The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached, or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Baltimore Magazine. In fact, in this region, nothing might connect us more—not crab cakes, not Old Bay, not the Orioles, not Natty Boh beer, all of which, one way or another, are also inspired by the Chesapeake. The Bay informs our history.
It drives our industry. It fuels our economy. It is the heartbeat of this place, and both literally and figuratively, we are entangled in it, with some 11, miles of shoreline crisscrossing not just Maryland, but beyond—from the Atlantic Ocean in Virginia to the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, through Delaware and Pennsylvania, up into upstate New York, where its 64, square-mile watershed begins.
Aubrey Bodine in , which, we would argue, remains true to this day. What would we be without the Chesapeake? But eventually, it will snake its way a whopping miles south, through fields, farms, and forests, towns and cities, becoming the longest river this side of the Mississippi, then dumping into its basin, the Chesapeake Bay.
Five hours north of Baltimore, the birthplace of our estuary is where lake and river meet in the Empire State. Instead, it really is its watershed, aka the surrounding 64,square-mile landscape that covers six states, plus Washington, D.
A week later in Havre de Grace, many of those same ripples first spotted in upstate New York have now made their way to Maryland. Further south, they will become increasingly brackish—a mix of freshwater from the tributaries and saltwater from the Atlantic Ocean.
