NAUTICAL HISTORY
CHESAPEAKE BAY By Drew McMullen
O
n June 2, 1608, Captain John Smith
settlers, altering forever the face of the bay and
and fourteen English colonists set out
profoundly changing the lives of those who lived around
on a journey to explore and map the
it.
Chesapeake Bay. Covering more than 1,700 miles
in just over three months, Smith and his men saw
Legislation is currently working its way through
a Chesapeake Bay that is scarcely imaginable
Congress that has the potential to establish America’s
today, with its incredible ecosystem intact and a
first National Water Trail along the routes first explored
multitude of American Indian cultures thriving
by Smith almost four hundred years ago. Spanning the
along its shores. Smith’s famous 1612 map
length of the bay from the Virginia Capes to the
resulting from these explorations was the first
Susquehanna Flats, and encompassing the tidal waters
accurate depiction of the Chesapeake and served
of all the Chesapeake’s major tributaries, the proposed
as the definitive map of the region for nearly a
Chesapeake National Water Trail would unite more than
century. The trail blazed by
1,500 miles of waterways into a single, comprehensive
Smith and his men opened
network of trails equivalent in scope to the Appalachian
the Chesapeake to
Trail.
thousands of European
Drawing credit:
Said Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s president William Baker,
Marc Castelli
“Connecting people to the bay and its rivers through the
Chesapeake National Water Trail will help develop a
constituency who are committed to the bay’s restoration.
The bay of today is operating at only about 25 percent of
the productivity of the system John Smith explored.”
The work of The Friends of the Chesapeake National
Water Trail is being coordinated with the Captain John
Smith Four Hundred Project, an educational initiative of
Sultana Projects, Inc., of Chestertown, Md., (see
Sultana Profile page 6). This April, Sultana Projects
began work on a replica of the 30-foot open boat,
or “shallop,” that Captain John Smith used to
make his groundbreaking 1608 exploration.
Measuring 30 feet in length and propelled
by oar and sail, the completed vessel
will tour museums on the east coast of
the United States in 2006 before
setting out to re-trace Smith’s
voyages during the summer of
2007. The entire project will be
followed by students from around
the country through a series of
specialized school curricula
currently under development by
Sultana Projects, the Maryland
Department of Education, the
National Geographic Society and the
Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
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