8o8 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 24, 1906. 
™ TOUJIMEfir 1 
A Cruise in a Converted Canoe.—I. 
BY RAYMOND S. SPEARS. 
To those who love the water, Chesapeake Bay 
is exceedingly beautiful. The land surface lies 
but a little higher than that of the water, and 
the spaces over which one looks are very wide 
indeed. One sees few features of startling 
prominence, and none of these offend the eye. 
The shacks are picturesque, and few of them 
are seen. The bay shore is distinctly neat, 
pleasant and home-like. A very large propor¬ 
tion of the population are people who ride the 
waves in their own craft, and no man knows 
better the value of paint than a sailor. Of all 
classes, the sailor kind keep their homes neatest, 
inside and out. 
The head of the bay is not so far from New 
York city as Albany, and one could go to the 
furthermost end of the Chesapeake in less time 
and with no more trouble than he would take 
to go to Maine, or Georgian Bay, which seem 
nearer because more familiar. 
One is apt to imagine that Chesapeake Bay 
is small, rather too small for consideration when 
making plans for a long journey, or for a novel 
outing, and yet it is considerably larger than 
Long Island Sound, and has a vastly greater 
territory from which the adventurer may choose 
his stamping ground. 
I suppose that the handiest and most inter¬ 
esting way to see the Chesapeake and its various 
inlets, salt rivers and winding shores is from 
a light, staunch cabin craft, either sail or power 
boat. One could go into the bay with an ocean¬ 
going yacht and make considerable of a cruise 
from seaport to seaport—Washington, Baltimore 
and Norfolk, with runs up the Potomac. James 
and other rivers. A small yacht, able to weather 
any gale, would be ideal for the purpose, for 
there are hundreds of harbors where it could 
find safe shelter in time of storm, while the 
broad water would still be accessible on the 
numerous pleasant weeks of spring, summer and 
fall. 
I was so fortunate as to pass several months 
along the shores of the Chesapeake, last winter 
and spring, and the story of a trip which I 
made in a converted bay canoe on the waters 
between Big Choptank River and the Wicomico 
River may have in it some suggestions for those 
who would like to visit a region which is not 
overrun by mere pleasure seekers who cannot 
love nature for its own sake, and who must 
have excitement of a kind that nature frowns 
upon. 
I met John W. Rusk, of Haines Falls, N. Y.. 
in Cannon’s boarding house in Cambridge. Md., 
toward the end of March. We became ac¬ 
quainted, and he told me about some of his ex¬ 
periences as a sportsman-traveler. Nearly two 
years before, he had purchased a common 
Chesapeake Bay canoe, the “Virgie Lee.” It 
was built of four logs, hewed and bolted to 
shape, so that it was really a 4-log dugout. The 
craft was 28 feet long. 7 feet wide and drawing 
2 feet of water. The bottom was 4 inches thick, 
and of southern pine. It must have weighed 
nearly 3,000 pounds, but it was an attractive 
craft, for all that. The bay canoe handled by 
a bayman, will ride storms that drive steamers 
to shelter. 
Rusk discarded the mast and sail, built a wash¬ 
board, put in a 4-inch high combing, covered 
the bow with a deck, put up a cabin 7 feet long, 
and put in a 12 horsepower gasolene motor. He 
expected to pass the winter on the Chesapeake 
waters, but the river Wye froze over for six 
weeks, and held his boat fast. When it thawed 
out enough, he took a compass course south¬ 
ward, passed through the inland route to the 
Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, and on to 
Florida and warm weather. This shows the 
possibilities of the converted Chesapeake Bay 
canoe. One can get a canoe for from $40 up, 
and by putting in a cheap engine, have a very 
good sort of cruising boat at an expense of 
$150, or so. Of course, there is nothing fancy 
in such a craft—no brass fittings or hardwood 
finishing, but a man handy with saw and hammer 
and plane can build himself a cabin on a canoe 
that will be good to live in. 
When I met Rusk, he had sold his 12 horse¬ 
power engine, and was waiting for a 4 horse¬ 
power. It was March, and the engine company 
was filling summer orders. Everybody seems 
to wait for spring to get their summer outfits, 
and the result is congestion of orders just when 
everybody is in a hurry. One had much better 
build himself a plank launch from plans during 
the winter, and get an engine as soon as he can 
before the rush begins. One can reach Chesa¬ 
peake Bay by canals from New York easily. It 
is not essential that one travel in a bay canoe— 
its best feature is strength, and its worst one, 
lack of buoyancy or “life.” It is a log, and 
lies like a log in the water. 
Rusk and I became chummy. We went up 
to Secretary together on the steamer and had 
dinner with Win Murphy, an oysterman and 
captain, a lank, lean man with the buzz of the 
sea wind in his throat and a sun-baked face. 
Murphy believes that oysters were made for all 
men to enioy and profit by. His is the faith 
of all the Maryland oystermen. Laws to pro¬ 
tect the oyster are schemes of the rich against 
the poor, of the few against the many, he said, 
and for this reason he declared his intention of 
catching oysters whenever he could. On our 
way to the house he was telling about going 
rlovvn the river one night “stealing oysters.” 
He was caught at it, and had to run. Where¬ 
upon the police opened fire with their . 45 - 70 S. 
At the table Mr. Murphy interrupted his story 
to invite Rusk to ask a blessing, and then con¬ 
tinued, saying that the next morning he noticed 
one of his halliards was cut almost in two by 
a bullet. 
“If it had cut square, they’d got me certain,” 
Murphy said. 
“And we had to step a new mast, the old one 
was so badly shot up,” Win’s oldest boy broke 
in. Good, honest men, as a rule, the tongers 
cannot bring themselves to observing the oyster 
laws any more than an old-time woodsman will 
observe the game laws. They present the re¬ 
markable characteristic of being God-fearing 
and law-breaking, both acts being matters of 
conscience. 
Coming down Secretary Creek toward Chop- 
tank River on the steamer Joppa, we had a 
bit of an experience. A little schooner loaded 
with brick was caught by the tide in the channel, 
and anchored in the narrow way. The Joppa 
tried to get past on the starboard side, and hit 
a mud bank, heeled over and came to a stop. 
Then the steamer captain and the schooner cap¬ 
tain exchanged compliments. After fifteen or 
twenty minutes the big sidewheels worked the 
steamer off the slope, and away we went down 
the creek into the river. It was low tide, and 
for upward of four miles the keel cut through 
the mud, sending coils of blue black muck up 
astern in the green water. We could hear the 
bottom strike lumps of oysters at intervals. 
On another day we went out with Capt. “Dad” 
Flowers, of the police boat Eugie Willis. Capt. 
“Dad” and Oyster Inspector William Pritchard 
guard the tonging beds of the Choptank, winter 
and summer. Night after night during the open 
season for oystering they patrol the river, watch¬ 
ing for dredges and illegal oystering. Dredg¬ 
ing is forbidden above an imaginary line drawn 
between the steamer dock at Cambridge and a 
house on the far side of the river. Oystering at 
night is also forbidden. Nevertheless, dredgers 
try to get at the tongers’ rocks above the line, 
to prevent which Capt. “Dad” and Pritchard 
patrol the river at night, with lights out and 
their eyes scanning the dark water for the faint 
flush of canvas shooting back and forth over 
the beds, betraying the pirate at his work. 
Capturing the violators is sometimes a matter 
of a wild midnight race along the river, firing the 
.45 till the pirate comes to, or vanishes in the 
murk. Sometimes there is shooting back, and 
the flash of the guns darts out from two craft 
in mimic warfare. Some men like that sort 
of thing, and ride the waves of the bay regard¬ 
less of consequences, so long as they can get 
huge catches of oysters. These free-lancers 
carry half-inch boiler plates which they move to 
between the steersman and the police boat’s 
fire, and then run for it. They are really 
armored pirates. The law forbids the carrying 
of rifles, but has overlooked the curved sheets 
of iron that enable many a boat to escape the 
penalty of the law—fines, confiscation or im¬ 
prisonment. 
It was a pretty day when Rusk and I went 
up the river with Capt. “Dad.” There seemed 
little chance of adventure. The river was dotted 
with canoes, tonging the beds in legal fashion. 
As we came around one point, a canoe far up 
the river at the next point suspended tonging, 
hoisted sail and slipped away out of sight. It 
was miles away, and too far to make it worth 
while to give chase, but it was an incident worth 
noticing, for that canoe probably had on board 
some bushels of “culls” or oysters under the 
legal size. Sight of the Eugie Willis was 
sufficient to send these lawbreakers scurrying, 
while the others were either honest, or trust¬ 
ing to luck not to be searched. A small batteau 
came bounding down with the light breeze— 
Capt. Wells, another oyster inspector was out 
viewing the work of the tongers. Asked if he 
had found anybody violating the law, he said, 
“No-o,” as though to add, “Not exactly.” Not 
exactly violating the law is the normal condition 
of affairs down on the Chesapeake oyster beds. 
Capt. “Dad” served oysters for dinner. In¬ 
spector Pritchard opened them, three minutes 
from the natural rock, and they were dropped 
still beating into flour and then into a spider 
sizzling hot with grease. Better oysters one can 
never eat than those. One reads that certain 
good feeders, or bon vivants, have delicacies 
brought to them from all parts of the world; 
they think that thus they get the world’s best 
food, but one who has eaten apple butter where 
it is made, sorghum where it was boiled, maple 
sugar in the bush, bananas from the tree, 
strawberries from the wild vine, trout fried be¬ 
side their native brook, venison broiled over 
a yellow birch fire, or oysters fried at the 
natural rock, knows that the best flavors cannot 
be brought to a man, but the man must go to 
