Paddling into the Past of Our Waterways

“WE’RE FLOATING THROUGH HISTORY,” she says as we cruise south on the North Landing River. “This liquid highway is more than a way to get somewhere; it’s a way to jump into the past.”

Lillie Gilbert, outdoorswoman and historian, is at it again with her naturalist sidekick, Vickie Shufer. They’re setting out to paddle their way through Virginia Beach’s little-known waterways. It’s a windy day in late March, and they’re about to explore a couple of the only creeks in the region that have not yet felt the blade of their paddles.

The two authors meet Bill Spaur , a retired Navy physician, and his friend Ruth Bizot at the old Pungo Marina on the North Landing River. With Barb and I joining them, the plan is for Spaur to tow our canoes downriver with his sturdy 25-foot powerboat Grace to the suspected entrances to Snake and Walnut creeks (Virginia Beach maps don’t name them but NOAA charts do). From there, we’ll investigate the waterways.

Gilbert and Shufer are two of the most enthusiastic canoeists- kayakers in our part of the world. They’ve written three guidebooks to local waterways. The most recent includes just about every stretch of water from Corolla, N.C., to Cape Henry. Now, they’re updating the first, “Wild River Guide to the North Landing and its Tributaries.”

The North Landing, their earlier book informs us, was first mentioned in a 1672 map of Carolina, then called “North River.” It is best known today by boaters as part of the Intracoastal Waterway that stretches inland all the way to Florida. It connects to the Elizabeth River by way of a canal through Great Bridge. Therein lies one of the little-known turning points of local history.

Proposals during the Colonial era included digging the canal not though Great Bridge but through Kemp’s Landing, a burgeoning village. The canal would have linked North Carolina and Norfolk by way of the Eastern Branch of the Elizabeth, rather than the Southern Branch, and perhaps would have established Kempsville as a major Virginia Beach seaport. The other route was chosen, however, because it was slightly shorter. Kempsville’s star was eclipsed.

A reminder of the once-prosperous trade route is still visible on the North Landing. As we motor past Munden Point Park, Gilbert points to remnants of piers, where steamboats offloaded produce for transport by rail to Norfolk. She shows us a 1905 map that includes the “Norfolk, Virginia Beach & Southern R.R., Currituck Division,” with stops that included Princess Anne Courthouse, Pungo, Back Bay, Creeds and Munden Point. The trade that poured through this water conduit was prodigious.

We anchor near duck blinds just off the entrances to Snake and Walnut creeks and transfer to the canoes. There is no history to be explored here, except the recent history of redwing blackbird nests and, in distant trees, last year’s eagle nests. We paddle along corridors of tall cord grass and examine what Shufer identifies as blue-flag iris, bog cranberry and an otter lodge. We marvel at a flock of black-wing-tipped snow geese and shudder at the shadow of a turkey vulture passing overhead.

Later, heading back to Pungo Ferry, Gilbert shows me a copy of Nathaniel Bishop’s classic 1878 book, “Voyage of the Paper Canoe.” It relates the explorer’s journey from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico in a light, resin-soaked paper vessel through these waters.

At one of his stops, the Pungo Ferry operator, a former slave, puts him up for the night. An “ancient dame” stops by to light her short-stemmed pipe and discourse on the virtues of yaupon tea.

“You can’t reckon how I longs to get a cup of good yaupon,” she soliloquizes.

And then the freedman, content in his Pungo shanty, ends his own story with:

“O that was a glorious day for me/When Massa Lincoln set me free.”

Paul Clancy,

http://paulclancy57.google

pages.com These were some of the stories reported by local papers the week of April 27:

1983

Virginia Beach celebrates its 20th anniversary with an all-day extravaganza . A parachutist from the Navy’s Chuting Stars makes an appearance.

Pete, an Amazon parrot, has spent more than three weeks occupying various trees in Portsmouth’s Olde Towne. Pete escaped from his Chesapeake home and flew more than five miles, resting in Portsmouth, and has refused to be lured back into his cage with offers of sunflower seeds and peanuts by his owner. It is thought that Pete is maintaining his strength by eating flower buds from the trees.

The Navy announces that the aircraft carrier Nimitz will be moved from its home port in Norfolk to a port in Washington state in 1987. It is thought that the Theodore Roosevelt, the fourth Nimitz class carrier scheduled to be commissioned in 1986, could be based here .

1958

Telephone switchboards at police departments and newspaper offices are flooded with calls after a mysterious double explosion is heard over most of the Southside Tidewater region. Both the Navy and Air Force deny that their aircraft caused the noises.

The president of Norfolk’s chamber of commerce declares that the industrial complexes extending from Maine to Wilmington, Del., will continue their southward expansion onto Virginia’s Eastern Shore and into Tidewater because of the construction of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

1908

President Roosevelt receives the first bronze medal executed by Tiffany commemorating the Jamestown Exposition.

Norfolk’s Orpheum Theatre features singer Stephen Butler, who per forms Harry P. Moore’s popular song “Don’t Scorn the Sailor.”

The superintendent of Norfolk’s Public Schools meets with the Board of Control and stresses the importance of building a sidewalk around the Berkley public school. Students have been making their way to class through mud .

– Compiled by Jakon Hays, news researcher

Paul Clancy, a former staff writer for The Virginian-Pilot, is the author of two recent books, “Ironclad: The Epic Battle, Calamitous Loss, and Historic Recovery of the USS Monitor” and “Historic Hampton Roads: Where America Began.”

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