Slow things down in Maryland city
Plentiful maritime history and Decoy Museum ready to greet those who stop by
Because Washington sits at the southwest end of the Northeast Corridor, anyone with interests in the upper reaches of the zone can spend a lot of time traversing the same path, back and forth, over and over. By car or by train, and regardless of the destination, the scenery is a parade of monotony.
That’s true for almost the entire journey. Almost.
For a brief moment, the tunnel vision created by concrete canyons or wooded walls fades. When you cross the bridge over the Susquehanna River just east of Baltimore, everything opens up into a classic estuary view at the spot where the river and Chesapeake Bay each begin or end, depending on your perspective. Catch it at the right time of day, and it looks like an inspirational meme waiting to happen. Just snap a photo and add a quote dripping with forced sentimentality.
You’re passing through Havre de Grace, Md.
What I wanted to find out is what it looks like at less than 113 kilometres per hour
As I drive into the downtown area, it’s a grey, drizzly day; the kind of day that clichés suggest are great if you’re a duck. And that’s perfect, because I head directly to the Decoy Museum on the city’s waterfront. The first thing I learn is that this area is on a migration pattern and has a long history of duck hunting. The fact that duck hunters need decoys made it natural that the region would spawn experts in the craft.
Even if you’re not a duck hunter, it’s easy to appreciate the displays as folk art. In fact, with the advent of mass production and the decline in duck hunting, many of the more recent examples are made for decorative purposes.
But a large part of the museum acts as a sort of Hall of Fame, honouring the local legends of the craft. Chief among them is R. Madison Mitchell, who wore a bow tie to his shop every day and is estimated to have made more than 100,000 decoys in his career. He started in 1924, selling them for $1.25 each (U.S.) (which translates to about $18 in today’s economy) and developed a wet-on-wet painting technique that was a really big deal in certain circles of his era. You can also see the work of Jim Pierce, Jim Currier and Bob McGaw, who introduced the duplicating lathe to the process which made mass production possible.
There are a number of other museums also dedicated to facets of the city’s maritime history, and the next one I walk to is the Lock House Museum, where there’s a working scale model of a lock to illustrate how boats used to navigate the elevation changes as they made the trip up or down the Susquehanna back in the days when the water was the most efficient highway through the city.
The docent tells us that the river’s canal was the country’s busiest until the Erie Canal opened. He sounds a little upset about the fact it was overtaken. This canal ceased operations in about1900. He definitely wasn’t there. But it seems like he might still be taking it personally. I appreciate that level of civic dedication.
After we watch the model run through its paces, our guide invites us to go outside and see a restored portion of the old canal. As I walk out, a family of geese make it clear that they’re claiming the area around the lock, and we aren’t welcome to come any closer. The largest of them — there are two adults and maybe 10 younger ones that seem to be in an awkward juvenile stage — is loudly insistent about it. It (male, female; I have no idea) stares me down and shoots me a pretty menacing glare.
I was just at the Decoy Museum, so I kind of understand why it might have beef with me, and I decide to reverse history in my own small way and just let them hold their ground.
It’s worth talking about how to pronounce the name of the city. I ask everyone I meet, and it is almost unanimous: They all seemed to have their own way of saying it.
The city was named by the Marquis de Lafayette in the days of the U.S. revolution because it reminded him of the port city in France and translates to “harbour of mercy.” If you speak French, you might insist that it be pronounced something like “ahvra de grah,” with no small degree of drama inflected on the syllable of your choosing.
I couldn’t find anyone who says it like that.
The GPS app that directed me here is pretty certain it is “hahvray de grace,” which is consistent with just how wrong it usually is about such things. You might hear someone drop a “havra de grass,” which suggests they are of a certain age. Others run it together as if it’s all one word, like “havdagrace” or “ahvdegrace.” Some slight variations of “haver dee grace” or “have-a dee grace” are most prevalent in my totally unofficial survey, and those fit nicely with American phonics. Francophiles may find that gauche, but when I check in at the chamber of commerce, I’m assured that however you want to say it is fine. They know what you mean.
Given the speed with which I usually pass through Havre de Grace, it seems that a leisurely walk through the city is in order, and there are plenty of viable itineraries. The downtown area runs along Washington Street south from Rochambeau Plaza, and antique malls are a recurring attraction. There’s one in an old cannery that was once the centre of industry here, one with old Pyrex cookware, one dedicated to old postcards and another with an extensive secondfloor collection of beer cans. Curation takes many forms.
For history buffs, there’s the Lafayette Trail, a five-kilometre loop through the city with stops at relevant old spots and structures. For my purposes, I walk up and down the Promenade a couple of times. The onekilometre boardwalk stretches along the water’s edge from the city’s signature Concord Point Lighthouse down to a marina, all the while giving you an unobstructed view of the horizon over the Chesapeake, which is even more serene when you aren’t looking at it from a window at 113 km/h.
I turn to face north, sit down and spend a not short period of time staring at the bridges crossing the water just a bit up the Susquehanna.
And I’m perfectly happy to do it at exactly 0 km/h.