The Bay is about stories, all kinds of them. Peek in on some of the stories about special Bay people and places. Window on the Chesapeake highlights 35 great stories and Bay Journal profiles a new Chesapeake Gateway each month.

Bookstores stock their share of Chesapeake titles: nuts-and-bolts travel guides, coffee-table books filled with photographs, and dense historical tomes. But the latest arrival on shelves is something altogether different. Window on the Chesapeake: The Bay, Its People and Places delivers 35 compelling portraits of individuals and destinations that are Chesapeake through and through.

A joint project of the Gateways Network and the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia, Window is available at many Network sites and through the Network’s website. It features dozens of individual Gateways, as seen through the eyes of people whose lives are inextricably linked with the Bay.

Excerpts from Window on the Chesapeake:

• One Stream At A Time
• Bay Songs and Beer
• Flower Hunter
• The Sneaker Index
• True Calling
• Tiny Towns and Old Rivers

• “Won’t You Help Me Raise 'Em Boys!”
• Carver's Song
• A Friend of Dragon Run
• Monitor Man
• Tuckahoe
• Of Birds and Butterflies

Bay Journal, a monthly newspaper focusing on diverse Chesapeake Bay issues regularly profiles a Chesapeake Bay Gateway. Read the stories of these special places below - and consider ordering a free subscription to Bay Journal!

• History, nature compete for attention during visit to First Landing State Park (May 2008) - I'm thinking hard about those first vulnerable colonists who sailed across the Atlantic in 1607 as I cross the 23-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. I struggle to keep our pick-up truck, laden with bicycles and sea kayaks in my designated lane as I keep stealing glances at the startlingly wide Bay and the 4-foot swells smashing against the pylons.
• Aquarium immerses visitors in watery habitats, including a few close to home (March 2008) - Sharks circle through the tank with beady, watchful eyes.
• Freedom takes on new meaning after trip to Underground Railroad sites (February 2008) - A yellow dog sleeps in the dirt under the Bucktown Store overhang. The sky is a deep blue. Except for a fly buzzing around the dog's head, all is peaceful. But as I step across the worn threshold of the door jam, visibly dipped and smoothed where thousands have placed their feet while entering, my mind whizzes back to the 1830s.
• Bay played role as Douglass, Myers strove to turn tide against prejudice (December 2007) - At the eastern end of Fells Point, where the river widens into the Baltimore harbor, a young boy once "sat on a cellar door and studied his spelling books."
• Steamboat museum takes visitors on a trip to another era (November 2007) - To those who daydream about the early days of travel and commerce on the Chesapeake, the steamboat era conjures up tales of adventure.



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