Author: Victor Block
Published: 2025/02/11
Publication Type: Informative
Topic: Disability Travel America – Publications List
Page Content: Synopsis – Introduction – Main
Synopsis: Explore Smith Island’s resilient Chesapeake Bay culture, watermen heritage, and accessible travel options, including scenic trails and famed Smith Island Cake.
Why it matters: This travel article by travel writer Victor Block offers an engaging glimpse into the unique culture, history, and resilient way of life on Smith Island, Maryland, a remote Chesapeake Bay archipelago where residents take fierce pride in their tight-knit communities. The article provides insights into the island’s heritage, from its Elizabethan-influenced dialect to its generations-old reliance on crabbing and oyster harvesting, making it a compelling resource for travelers, cultural enthusiasts, or anyone interested in sustainable coastal livelihoods. The piece highlights accessible features like walkable villages, golf cart rentals, and flat terrain, which may appeal to seniors or visitors with mobility challenges, while also emphasizing the island’s serene, car-free environment. From its vivid descriptions of watermen’s daily routines to its famed Smith Island Cake – Maryland’s official dessert – the article underscores how the island’s isolation has preserved traditions and fostered self-reliance. Practical details, such as ferry access and quaint bed-and-breakfast stays, further position Smith Island as an inviting destination for those seeking an off-the-beaten-path experience steeped in Americana and natural beauty – Disabled World (DW).
Introduction
Talk about hometown pride! When I asked a grizzled waterman who lives on Smith Island, Maryland, if he would like to accompany me to one of the other nearby villages, he replied, “Nope, I’ve been there.” While the twinkle in his eyes suggested he wasn’t serious about the reason for his decision, the fact is that residents of Smith Island in the Chesapeake Bay, located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, good-naturedly tout the superiority of their town over the other two.
Main Item
Along with being chauvinistic about their small island and even tinier villages, Smith Islanders also are hardy, self-reliant and welcoming to visitors.
Despite its name, Smith Island actually consists of three miniscule islets, each occupied by a small community. Ewell and Rhodes Point are connected by a short wooden bridge, while Tylerton stands alone.
Captain John Smith spotted the diminutive archipelago during his exploration of the Chesapeake Bay in 1608. Some present-day residents can trace their ancestry back as much as 12 generations to the early colonists.
Their unique way of speaking comes from the original settlers. Most were English and Welsh, and vestiges of their Elizabethan dialect persist, leavened by touches of southern and rural Maryland colloquialisms. I soon realized that “air” means “our,” “why” translates to “way’, and “tie-yum” refers to “time.”
Following in the bootsteps of their ancestors, most men eke out their living from the gray waters of the Chesapeake Bay. That means dropping traps or trotlines for crabs during spring and summer, and dredging for oysters in fall and winter.
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Locally built workboats venture forth often well before daybreak, returning as much as 12 hours later. As overharvesting, pollution and disease depleted the Bay’s oyster population in recent decades, the island’s economy has come to depend largely upon crabbing. Along with hard shell crabs, Smith Island has evolved into a center of the country’s soft shell crab industry.
The waters are thick with multicolored buoys bobbing in the waves, each marking a wire crab “pot”. Male crabs are the usual bait, luring females that enter anticipating a mating ritual, only to end up eventually on someone’s dinner plate.
Brought back to land, “peeler” crabs – those which are about to lose their hard cover and become soft shells – are placed in “floats.” Water circulates through large trays to keep the crabs alive. As soon as a crustacean sheds its shell, it’s plucked out and prepared for shipment to a restaurant or market.
Hard shell crabs face a different, if no less fortunate, fate. Some end up, still living, at restaurants not far from the waters where they grew up. There they are sprinkled with a peppery mixture of spices, steamed until the shells turn from blue to red, and often washed down with cold beer.
Strolling or rolling around the three tiny towns is easy, and rental golf carts also are an easy mode of transportation. How many places have you visited where two golf carts passing each other constitutes rush hour?
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Some adventurous visitors explore by canoe or kayak. A system of marked water trails leads through creeks (called “guts”) that offer panoramic views of the scenery, which consists primarily of tidal marshes and mud flats. They also provide opportunities for close encounters with wildlife, including heron, pelicans, bald eagles and many other resident and migratory birds. Some visitors hire a boat to fish for striped bass (rockfish), sea trout, flounder and other game fish.
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Back on land, each village is built around a church which acts both as a kind of unofficial government and center of community life. While some residents own a vehicle, traffic usually ranges between little and none. As one local explained to me in his appealing drawl, “Traffic signals are not re-quared.”
Neither, in fact, is any kind of vehicle for visitors. Tylerton, only two by four blocks in size, hardly calls for any mode of transportation other than feet. A five-minute boat ride brought me to Ewell, which is connected to Rhodes Point by a strip of bumpy asphalt about 1.5 miles long which locals mockingly call “the highway.”
The closest thing to a tourist attraction is a small, recently-renovated Visitors Center and Cultural Museum in Ewell, where exhibits and an excellent film depict the history, economy and traditions of the island. The 20-minute presentation tellingly portrays the work of watermen and life on Smith Island, much of it recounted by residents in their own words.
One “must” for visitors is to throw diet to the wind and sample Smith Island Cake. It’s a towering delicacy of usually eight or nine thin layers that has been designated as the official dessert of Maryland. Most common is yellow cake with chocolate icing, but flavors like coconut, fig and orange also tempt the taste buds. No matter how good the flavor of that unique treat, and it is, to me the lifestyle of the proud people who choose to live in such splendid isolation is reason enough to visit with them.
Smith Island is 12 miles from Crisfield, Maryland. Passenger ferries offer service to the island, about a 45-minute ride. For accommodations, there’s a choice of several inviting B&B’s.
Author Credentials: Victor Block has been a travel journalist for many years, and has written for major newspapers, magazines and travel websites and served as an editor of Fodor’s Travel Guides. He is a member of the Society of American Travel Writers and the North American Travel Journalists Association. Victor is a regular contributor of reviews to the Disabled World travel section. Visit Victors’s biography for further insights into his background, expertise, and accomplishments.
Citing Information and Page References
Disabled World (DW) is a comprehensive online resource providing information and news related to disabilities, assistive technologies, and accessibility. Founded in 2004 our website covers a wide range of topics, including disability rights, healthcare, education, employment, and independent living, with the goal of supporting the disability community and their families.
Cite This Page (APA): Block, V. (2025, February 11). Crabs, Cakes, and Chesapeake Pride: The Resilient Spirit of Smith Island. Disabled World (DW). Retrieved February 11, 2025 from www.disabled-world.com/travel/usa/smith-island.php
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