I’m a small town girl, raised in an unglaciated corner of America’s Dairyland. My family bicycled those steep hills, and canoed the wild and scenic rivers. General stores, breweries and dairies dotted the countryside. The Chesapeake Bay is my adopted countryside, with small towns, farms, networks of rivers and creeks, and  its own unique topography. That is where the similarities end.

I’m an outsider, trying to interpret this place without any familiar references. This region’s history and traditions were shaped by forces quite different from those of my homeland. At the same time, both places are undergoing profound change. Some things will be irretrievably lost, some will be saved.

I’m struck by the way in which “old timers” describe the Bay, rooted more in memory than in fact. They see the Bay in all its dimensions, when the Bay’s bounty sustained whole communities  and the landscape was a crazy quilt of family farms. Newcomers from across the Bay Bridge bring a different perspective – to them this place is still more farm than charm, more wild than tamed.  I am squinting to see the Bay that the old timers see, while looking for signs of the Bay’s renewal and rejuvenation.

My impressions of the Bay come in important part from bicycle and canoe/kayak trips, and the unexpected discoveries I’ve made over the years while walking the fields and proguing the banks with Woof and Bearcat, my two Airedales.