Vision for the Trail:
An Opportunity for Discovery

The Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Water Trail will provide us with an opportunity to explore the birth of our nation. This trail offers educational, recreational, and tourism opportunities that highlight the region's remarkable maritime history, unique watermen and their culture, diversity of people, historic settlements, and on-going efforts to restore and sustain the bay as the world's most productive estuary.

The National Historic Trail (NHT) will be a lasting legacy of the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the establishment of Jamestown in 1607, the first permanent English settlement in North America. Smith led the English colony and from Jamestown he explored the Bay and established relationships with the American Indians he met.

The Captain John Smith Chesapeake NHT is the first entirely water-based NHT and would consist of a circuit of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries combining the routes of Smith’s historic voyages in 1607-1609. Like the 16 other National Historic Trails, it will allow visitors to retrace a route of national historic significance.

A mix of new and old technologies will guide trail explorers. Printed maps and guides will provide navigational, historical, cultural and environmental information. In addition, interpretative buoys at key points would act as “trail markers” and would provide information about Smith’s journey, cultural and natural history and real time monitoring of weather and environmental conditions. Because the buoys can be accessed via cellular telephone and the Internet, they will provide an opportunity for distance learning for classrooms.

“I think this will be an exciting way of having trails in a different sense,” said Sen. George Allen of Virginia. “It is one that I think will enhance tourism and jobs while also protecting the natural beauty and the historic heritage of the entire region."

Sen. Paul Sarbanes of Maryland said in remarks when he introduced legislation to authorize the trail that designating the route as “a national historic trail would be a tremendous way to celebrate an important part of our Nation's story…. It would also give recognition to the Native American settlements, culture and natural history of the 17th-century Chesapeake. Similar in historic importance to the Lewis and Clark National Trail, this new historic water trail will inspire generations of Americans and visitors to follow Smith's journeys, to learn about the roots of our nation and to better understand the contributions of the Native Americans who lived within the Bay region.”