Son of a Fisherman' (1939).
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