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After the crowd had settled in the bar-room, at cards, &c., this doubting Thomas remained beside the boat, carefully examining her. Soon he was scraping her hull below the gunwale, where the muddy water of the bay had left a thin coat of sediment which was now dry. The man's countenance lighted up as he pulled the bartender aside and said, "Look ahere; didn't I tell you that boat looked as if she was made to carry on a deck of a vessel, and to be a-shoved off into the water at night jest abreast of a town to make fools of folks, and git them to believe that that fellow had a-rowed all the way ahere? Now see, here is dust, dry dust, on her hull. She ahain't ben in the water mor'n ten minutes, I sware." It required but a moment's investigation of my Chincoteague audience to discover that the dust was mud from the tide, and the doubter brought down the ridicule of his more discriminating neighbors upon him, and slunk away amid their jeers.
Of all this community of watermen but one could be found that night who had threaded the interior watercourses as far as Cape Charles, and he was the youngest of the lot. Taking out my note-book, I jotted down his amusing directions. "Look out for Cat Creek below Four Mouths," he said; "you'll catch it round there." "Yes," broke in several voices, "Cat Creek's an awful place unless you run through on a full ebb-tide. Oyster boats always has a time a-shoving through Cat Creek," &c.
After the council with my Chincoteague friends had ended, the route to be travelled the next day was in my mental vision "as clear as mud." The inhabitants of this island are not all oystermen, for many find occupation and profit in raising ponies upon the beach of Assateague, where the wild, coarse grass furnishes them a livelihood. These hardy little animals are called "Marsh Tackies," and are found at intervals along the beaches down to the sea-islands of the Carolinas. They hold at Chincoteague an annual fair, to which all the "pony-penners," as they are called, bring their surplus animals to sell. The average price is about ninety dollars for a good beast, though some have sold for two hundred and fifty dollars. All these horses are sold in a semi-wild and unbroken state.
The following morning Mr. J. L. Caulk, ex-collector of the oyster port, and about fifty persons, escorted me to the landing, and sent me away with a hearty "Good luck to ye."
It was three miles and three quarters to the southern end of the island, which has an inlet from the ocean upon each side of that end – the northern one being Assateague, the southern one Chincoteague Inlet. Fortunately, I crossed the latter in smooth water to Ballast Narrows in the marshes, and soon reached Four Mouths, where I found five mouths of thoroughfares, and became perplexed, for had not the pilots of Chincoteague called this interesting display of mouths "Four Mouths"? I clung to the authority of local knowledge, however, and was soon in a labyrinth of creeks which ended in the marshes near the beach.
Returning over the course, I once more faced the four, or five mouths rather, and taking a new departure by entering the next mouth to the one I had so unsatisfactorily explored, soon entered Rogue's Bay, across which could be seen the entrance to Cat Creek, where I was to experience the difficulties predicted by my Chincoteague friends. Cat Creek furnished at half tide sufficient water for my canoe, and not the slightest difficulty was experienced in getting through it. The oystermen had in their minds their own sloop-rigged oyster-boats when they discoursed to me about the hard passage of Cat Creek. They had not considered the fact that my craft drew only five inches of water.
Cat Creek took me quite down to the beach, where, through an inlet, the dark-blue ocean, sparkling in its white caps, came pleasantly into view. Another inlet was to be crossed, and again I was favored with smooth water. This was Assawaman Inlet, which divided the beach into two islands – Wallops on the north, and Assawaman on the south.
It seemed a singular fact that the two Assawaman bays are forty-five miles to the north of an inlet of the same name. In following the creeks through the marshes between Assawaman Island and the mainland, I crossed another shoal bay, and another inlet opened in the beach, through which the ocean was again seen. This last was Gargathy Inlet. Before reaching it, as night was coming on, I turned up a thoroughfare and rowed some distance to the mainland, where I found lodgings with a hospitable farmer, Mr. Martin R. Kelly. At daybreak I crossed Gargathy Inlet.
It was now Saturday, November 28; and being encouraged by the successful crossing of the inlets in my tiny craft, I pushed on to try the less inviting one at the end of Matomkin Island. Fine weather favored me, and I pushed across the strong tide that swept through this inlet without shipping a sea. Assawaman and Gargathy are constantly shifting their channels. At times there will be six feet of water, and again they will shoal to two feet. Matomkin, also, is not to be relied on. Every northeaster will shift a buoy placed in the channels of these three inlets, so they are not buoyed.
Watchapreague Inlet, to the south of the three last named, is less changeable in character, and is also a much more dangerous inlet to cross in rough weather. From Matomkin Inlet the interior thoroughfares were followed inside of Cedar Island, when darkness forced me to seek shelter with Captain William F. Burton, whose comfortable home was on the shore of the mainland, about five miles from Watchapreague Inlet. Here I was kindly invited to spend Sunday. Captain Burton told me much of interest, and among other things mentioned the fact that during one August, a few years before my visit, a large lobster was taken on a fish-hook in Watchapreague Inlet, and that a smaller one was captured in the same manner during the summer of 1874.
Monday was a gusty day. My canoe scraped its keel upon the shoals as I dodged the broken oyster reefs, called here "oyster rocks," while on the passage down to Watchapreague Inlet. The tide was very low, but the water deepened as the beach was approached. A northeaster was blowing freshly, and I was looking for a lee under the beach, when suddenly the canoe shot around a sandy point, and was tugging for life in the rough waters of the inlet. The tide was running in from the sea with the force of a rapid, and the short, quick puffs of wind tossed the waves wildly. It was useless to attempt to turn the canoe back to the beach in such rough water, but, intent on keeping the boat above the caps, I gave her all the momentum that muscular power could exert, as she was headed for the southern point of the beach, across the dangerous inlet.
Though it was only half a mile across, the passage of Watchapreague taxed me severely. Waves washed over my canoe, but the gallant little craft after each rebuff rose like a bird to the surface of the water, answering the slightest touch of my oar better than the best-trained steed. After entering the south-side swash, the wind struck me on the back, and seas came tumbling over and around the boat, fairly forcing me on to the beach. As we flew along, the tumultuous waters made my head swim; so, to prevent mental confusion, I kept my eyes only upon the oars, which, strange to say, never betrayed me into a false stroke.
As a heavy blast beat down the raging sea for a moment, I looked over my shoulder and beheld the low, sandy dunes of the southern shore of the inlet close at hand, and with a severe jolt the canoe grounded high on the strand. I leaped out and drew my precious craft away from the tide, breathing a prayer of thankfulness for my escape from danger, and mentally vowing that the canoe should cross all other treacherous inlets in a fisherman's sloop. I went into camp in a hollow of the beach, where the sand-hills protected me from the piercing wind. All that afternoon I watched from my burrow in the ground the raging of the elements, and towards evening was pleased to note a general subsidence of wind and sea.
The canoe was again put into the water and the thoroughfare followed southward for a mile or two, when the short day ended, leaving me beside a marshy island, which was fringed with an oyster-bed of sharp-beaked bivalves. Stepping overboard in the mud and water, the oars and paddle were laid upon the shell reef to protect the canoe, which was dragged on to the marsh. It grew colder as the wind died out. The marsh was wet, and no fire-wood could be found. The canvas cover was removed, the cargo was piled up on a platform of oars and shells to secure it from the next tide, and then I slowly and laboriously packed myself away in the narrow shell for the night. The canvas deck-cover was buttoned in its place, a rubber blanket covered the cockpit, and I tried to sleep and dream that I was not a sardine, nor securely confined in some inhospitable vault. It was impossible to turn over without unbuttoning one side of the deck-cover and going through contortions that would have done credit to a first-class acrobat. For the first time in my life I found it necessary to get out of bed in order to turn over in it.
At midnight, mallards (Anas boschas) came close to the marsh. The soft whagh of the drake, which is not in this species blessed with the loud quack of the female bird, sufficiently established the identity of the duck. Then muskrats, and the oyster-eating coon, came round, no doubt scenting my provisions. Brisk raps from my knuckles on the inside shell of the canoe astonished these animals and aroused their curiosity, for they annoyed me until daybreak.
When I emerged from my narrow bed, the frosty air struck my cheeks, and the cold, wet marsh chilled my feet. It was the delay at Watchapreague Inlet that had lodged me on this inhospitable marsh; so, trying to exercise my poor stock of patience, I completed my toilet, shaking in my wet shoes. The icy water, into which I stepped ankle-deep in order to launch my canoe, reminded me that this wintry morning was in fact the first day of December, and that stormy Hatteras, south of which was to be found a milder climate, was still a long way off.
The brisk row along Paramore's Island (called Palmer's by the natives) to the wide, bay-like entrance of Little Machipongo Inlet, restored warmth to my benumbed limbs. This wide doorway of the ocean permitted me to cross its west portal in peace, for the day was calm. From Little to Great Machipongo Inlet the beach is called Hog Island. The inside thoroughfare is bounded on the west by Rogue's Island, out of the flats of which rose a solitary house. At the southern end of Hog Island there is a small store on a creek, and near the beach a light-house, while a little inland is located, within a forest of pines, a small settlement.
At noon, Great Machipongo Inlet was crossed without danger, and Cobb's Island was skirted several miles to Sand Shoal Inlet, near which the hotel of the three Cobb brothers rose cheerfully out of the dreary waste of sands and marshes. The father of the present proprietors came to this island more than thirty years ago, and took possession of this domain, which had been thrown up by the action of the ocean's waves. He refused an offer of one hundred thousand dollars for the island. The locality is one of the best on this coast for wild-fowl shooting. Sand Shoal Inlet, at the southern end of Cobb's Island, has a depth of twelve feet of water on its bar at low tide.
In company with the regular row-boat ferry I crossed, the next day, the broad bay to the mainland eight miles distant, where the canoe was put upon a cart and taken across the peninsula five miles to Cherrystone, the only point near Cape Charles at which a Norfolk steamer stopped for passengers. It was fully forty miles across Chesapeake Bay from Cherrystone Landing to Norfolk, and it was imperative to make the portage from this place instead of from Cape Charles, which, though more than fifteen miles further south, and nearer to my starting-point on the other side, did not possess facilities for transportation. The slow one-horse conveyance arrived at Cherrystone half an hour after the steamer N. P. Banks had left the landing, though I heard that the kind-hearted captain, being told I was coming, waited and whistled for me till his patience was exhausted.
The only house at the head of the pier was owned by Mr. J. P. Powers, and fortunately offered hotel accommodations. Here I remained until the next trip of the boat, December 4. Arriving in Norfolk at dusk of the same day, I stored my canoe in the warehouse of the Old Dominion Steamship Company, and quietly retired to an hotel which promised an early meal in the morning, congratulating myself the while that I had avoided the usual show of curiosity tendered to canoeists at city piers, and above all had escaped the inevitable reporter. Alas! my thankfulness came too soon; for when about to retire, my name was called, and a veritable reporter from the Norfolk Landmark cut off my retreat.
"Only a few words," he pleadingly whispered. "I've been hunting for you all over the city since seven o'clock, and it is near midnight now."
He gently took my arm and politely furnished me with a chair. Then placing his own directly before me, he insinuatingly worked upon me until he derived a knowledge of the log of the Paper Canoe, when leaning back in his chair he leisurely surveyed me and exclaimed:
"Mr. Bishop, you are a man of snap. We like men of snap; we admire men of snap; in fact, I may say we cotton to men of snap, and I am proud to make your acquaintance. Now if you will stop over a day we will have the whole city out to see your boat."
This kind offer I firmly refused, and we were about to part, when he said in a softly rebuking manner:
"You thought, Mr. Bishop, you would give us the slip – did you not? I assure you that would be quite impossible. Eternal Vigilance is our motto. No, you could not escape us. Good evening, sir, and the 'Landmark's' welcome to you."
Six hours later, as I entered the restaurant of the hotel with my eyes half open, a newsboy bawled out in the darkness: "'Ere's the 'Landmark.' Full account of the Paper Canoe," &c. And before the sun was up I had read a column and a half of "The Arrival of the Solitary Voyager in Norfolk." So much for the zeal of Mr. Perkins of the "Landmark," a worthy example of American newspaper enterprise. Dreading further attentions, I now prepared to beat a hasty retreat from the city.
CHAPTER IX
FROM NORFOLK TO CAPE HATTERAS
THE ELIZABETH RIVER. – THE CANAL. – NORTH LANDING RIVER. – CURRITUCK SOUND. – ROANOKE ISLAND. – VISIT TO BODY ISLAND LIGHT-HOUSE. – A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. – PAMPLICO SOUND. – THE PAPER CANOE ARRIVES AT CAPE HATTERAS.
ON Saturday morning, December 5, I left the pier of the Old Dominion Steamship Company, at Norfolk, Virginia, and, rowing across the water towards Portsmouth, commenced ascending Elizabeth River, which is here wide and affected by tidal change. The old navy yard, with its dismantled hulks lying at anchor in the stream, occupies both banks of the river. About six miles from Norfolk the entrance to the Dismal Swamp Canal is reached, on the left bank of the river. This old canal runs through the Great Dismal Swamp, and affords passage for steamers and light-draught vessels to Elizabeth City, on the Pasquotank River, which empties into Albemarle Sound to the southward. The great cypress and juniper timber is penetrated by this canal, and schooners are towed into the swamp to landings where their cargoes are delivered.
In the interior of the Dismal Swamp is Drummond's Lake, named after its discoverer. It is seven miles long by five miles wide, and is the feeder of the canal. A branch canal connects it with the main canal; and small vessels may traverse the lake in search of timber and shingles. Voyagers tell me that during heavy gales of wind a terrible sea is set in motion upon this shoal sheet of water, making it dangerous to navigate. Bears are found in the fastnesses of the swamp. The Dismal Swamp Canal was dug in the old days of the wheelbarrow and spade.
The Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, the entrance to which is sixteen miles from Norfolk, on the right or east bank of the Elizabeth River, and generally known as the "new canal," was commenced about the year 1856, and finished in 1859. It is eight miles and a half in length, and connects the Elizabeth and North Landing rivers. This canal was dug by dredging-machines. It is kept in a much better state for navigation, so far as the depth of water is concerned, than the old canal, which from inattention is gradually shoaling in places; consequently the regular steam-packets which ply between Elizabeth City and Norfolk, as well as steamers whose destinations are further north, have given up the use of the Dismal Swamp Canal, and now go round through Albemarle Sound up the North River, thence by a six-mile cut into Currituck Sound, up North Landing River, and through the new canal to the Elizabeth River and into Chesapeake Bay. The shores of the Elizabeth are low and are fringed by sedgy marshes, while forests of second-growth pine present a green background to the eye. A few miles above Norfolk the cultivation of land ceases, and the canoeist traverses a wilderness.
About noon I arrived at the locks of the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal. The telegraph operator greeted me with the news that the company's agent in Norfolk had telegraphed to the lock-master to pass the paper canoe through with the freedom of the canal – the first honor of the kind that had fallen to my lot. The tide rises and falls at the locks in the river about three feet and a half. When I passed through, the difference in the level between the ends of the locks did not reach two feet. The old lock-master urged me to give up the journey at once, as I never could "get through the Sounds with that little boat." When I told him I was on my second thousand miles of canoe navigation since leaving Quebec, he drew a long breath and gave a low groan.
When once through the canal-gates, you are in a heavy cypress swamp. The dredgings thrown upon the banks have raised the edge of the swamp to seven feet above the water. Little pines grow along these shores, and among them the small birds, now on their southern migrations, sported and sang. Whenever a steamer or tugboat passed me, it crowded the canoe close to the bank; but these vessels travel along the canal at so slow a rate, that no trouble is experienced by the canoeist from the disturbance caused by their revolving screws. Freedmen, poling flats loaded with shingles or frame stuff, roared out their merry songs as they passed. The canal entered the North Landing River without any lockage; just beyond was North Landing, from which the river takes its name. A store and evidences of a settlement meet the eye at a little distance. The river is tortuous, and soon leaves the swamp behind. The pine forest is succeeded by marshes on both sides of the slow-flowing current.
Three miles from North Landing a single miniature house is seen; then for nearly five miles along the river not a trace of the presence of man is to be met, until Pungo Ferry and Landing loom up out of the low marshes on the east side of the river. This ferry, with a store three-quarters of a mile from the landing, and a farm of nearly two hundred acres, is the property of Mr. Charles N. Dudley, a southern gentleman, who offers every inducement in his power to northern men to settle in his vicinity. Many of the property-holders in the uplands are willing to sell portions of their estates to induce northern men to come among them.
It was almost dark when I reached the storehouse at Pungo Ferry; and as Sunday is a sacred day with me, I determined to camp there until Monday. A deformed negro held a lease of the ferry, and pulled a flat back and forth across the river by means of a chain and windlass. He was very civil, and placed his quarters at my disposal until I should be ready to start southward to Currituck Sound. We lifted the canoe and pushed it through an open window into the little store-room, where it rested upon an unoccupied counter. The negro went up to the loft above, and threw down two large bundles of flags for a bed, upon which I spread my blankets. An old stove in a corner was soon aglow with burning light wood. While I was cooking my supper, the little propeller Cygnet, which runs between Norfolk and Van Slyck's Landing, at Currituck Narrows, touched at Pungo Ferry, and put off an old woman who had been on a two years' visit to her relatives. She kindly accosted the dwarfed black with, "Charles, have you got a match for my pipe?"
"Yes, missus," civilly responded the negro, handing her a light.
"Well, this is good!" soliloquized the ancient dame, as she seated herself on a box and puffed away at the short-stemmed pipe. "Ah, good indeed to get away from city folks, with their stuck-up manners and queer ways, a-fault-finding when you stick your knife in your mouth in place of your fork, and a-feeding you on China tea in place of dear old yaupon. Charles, you can't reckon how I longs to get a cup of good yaupon."
As the reader is about entering a country where the laboring classes draw largely upon nature for their supply of "the cup that cheers but not inebriates," I will describe the shrub which produces it.
This substitute for the tea of China is a holly (ilex), and is called by the natives "yaupon" (I. cassine, Linn.). It is a handsome shrub, growing a few feet in height, with alternate, perennial, shining leaves, and bearing small scarlet berries. It is found in the vicinity of salt water, in the light soils of Virginia and the Carolinas. The leaves and twigs are dried by the women, and when ready for market are sold at one dollar per bushel. It is not to be compared in excellence with the tea of China, nor does it approach in taste or good qualities the well-known yerba-maté, another species of holly, which is found in Paraguay, and is the common drink of the people of South America.
The old woman having gone on her way, and we being again alone in the rude little shanty, the good-natured freedman told me his history, ending with, —
"O that was a glorious day for me,
When Massa Lincoln set me free."
He had too much ambition, he said, deformed as he was, to be supported as a pauper by the public. "I can make just about twelve dollars a month by dis here ferry," he exclaimed. "I don't want for nuffin'; I'se got no wife – no woman will hab me. I want to support myself and live an honest man."
About seven o'clock he left me to waddle up the road nearly a mile to a little house.
"I an' another cullo'd man live in partnership," he said. He could not account for the fact that I had no fear of sleeping alone in the shanty on the marshes. He went home for the company of his partner, as he "didn't like to sleep alone noways."
Though the cold wind entered through broken window-lights and under the rudely constructed door, I slept comfortably until morning. Before Charles had returned, my breakfast was cooked and eaten.
With the sunshine of the morning came a new visitor. I had made the acquaintance of the late slave; now I received a call from the late master. My visitor was a pleasant, gentlemanly personage, the owner of the surrounding acres. His large white house could be seen from the landing, a quarter of a mile up the road.
"I learned that a stranger from the north was camped here, and was expecting that he would come up and take breakfast with me," was his kindly way of introducing himself.
I told him I was comfortably established in dry quarters, and did not feel justified in forcing myself upon his hospitality while I had so many good things of this life in my provision-basket.
Mr. Dudley would take no excuse, but conducted me to his house, where I remained that day, attending the religious services in a little church in the vicinity. My kind host introduced me to his neighbors, several of whom returned with us to dinner. I found the people about Pungo Ferry, like those I had met along the sounds of the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia, very piously inclined, – the same kind-hearted, hospitable people.
My host entertained me the next day, which was rainy, with his life in the Confederate army, in which he served as a lieutenant. He was a prisoner at Johnson's Island for twenty-two months. He bore no malice towards northern men who came south to join with the natives in working for the true interests of the country. The people of the south had become weary of political sufferings inflicted by a floating population from the north; they needed actual settlers, not politicians. This sentiment I found everywhere expressed. On Tuesday I bade farewell to my new friends, and rowed down the North Landing River towards Currituck Sound.
The North Carolina line is only a few miles south of the ferry. The river enters the head of the sound six or eight miles below Pungo Ferry. A stiff northerly breeze was blowing, and as the river widened, on reaching the head of the sound, to a mile or more, and bays were to be crossed from point to point, it required the exercise of considerable patience and muscular exertion to keep the sea from boarding the little craft amidship. As I was endeavoring to weather a point, the swivel of one of the outriggers parted at its junction with the row-lock, and it became necessary to get under the south point of the marshes for shelter.
The lee side offered a smooth bay. It was but a few minutes' work to unload and haul the canoe into the tall rushes, which afforded ample protection against the cold wind. It was three hours before the wind went down, when the canoe was launched, and, propelled by the double paddle, (always kept in reserve against accidents to oars and row-locks,) I continued over the waters of Currituck Sound.
Swans could now be seen in flocks of twenties and fifties. They were exceedingly wary, not permitting the canoe to approach within rifle range. Clouds of ducks, and some Canada geese, as well as brant, kept up a continuous flutter as they rose from the surface of the water. Away to the southeast extended the glimmering bosom of the sound, with a few islands relieving its monotony. The three or four houses and two small storehouses at the landing of Currituck Court House, which, with the brick court-house, comprise the whole village, are situated on the west bank; and opposite, eight miles to the eastward, is the narrow beach island that serves as a barrier to the ingress of the ocean.
At sunset I started the last flock of white swans, and grounded in the shoal waters at the landing. There is no regular hotel here, but a kind lady, Mrs. Simmons, accommodates the necessities of the occasional traveller. The canoe was soon locked up in the landing-house. Fortunately a blacksmith was found outside the village, who promised to repair the broken row-lock early upon the following morning. Before a pleasant wood fire giving out its heat from a grand old fireplace, with an agreeable visitor, – the physician of the place, – the tediousness of the three-hours' camp on the marshes was soon forgotten, while the country and its resources were fully discussed until a late hour.
Dr. Baxter had experimented in grape culture, and gave me many interesting details in regard to the native wine. In 1714, Lawson described six varieties of native grapes found in North Carolina. Our three finest varieties of native grapes were taken from North Carolina. They are the Scuppernong, the Catawba, and the Isabella. The Scuppernong was found upon the banks of the stream bearing that name, the mouth of which is near the eastern end of Albemarle Sound. The Catawba was originally obtained on the Catawba River, near its head-waters in Buncombe County. The Long Island stock of the Isabella grape was brought to New York by Mrs. Isabella Gibbs: hence the derivation of the name.
Of the six varieties of North Carolina grapes, five were found in Tyrrel County by Amadas and Barlow. Tradition relates that these travellers carried one small vine to Roanoke Island, which still lives and covers an immense area of ground. There are five varieties of the grape growing wild on the shores of Albemarle Sound, all of which are called Scuppernong, – the legitimate Scuppernong being a white grape, sweet and large, and producing a wine said to resemble somewhat in its luscious flavor the Malmsey made on Mount Ida, in Candia.
The repairing of the outrigger detained me until nearly noon of the next day, when the canoe was got under way; but upon rowing off the mouth of Coanjock Bay, only four miles from Currituck Court House, a strong tempest arose from the south, and observing an old gentleman standing upon Bell Island Point, near his cottage, beckoning me to come ashore, I obeyed, and took refuge with my new acquaintance, Captain Peter L. Tatum, proprietor of Bell Island.
"The war has left us without servants," said the captain, as he presented me to his wife, "so we make the best of it, and if you will accept our hospitality we will make you comfortable."
Captain Tatum drew my attention to the flocks of swans which dotted the waters in the offing, and said: "It is hard work to get hold of a swan, though they are a large bird, and abundant in Currituck Sound. You must use a good rifle to bring one down. After a strong norther has been blowing, and the birds have worked well into the bight of the bay, near Goose Castle Point, if the wind shifts to the south suddenly, gunners approach from the outside, and the birds becoming cramped in the cove are shot as they rise against the wind."
More than forty years ago old Currituck Inlet closed, and the oysters on the natural beds, which extended up North Landing River to Green Point, were killed by the freshening of the water. Now winds influence the tides which enter at Oregon Inlet, about fifty-five miles south of the Court House. The difference between the highest and lowest tide at Currituck Court House is three feet. The sound is filled with sandy shoals, with here and there spots of mud. The shells of the defunct oysters are everywhere found mixed with the debris of the bottom of the sound. This is a favorite locality with northern sportsmen. The best "gunning points," as is the case in Chesapeake Bay, are owned by private parties, and cannot be used by the public.
