Outdoors Maryland; 11

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. You're. You're. You're. You're. You're. THE MAN. The Beast. The man about to do battle with the beast is 35 year old Robert Colonna. His orders are to bring the beast back alive and well to become an unwilling participant of the state of Maryland's relocation program. The beast is a trapped twenty two pound Eastern Shore author whose natural instincts in the order of things are to

fight the man who wants to relocate. The battle begins. But there. Are you guys the. Control room. My first concern is to ensure that I'm marking her gamble. That I'm going to. Get it out of the expediently if possible without causing damage or. Preventing it damage to the end what's going to happen when we're trying to take out the trap. My second concern is. This may be. Extremely powerful of a crush clamshells. For their teeth. She is a healthy female author who is being prepared for an airplane flight to western Maryland. She is one of dozens of Eastern Shore authors who have been tagged with the responsibility of repopulating Garrett County is decimated.

Otter population throughout all of Appalachian and depart of the Midwest or were actually paid it essentially became extinct around the turn of the century. In western Maryland and West from the. Tempering operations on steep slopes as well as coal mining. Were the main culprit. Bodies of water out there just became too acidic or. Too much sediment pollution to support any forage fish or other to feed on. Capturing Otter is not a series of exciting days are wrestling with animals in the water is often day after laborious day of walking and fighting to get into secret places where authors live and getting there is only part of the job. The rest has to do with interpreting subtleties that most of us would literally walk over to here work. Around a little bit open stuff that happened please leave Kabul and. One way our outer marker territory is to help the roll in the

closet and anal sex ration calls for rain. And you can see where they came out of the pond over there. That's what they've done here. And this is. All the. Dirt have maintained color yet so this is relatively fresh rather than the old stereotype about the dumb trapper as a forest thing from the truth because no other. Occupation of sport requires such an intimate knowledge of the animal you have to know. Habitat use seasonal habitat use. How and what you cover how it pushes on where they're going to step because you have to build or predict an animal's movement down to essentially you know circle the down and around and that's kind of a trap. There's wrestling trap daughters setting traps for authors and then there's checking drops for honors. The latter can be the most frustrating.

Nothing in here I want to be real churned up it's real obvious if you have one. But there. Was an author through here last night. There's been an author of. The water levels will fluctuate. That determines where the author is going to step because they're really short legs and the water level dropped last night and that shifted to where it planted its foot to get up the bank and step right across a trap planted its front foot right there. I need to. Dig this out a little bit and reposition the trap. You can sense it a lot of times before you can see it. You can sense when animals bands.

And go looking for where they'll be funked. Worse. Brown. Churned up something's been a trap. OK. Or sea otter or something. I've. Got to tell you. I. Will. Tell. You are. All born so we won't be able to fly out today.

So the ceiling is too low. What do you we want to do with it. The authors are grounded. That's a problem. How do you keep a healthy wild animal in a small box until the weather clears for flight and release into the wild without the creature injuring itself a warning. I have starlings because there was a call for saying all morning so if you can pull out and the pilot can tackle. I mean I'll take the outer up to the veterinarian to get a shot of the island so that for the it's a white box. Can I have you know I gave it about a C C and a half of. Got a set of around 11:45 when I took it out of the trap door to go in for. Sure. That's probably her. Fairly loose Plash.

Think you sleep pretty good tonight. In fact when I reflect on the cereal we're singing more and finally the authors are given permission to fly. Personally this is the most rewarding professional thing I've ever done. I know that I've worked to put an animal back into an ecosystem that hasn't been there for a hundred years. I can't think of anything else that would be as rewarding as that. The first Otter we sent out I stood at the airport and watched the airplane takeoff and I just got goosebumps all over. It was undescribable. I knew that we were on our way. You're putting an animal back where it belongs. Plunging over the fault line just above Washington D.C. the Potomac River flexes its muscle one final time. So in the river will quietly surrender to the tides of the Chesapeake Bay.

But the river does not come empty and through this merger. It brings with it all of his gathered along the way while the fresh water is a welcome asset. The silt chemicals and waste do a little for the fragile A-story. Up. The Potomac watershed drains hundreds of thousands of square miles of Maryland and Virginia. From the headwaters in Garrett County downstream to its mouth. Urban suburban or rural. If it can be carried away by water it will very likely end up in the dock. These are troubled times for the Chesapeake the health of the Bay has become a serious issue for the region. Its very survival is a question. Once the oyster capitol of the world harvests are now down to critical levels. The plentiful blue crab could soon become an expensive delicacy.

These warning signs have given rise to a renewed environmental consciousness. And a move to restore the bay. One of the organizations spawned by the restoration effort is the Chesapeake Bay Trust. Started in 1995 the trust provides funding for community based organizations involved in cleaning up the bay. The key to cleaning up the bay is obviously getting to the small streams and stopping the effect that snowballs as it goes down the stream towards the bay. So when we're talking about restoring the Bay we're going everywhere from the smallest stream in someone's backyard in western Maryland down to the actual Bay itself and I don't think any area can be ignored. Public involvement may clean up for some people means doing a tree plannings and some trash pick ups but public involvement for the Chesapeake Bay Trust and through our grants has gone well beyond that. Tom Miller is a field coordinator for the University of Maryland's Cooperative Extension Service.

He's also a volunteer water quality monitoring. Once a week I take a sample of piny creek and just measure some typical indicators of extreme quality ph or dissolved oxygen so that we know fish can survive in it how cloudy it is how much soil erosion is in it temperature take weather data to every day I record how much rain we receive and what the weather is like. One of the things that I've noticed through the years in the last three years of sampling and we're truly pleases me I think we are making a difference this creek is extremely high right now a lot higher than it would normally be. It's relatively clear looking. We've had an awful lot of rain in the last couple weeks. And normally this creek if it would be this high would pretty much be just muddy. Controlling agricultural run it's an important step in saving the bank.

Hottel farms twelve hundred acres near Harper's Ferry. We have a place down the bay being down and seeing a water muddy and dirty and filthy. In the last four five years we can see a big difference in the way the bay looks. And that is as has helped me to want to do a better job on my land. But the main reason I want it. You have to carry your land in order for it to take care you. We put twelve hundred feet of Tao underground and got grass waterway put in here and got put this big stone it where the covert is slows the water down and you can look on the other side of we're in a creek and you can see where we have clean water coming out of this waterways and that's still a lot of these grass waterways just to be able to have clean water. You can see it will be done here Tom a foot 40 foot strips and then they run for about three miles starting back mountain road well all the way to the mountain this other way and you don't see any any chemical runoff into the alfalfa strip. If you had any chemical spots in it right and there's

none whatsoever so you can see with no tilt strips that are really working. Knoxy is one of the main room leaving in only one of the main tributaries that day. As more people move in and out see what. Concentrate on making their impact felt as lightly as possible. What they do. Perfection X is going to be. The Monaca see watershed Conservancy has many ongoing projects. One of them involves creating a nature center and from the wrong part. We're about a mile from the Nazi river. And it's interesting because glade creek comes right down to the tributary the mouth the sea and passes right along the park and into the park it's a little bit and then it just keeps going for another mile through farmland. And he said to the officer right here it is a. Actually what it is is a sewer pipe. Standing up on it and it's about 14 feet.

Deep. And it's put. Right over the top of the spring head. One of the largest springs on the East Coast. And. Spring head itself. Gives 3.2 million gallons of water a day. And it was at one time free flowing and would fill this whole area about need people need water. And in the master plan. Around the park. It's hoped that someday that. Have. Taken off. And that the water can flow. Freely again down to Clay creek and flow into the office. For the potable water. Very clean clear water. Very good. To see. While all this land is in the water the river actually is only about 100 yards down that way. This is. A pretty severe slope right here. It's going to drain directly eventually get all wound up in the river. You know historically people dumped back here in places out of sight along the bluffs of the river and so on because one they're out of sight to the next big flood takes away the

problem and it washes all downstream and comes you know Washing DC is a problem. The Minox the watershed Conservancy was was started back in 1990 basically was a group of concerned citizens. Who cared about the river and the watershed because it is a thousand square mile watershed here and central Maryland runs from the Pennsylvania line to the Potomac River. It was started. Because there was a tremendous amount of dumping. Two years ago we did a cleanup of the entire river 58 miles and we took out 100 tons of trash. And last year we planted 15000 trees along the river this year were helping the National Park Service clean up some of the dump sites. For a very low budget organization is trying to go out and make a difference by asking people to roll their sleeves and help us instead of Send in a check for the few thousand dollars we're going to put that they trust are probably getting in excess of a hundred thousand dollars or. Anything for blacks. Some miles farther along the Monaca sea joins the Potomac it decreases.

For all the efforts upstream. Suburban watershed of Montgomery County. Here the Audubon naturalist society is busy training new volunteers. Everything. Is. Pretty crazy stuff. Like that. I'm used to you. Know a lot more. Sentiment stuff. We've got a lot of. Friends. You know this is really. OK and now we have to check our. Net. Crawlers were on the banks of the north branch of Rock Creek in the Rock Creek watershed. We're running a water quality training workshop today and we have teams working in the stream and basically what they're looking for is diversity. How many different kinds of invertebrates are they finding in the water and they're having fun in the meantime getting wet.

Bats and tranny. Time. The. One thing I always look for what I'm looking at it is does it or does it not have tails on it on the. ARM that helps me sort out some things very quickly. And. For all intents and purposes this animal and this animal they don't have tails. But if we start looking at something like this over here. You can see what I would call three tails or technically you can call them caudal filaments but. I'm interested in the stream near where I live. It has a naturally reproducing trail. But I understand it because the increased development. That the trout. Are endangered. So.

I'd like to see the trout survival like see this stream stay healthy. But I realize that I really don't know what a healthy stream is. I mean when I talked to really knew the health history was just looked at it and said oh you look so. So I wanted to really find out. How to really tell the Chesapeake Bay Trust have made all this possible. They have provided the financial support for the program for workshops like this so we can offer them free of charge to the public for follow up training and for staffing for the program. So without them the program wouldn't be happening. Maintaining the quality of the Potomac want to share and cleaning up the bay are formidable tasks especially when taken on by volunteer groups working with small brains in their backyards. But it's in those back yards where changes must occur.

One of the things that's very important to the trust. Is doing what we can to help prepare for the day when we will have that proximately three more million people to the watershed. You know it takes time to change on a Tuesday changing behaviors to change opinions and the way we look at things and what we're trying to do is simply to have people understand that we all share responsibility for what becomes of the day. We all have a world to play and it's important that we all know that the vitality of the entire region depends on the vitality of the test. Frederick County here whether Piedmont climbs westward in steep fits of gray weathered rock biologists from the Department of Natural Resources are racing to learn more about a native species whose days in the Maryland mountains may be numbered. However inspecting cracks and crevices and exposed sandstone Ed Thompson Scott Smith and Marty Martin search for the eastern timber rattlesnake.

Loathed by many feared by most the misunderstood rattler is slowly succumbing to man's ancient fear of snakes. The Timber Rattlesnake still survives but not without some effort on the part of conservationists who like these. Empathise with the snakes plight. Today Martin leads the team through the early autumn forest vigilant for signs of female rappers that have given birth. I think. This isn't the first time the three have walked the woods to count Marilyn rattlers. An accurate census is critical to gauging the snake's chances for survival. Ironically the most dangerous times for timber rattlers are when they're near their mountain dens making them an easy mark for snake owners. That's in late summer for birthing autumn when rattlers begin hibernation and in the spring when they emerge. For now that works in the biologists favor. Since the team

will call them the hills during those times to count snakes your day. Or you get out of the way LA Times leaves a pack that looks like the one back in there. The snakes have been around. The timber rattlesnake is not yet officially endangered but malicious destruction of dens snake hunting and expensive and unplanned land use threaten the species survival. There's a lion right around a pregnant female cord humanist timber rattlers are actually passive creatures preferring the safety of cover over direct confrontation. Wildlife biologists say a rattler strikes in anger only one directly threatened. So many people fear all snakes they cross paths with. There are actually only

two poisonous species in Maryland. The timber rattles. Think is one the copperhead is the other around a snake bite generally won't kill a healthy adult but those with allergies to snake venom in poor health or children are at risk. The venom is primarily for the purpose of selling their clothes which is mammals and it also begins the digestive process. The fence is a secondary view of them. They do not like to use the venom for defense. You hear a lot of people talk about aggressive snake makes and not aggressive. They tended to vent in the snake is bad breath it is not coming after us we're being aggressive. His bait then he would bite if if we got close enough to him that he does not want to bite us.

Kimber rattlesnakes live anywhere from 15 to 24 years. They seem to be born alive. In reality though newborn rattlers are hatched from a tour or eggs pregnant mothers store safely in their abdomen. For the award. Most people in Maryland haven't seen a member rattlesnake or a northern copperheads because of the types of places Icarus resemble rattlesnake. He's rugged on rock ledges now in this area is very difficult to get up into as you guys can tell from what we've been through today. In a normal person isn't going to be scrambling around these rocks. Which means that. We are normal. In autumn timber rattle snakes travelled back to their ancestral dens to hibernate

the same small underground dens have been used by rattler's in Maryland for literally thousands of years and directly. Robert Smith Martin and Thompson studied the area closely for signs the snakes have begun their journey back. Probably not. Young female This is a post-partum female recently given birth. You see the loop hole yeah Here let me make you a just see nothing else. Reproductive right. Here is a broken rattle. So we really can't say anything about her age. Were. All of the partly natural resources involved in this research because there's been a lot of concern raised over timber rattlesnake populations in the northeastern United States.

Recently the. Fish Wildlife Services in the Titian lists the number of snake is endangered in all the New England states New York and New Jersey. And basically that's the whole idea behind this survey identifying where the populations are in Maryland and what kind of numbers they have and what rights there are to those populations. I think the fear of snakes not just rattlesnakes but any snakes is something that seems to be instinctive in humans. I'm not sure if it's because the Judeo-Christian religion we've been brought up with you know the Garden of Eden the snake in the tree and all that you know all that stuff. But certainly there seems to be this just compulsive fear of snakes by many many people and it has really led to people killing and you know pretty much when they see and in many instances. Again the team hikes the rocky terrain in search of more rattlers to complete their count since the previous autumn they find that one area then has most likely been emptied of pregnant

females not an uncommon occurrence. But one that places the entire population at further risk of dangerous decline. A nice looking one will read right here. Now the three look for signs of the snake's emergence from their dens. Let's see if this is one where the rebels have a drug that also busted right off we're going to herd that one. I mean when I heard. That. I think one big aspect. Of this whole thing is to educate the public. Yes you don't want to timber rattlesnake in

your backyard. Maybe we oughta see where we're building our houses that we are putting him in his ancestral travel route for things like timber rattle snakes. The way we use our land is impacting all types of wildlife not just into rattlesnakes. And I think we really need to take some. Along look at just how are using the landscape and ways to minimize it on wildlife like the timber rattlesnake. Like many species of wildlife the timber rattler is falling slowly victim to man's ever expanding range and his proclivity to ignore some of the more aggressive tendencies he shows toward the world. Conservationists hope that someday soon though a change in attitude will save the timber rattler from the unhappy fate. It now seems destined to me. You said the leaks are so early.

Discovering a sense of wonder at Markell wildlife sanctuary kindergartner's from the children's center in Mitchellville are encouraged to get involved with nature. Well you know you. Want to. Now there are lots of interesting things to see and find in the woods. And I'm going to be right on this. I'm going to be asking you kids to do some looking around and finding things for me. But how can you as a parent reinforce their connection with nature. How can you nurture this infantine interest. Well. Everything is. There. Right. Taking a trip to the beach below Calvert Cliffs to look for 15 million year old scholar shots fossilized sting ray parts and the ultimate prize an ancient shark steam. Is a likely activity for dinosaur crazed

children. They're captivated by the sound of softly lapping bay waters and the tactile grittiness of moist sand. Your child can make fertile connections to the natural world. It's nights like these things will bring. Them to other people. What's your favorite thing that you found. These campers have chosen to pitch their tents at Swallow Falls State Park on the western most edge of Mt.. Yeah perhaps a. Little enough times for the fourth. Time. With him I'm not sure of this obvious first night not in the crib. No kidding. So we're just and that's why we only came for one night. But we're hoping have been OK. We're going to get there. Yeah I say we implant anything we've just learned so we just learned you know how your kid.

Can receive. It. You're. Home. Yeah. Or do you put in the pockets. Oh I'm going to. I'm. HOME I'M HOME. And she made it home two or three in the morning before she needed another talk with her. They slept in one camp and we slept in the other. This wall of father's house had a great program where if you don't have the equipment you can rent the campsite and that's what we're doing here they have a tarp that can the stove then why I'm turning and that's a great way to try it out there for one night or two nights even if it's a disaster you've learned that it probably won't be a disaster. And sometimes it's not. Yeah but temporarily I have a tent with not. Know. Until it's

you know we are on the street. Battles. That enter. Fights are a source of good exercise and an opportunity to discover new facts about nature. At Swallow Falls a walk through their ancient hemlock forest is rewarding. Right. There. For us where. The older. People. Meet. Me in the right. Light and. Right. Never noticed before

on this trip. First time to New Hampshire and Vermont when he was two months old and he was in diapers and he learned to walk. The day before we left it was a fun trip. It was October and it was the first night and we put the tent and I put him in his summer and in his crib. And it didn't it was going to get and we were on our down in the morning we woke up and he woke us up and we got him out of his crib and he. And I was mortified. What's it like working with kids. OK I think. Well. It's always an adventure. But you know I think they really enjoy it because it gives them space but they don't have a normal one.

So I think that's what's really interesting about it all of a sudden they don't really have now news you know. Where you think the sun is low and coming over here. He's just fascinated by the stuff the stuff the solution. I think yesterday there was this room here the combined rooms and well you know just all the sudden in the room the stuff that's sort of out there. Regular rule they develop a sense of independence. So why. Heat under the. Sun.

Does that make. You feel hungry. That's the better. Rachel Carson naturalist and author said it best she wrote. If I had influence with the good fairy who was supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life. Nature is all around us even in the heart of our city. The treasures your children discover and share need not be earth shattering. They need only stimulate curiosity. The seed of all great future exploration. Take a pill. Let me baby your little word do you think that it's anything and they don't want it.

Then how. Do you know how to do it your way. Check out your surroundings. Find outlets that will excite your children. They're all around. All you need to do. Is go out and see it. The fluid imp. the use. The elegance of the Canada goose migration rivals fall foliage as autumn's best show. There are migratory species I think everyone has stirred their emotions are stirred in the fall when you hear the first flock of Canada geese coming down in late

September early October and they just to have them around see them flying overhead. I think they had a lot to their quality of life here in Maryland and particularly on the eastern shore where most of them occur. But Maryland is in trouble after eight consecutive subpar nesting seasons in combat. Fewer birds have visited the state's corn field than at any time over the last 30 years. Maryland's Department of Natural Resources is concerned about the drought so much so that an accurate study of the Canada goose population is callable. That means capturing the birds. No easy task under the best of conditions. Thank you. Go ahead. Luke Brock is. Now in a cold February rain. The biologists Paul buddy Joe Dennis Hammond and John Langley set the trap. We're going to have these birds we're coming up with just a

pile of straw here. So they've gotten back with me and they're saying this policy. The trap is a harmless combination of corn the bait a net and rockets. It's hoped the rockets will carry the attached net over the birds and allow many of them to be caught examined and tagged for future identification. Afterward the case will be released unharmed. We hear about a half hour before sunrise at some point after sunrise anywhere from eight to nine o'clock we start hearing those birds start to get a little rambunctious structure waiting to. Take off over the river and I make their way up with a truly quite exciting you're going to be 4000 birds within 200 yards of us. With any luck it's not going to be anything like it is today.

This time of day I don't know why people want to sleep like they miss all of the traps and the wait for dawn to begin is with the DNR crew holed up in a shed 100 feet from the site where they hope Canada geese will descend. So you can tell just that want to track the sand got banner everything. This notice now how more and more are coming off. They get chatter and we talk and you tell it there and also know groups IMO raise up Tony and here you see without a group coming off there you can see the other dip in particular by doing phone and cell phone then who are. Researchers all along the Atlantic Flyaway from Georgia to Canada are capturing and color in Gaze new technology in the form of neck collars is helping allowing researchers to collect more data on geese than ever before without having to recount your birds. The information gathering is critical if managed to help preserve the Canada goose's annual migration south in large numbers.

Now with the geese slowly moving toward the bait the DNR crew inside the shed is anxious to spring the trap. Even more closely. Singlehood. Put your heads down. Even when. We keep it nerved up about something. I started to. Push up and push up. Or if you think. You know what. You're. Charged. Through. This neckband allows us to track the birds as they live their life not just where they

died or when they died and the population estimates and the survival rate estimates that we get from the neckband study are very precise and allows us to make smart decisions in managing this resource. In Maryland where great flocks of geese visit eastern shore cornfields the candidate goes is worth an estimated thirty million dollars in revenue mostly from hunting. Now researchers want to return the favor. We're going to go for you Mike. That would be you know nature not man has of late hindered the Canada goose limiting how much the DNR research efforts may ultimately pay off. Still conservationists strive to maintain a relationship that has so far served well both man and the Canada goose world.

He's an 84 year old man practicing one of the oldest trades known to mankind but he does it in a high tech way. On the Eastern Shore of Maryland. His strange 8 wheeled vehicle rarely raises an eyebrow. It's seen in fields in woods and in places where younger men would fear to tread. Avery Ingersoll has lived for 84 years and in that time he's learned some things. He's learned that it's worth riding a noisy machine to get to a place where the only sound is the soothing murmur of tall pine trees reaching for each other. He's also learned that nature is not always gentle and that his role in the cycle of things

is sometimes abhorred by those who know nothing of his lifestyle. Every Ingersoll is a trucker. I used to do it when I was a kid had to do it. Joe way. We had their money to spend with the kids if you must read. And we used to catch a few rabbits with box. We were allowed to sell them for core that was a day's work for every man would get a rabbit. He's learned his ground of conservation the hard way. No classrooms just life in the marshes and on the water all powered by a throttle based philosophy that keeps him and his 65 year old partner Harvey going strong. Between the two men there are 145 years of stories to be told but there's

little telling out here for all these two sets of eyes have seen the trips they shared together are often silent. But there is a communication here. It's just very basic that I don't think we need. What more do you want and often limited to the job at hand which really requires more than a spoken sentence or two. I owe you nothing but human life. Anything more would seem nothing less than noisy chatter and that would get in the way of the place. Pay day a season's harvest of furs on the way to the market. Three

months of tramping through woods and sloshing into marshes is about to pay off. I will use that none of holy war. But. You know what I thought of it as well you go get it. I quit right there with the end of my life from this tiny building first from the Eastern Shore are shipped around the world burn and bog owns and runs the place under the watchful eye of the two veterans several months worth of hard work is appraised and occasional editorial statement about the appraisers decision from the for owners is expected and these Tuesday lever. That's what he makes of money I've told you that I would never but the

end of the night when you don't even have enough By gad to go back out and you've got a write up. You got some depth to the floor your way up like that right or like they do it with a daddy. Yeah real hot for this when you're a good poem then you're through but that's where they make your money which has fuck all right here we get talking and make mistakes. Yeah if you say good natured haggling is through or at least it would be if it were anyone but a brainless all doing business and then you wouldn't know where you need too much. That's just what I want. Like any working man of any age Avery likes to come home after the day's job is done. Home is in good tree. Home is also his wife of 60 years Virginia Ingersoll. Their discussion seemed to

be a different language from that of city dwellers. No talk of Beltway traffic after work. It's much more down to earth. Do I get to go. For more and it really is going to go down and work to Holland and look at ditches. And horror no be restored. And then I don't have a thing to do with it did you. Most roads are so weak that the. Back door. With a high tech stop for lunch clients know where is it written that being 80 years old means being out of touch. The phone is a gift from relatives who want to be able to keep in touch while Mr. Ingersoll is in the more isolated areas. They are your go to. OK if you're over there.

And the calls come in from neighboring farms. Yeah I got to a neighbor needs assistance. Something's eating baby ducks and 80 year old Avery Ingersoll whose business card reads critter revere answers the call but you get them in that one back at World War II. And you know down here by the dock I got one down there one one over here and that by the bow on it one of those big enough to be what the Modocs. There's a helpful role in the ballroom. Yeah. I hope I get one that's been taken I think. But get your ducks in a poor writing or. I don't know. And you might have I don't know. I've never. Well I know we've got out there nothing we can do about them they've got to write down. What keeps this master of the marshes going and you'll get the usual straightforward answer. The alternative to not going full speed ahead at any age has no appeal.

You know I've been retired twice. And oh I told you once before when people to go to a front porch rocking they lost their rockers. Where you're going to have the horror of the rock in the report. Her name is Jade. She is among the most majestic sailing vessels to grace the Meiers River near St. Michaels Maryland. She has another name log in there. A name that defies her stately appearance but hints at a heritage that reaches back to the first settlements on the Chesapeake. It began with Native Americans who lived on the waters of the Chesapeake in what is now Maryland and Virginia. The Indians made their canoes of a single log which was hollowed out with burning coal or hot stones called dugout

canoes. These boats were quickly adopted by settlers who over time modified the designs by using European shipbuilding techniques. Settlers build their canoes of several logs pinned together and they powered the hybrid craft by adding sails. You probably won't believe me when I tell you that this boat's made out of logs but it is this boat is comprised of five yellow pine logs it's called a Chesapeake Bay log canoe. It's called the Chesapeake Bay log canoe because they're indigenous to the bay and we find this particular type of a log canoe nowhere else in the world. When the Europeans first came to the bay they needed a way to get around and what with all the large trees the fabrication of a boat like this was a practical thing. They cut down a tree and make a boat and until recent times they haven't been useful to the farmers and the people who lived on the bay for a local transportation for carrying their farm products around. And

lately we just raise some of this but it was billed as a racing boat Her name is spirit wife and she's 27 feet long made of five logs all put together with wood. There's only about 18 of them left sailing on the back. Some of those boats are 100 years old or more. We know that documented 100 years old or more. You know who built them and we know where they were built we know who's owned them sense. Bill Hamlin sails the oldest log canoe in the fleet. Her name is Sandy Sandy's of about one hundred thirty five year old log canoe that. I acquired a 1955 from Cap moly tire at Fishing Creek near Thomas Point light. We traced her back 50 years before that to. Road River area and the male beach and she was known as the store built boat because they get people that used on her in those days would run up a store bill and then the store owner would take her back for the store bill. And then of course he'd sell it to somebody

else to get his money out of her. Though there are few practical uses for a log the new the art of building one is very much alive. Sidney Dixon who felled the yellow pines for his spirit of white town in 1071 was the first to undertake construction of a log. The new since the 1940s. Now he's working on a second unit called a Brogan. It's a wider and longer log a new more like the sailing work boats of a century or more ago in designing and building is going to Dixon employs methods that the new builders in Maryland have used for generations. Now the program is about maybe 40 feet long and I dreamed I came up with something in my mind's eye that I thought would look look like this. And this isn't the first physical expression of the boat. I made two other or three other models first but I settled on this. This general design here I've drawn the logs in on the bottom in India to see where they would

exactly fall. I decided the breadth of the boat would be 13 feet so if my logs are 12 by 12 that calls for 13 of them. After having made this model and settled on the form of it I made a pattern model for a builder's model and you'll see it's only half a vote because we presume we're smart enough to make the other half like this one now instead of drawing logs in here. We've got them in separate pieces so we take it apart like this. We make each part one at a time and then put it together. The scale of this model is three quarters of an inch to the foot so that a sixteenth of an inch on this. This model equals an inch on the real boat. This magic tool is the ads My favorite tool. So much fun to use that antique tool those tools probably 100 years old or more through in service for

90 years that I know of because I know the man that owned it before I did the louvers for Baltimore I have records of their work and use it such as it really applies to the handle. With a little bit away you don't connect. If you let it fall. The racing season typically begins on the Fourth of July weekend in St. Michaels. In the weeks leading up to the first race there is more activity in the backyards along the river than there is on Main Street. Preparation is a necessity a ritual and a tradition. The miles River Yacht Club is the center for log the new racing and events are sanctioned by the Chesapeake Bay log sailing a new association with their high performance boat. They really move very rapidly and it takes a well coordinated and skilled crew to get the best out of them. If you don't get the best out of them like capsize and you pay the penalty of having to take the boat apart in the water frequently fighting sea nettles as you go to sporting out a prize or

displacement hulls they go very very rapidly and that's much of the thrill of sailing course. Competition is sometimes serious. When the day is done and the masts come down for the night the crew of a second or third place vote can often be seen in conference trying to decide how to win the next time. Of all the log canoe racers celebrate together here. First why are. You. Lying. Thank you. Thank you. Thank. You. In his book Chesapeake Bay log the news maritime historian M.V. growing and predicted to log the news demise. They whose

knowing eyes and skilled hands brought the canoe to the height of its perfection are fast going the road the sport of racing seems doomed. The year was 1937 Mbaye growing dim would be glad to know that he was wrong. Push up. Or if you think. You know what. Was. Brewing for. George. Will. Fire. Outdoors Maryland is a production of Maryland Public Television which is soley responsible for its content. Please write with your comments or suggestions to outdoors Maryland Maryland Public Television Owings Mills

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