From Deseret News archives:
New trail spotlights Virginia of 1607
Travelers can see sights that greeted Capt. John Smith
Bill Portlock, senior educator with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, stops paddling on the Chickahominy River to point out arrow arum, wild rice, rose mallow and other plants growing in a tidal freshwater marsh, much as they did when Capt. John Smith explored the region in the early 17th century.
Virginia recently released travel maps for Capt. John Smith's Trail, a boat and auto tour along the James River following Smith's footsteps that is the first segment of what authorities hope will become a national water trail. The Chickahominy flows into the James in southeast Virginia.
The Virginia trail was developed in time for the 400th anniversary commemoration of the founding of Jamestown, America's first permanent English settlement, in 1607. The route includes Jamestown, plantations, parks and museums and places where Indians lived thousands of years before the English arrived.
State tourism and conservation officials tout the trail as "a great way for boaters and motorists to discover the beauty of Virginia that inspired John Smith."
One of the best spots to get a feel for what the landscape looked like in 1607 is at the confluence of the Chickahominy and James rivers, Turner said.
"If you want to understand Virginia 400 years ago, you have to get out on the water because that was the principal means of transportation," he said. "Obviously, as you go up and down the James River, or portions of the Chickahominy River, you're going to see development that wasn't there at that point in time. But in general terms ... you'll get a very, very good overview of what Virginia was like during that time period."
The trail also is a good tool for teaching people about the environment and how pollution has hurt the ecosystem since Smith's day, when the waters of the James were still clear, said the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Portlock. The organization works to restore the bay and its tributaries.
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A pair of young ospreys keep their eyes on a visitor during a tour along the Chickahominy River in Virginia. The river segment is part of Capt. John Smith's Trail, a boat and auto tour along the route explored by Smith in 1607 after the founding of Jamestown by the British.
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