Chesapeake Bay Skipjacks documents the skipjack and its role in the oyster dredging industry, describing the natural and manmade disasters that affected the trade, including the August storm of 1933 that swept vessels into pastures; ice-locked harbors that led to the idea of dredging through the ice with sleighs, cars, and trucks; and the Great Depression that crushed the oyster market overnight and forced many to abandon their vessels and way of life. The history of the skipjack, a vessel type that has only existed for about a hundred years, is seen here primarily through the eyes of the men who lived it. Author Vojtech interviewed some thirty captains, former captains, crew members, and relatives of those who worked the boats, to recreate the events that took place between 1917 and 1993. The early years were reconstructed through research into Maryland's dredging records and contemporary newspapers accounts. Today, disease and other environmental hazards affecting the oyster have made the commercial future of the skipjacks on the bay extremely uncertain, underscoring the need to record the lore of those who manned this diminishing fleet and to emphasize the vessel's place in the history of the Chesapeake region. In this readable account, skipjack captains and crews vividly recall their personal troubles and near disasters as well as more widespread hardships that watermen have faced: storms that swept vessels into pastures, long cold spells when they were forced to dredge through the ice with sleighs (and later automobiles), and the Great Depression that crushed the oyster market overnight. More than anything, though, this is a story of men who loved to sail and who often risked their lives, balanced on the edge of danger, to harvest the Chesapeake's most valuable crop-the oyster.

When Captain John Smith sailed up the Chesapeake Bay in 1608, he discovered a land so rich in wildlife that numbers could not begin to tell the whole story. The abundances of birds blackened the sky. Meat-eating wolves and mountain lions had so much game at their disposal that they didn't bother the caged livestock. Deer could be easily killed ten or fifteen at a time by the native tribes, using primitive tools. The wildlife was so abundant that it was no wonder generations of Europeans-used to the barren countryside at home-could not imagine the need to conserve. So, they didn't. In fact, they set out on a course to eliminate the less desirables of the wild kingdom. Soon, the colonists also developed a tremendous trade with Europe in skins, furs, feathers, and even live animals for the enjoyment of the king and high society. As guns improved, birds were not only hunted for food, but also were used for target practice, and the skies rained down passenger pigeons and other migratory birds. On the water, ducks and swans were slaughtered, dozens with a single shot. Three hundred years after Captain Smith marveled at the numbers of deer, they were gone from most of the Chesapeake region. Beavers had been trapped to near extinction. Mountain lions, black bears, bobcats, and wolves had been harassed and killed. The population of ducks that once numbered over a million was decimated. Even the forests fell silent. In this book, author/photographer Pat Vojtech uses historical data to recreate the story of wildlife of the Chesapeake region and reveal how close mankind came to eliminating forever many of the beautiful wildlife species taken so much for granted today. She relates how hard the struggle was to bring some Chesapeake wildlife species back from the brink of extinction. While this is a history of wildlife in the Chesapeake watershed, it mirrors society's impact on wildlife throughout North America and around the world more than the past four hundred years. Illustrated with more than 150 color photographs, this is a book any lover of wildlife or student of history will cherish.

From the beginning, it was a struggle to light the Chesapeake. Its soft, undulating bottom presented different problems from those faced along the rocky coasts of New England. The bay's shores shifted before the winds, tides, and hurricanes that plagued the 200-mile-long estuary, and so did the towers of the Chesapeake. On land, erosion was the silent menace; on the water, it was ice. More than a dozen Chesapeake lighthouses bowed and broke before the pressure of thousands of tons of ice bearing down on them. In many cases, the keepers barely escaped with their lives. Lighting the Bay: Tales of Chesapeake Lighthouses documents the dramatic events that surrounded the difficult job of lighting the bay and manning the lighthouses. With more than 100 attractive color photographs and an informative historical narrative, Pat Vojtech communicates both facts and the human saga of life as it was on the bay's lighthouses. From heroic rescues to untimely deaths, from the routine of daily tasks to battles with ice, cold, injury, and loneliness; Vojtech provides an intimate portrait of life on the guiding lights of the Chesapeake.