Paddle Back in Time with Captain John Smith

"The idea of the Captain John Smith Trail is really hard to wrap your head around," said Jill Bieri, as her kayak glided downwind on Powhatan Creek through fields of arrow arum, a wash of emerald green leaves against the deep blue afternoon sky.

Powhatan Creek is part of the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, an ambitious and ongoing project launched by 2006 legislation in anticipation of the 400th anniversary of the English settlement at Jamestown in 1607. It was the first time that Congress designated a water trail as a national historic trail. Its creation has helped to revive waterfront communities throughout Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

The trail, which runs for 3,000 miles up the Bay and its great rivers, is a charted course and history lesson wrapped together. It commemorates John Smith's explorations of the Bay from 1607 to 1609 and his encounters with the Indians who had lived here for centuries.

Smith made two long trips from Jamestown to the Upper Bay in 1608, and his exploration provided the early colonists with their first real picture of the region's mighty rivers, coastal plains, marshes and upland forests.

Smith's trips were weeks to months long, but for most of us, exploring the trail requires taking it on in pieces. In fact, that's the way the National Park Service is planning the trail — in segments. The first, the James River segment, is well along, and that's where Bieri was paddling.

It's especially important, she said, for people to visit sites along the water trail that are evocative of the landscapes that Smith encountered. "Powhatan Creek is still very pristine, which is amazing given how much development has taken place so close by."

She spotted a bald eagle against the background of trees on the bank, barely 50 feet from a waterfront home. Its presence is a conservation story of its own.

"You really can paddle this creek and have an experience of what it might have looked like all along the James River back in the early 1600s when John Smith was exploring for the Virginia Company," Bieri said.

To really understand the history, travelers may have to confront uncomfortable stories about the exploitation of natural resources and the displacement of native peoples — in both North America and Africa. Touch down on any segment of John Smith's journeys along the James, and you are on a trail of questions.

The trail winds through patches of wetland forests as dark and primeval as Smith may have encountered. Sturdy wooden bridges ford the streams along a route that was once used by animals, then Indians, then commerce of the colonial era. Joggers, cyclists, walkers and parents with strollers make good use of the trail. Spur trails connect to one of the oldest farms on Virginia's Lower Peninsula and the Powhatan Greenway along the headwaters of the creek.

It's easy to understand why planners decided to anchor the John Smith Trail at Jamestown. In addition to being the first permanent English settlement, Jamestown served as the first capital of Virginia, and was the site where the Indians and colonists first clashed over the use — and taking – of the land and its bounties.

At a series of pullouts, educational signs are placed at just the right height for car windows, pointing out significant landmarks and natural history features. After all, not everyone can ride a bike.

Or paddle a kayak.

The water trail can be bit off — piece by small piece —and savored by way of boat, car, foot or bicycle.

Trails are meant to take us places, but like all travel, there is the destination and there is the journey. By naming this the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, we are given a reference point in time.

All that's needed is willingness to follow the signs, pause along the way and consider what has changed and what might yet change if we allow ourselves to respond deeply to the natural world.

This is an abridged version of an article originally published in Bay Journeys