아래는 2002년 워싱턴포스트에 실린 Janes Island State Park에 대한 기사입니다. 저희 가족은 2008년 여름에 여름휴가로 다녀온 곳입니다.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2002/06/12/AR2005033106780_pf.html
washingtonpost.com
Plain Janes
Janes Island State Park, an unassuming Chesapeake retreat, is simply wonderful.
By Don Beaulieu
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, June 12, 2002; C02
If I'd followed good sense, I never would have gone to Janes Island. I would have planned to spend a weekend in the mountains or at the beach, anyplace away from the island's legendary mosquitoes and their fabled blood lust. I can't say I hadn't been warned.
Fortunately, I didn't let good sense get in the way of a good time.
Here is what I would have missed: a weekend camping on an uninhabited island in the Chesapeake Bay with six miles of sandy beach and no other people in sight, and miles of natural water trails to explore by kayak. And I never would have discovered if the rumors about Janes Island State Park's muscular mosquitoes were true.
On a recent Saturday morning my friends and I were determined to find out. We rented some kayaks and one canoe -- as a barge to transport our gear -- at the park's marina on the mainland and embarked for Janes Island, just off Maryland's Eastern Shore. When we arrived at our campsite we set up our tents between the beach and a small stand of trees. Then we took the kayaks out to explore the island, paddling through the creeks and waterways, or "guts," that intersect 2,900 acres of salt marsh and forest hammocks.
It turned out the island was all ours. Janes Island has only three campsites, which the park opened last year, and on that weekend the other two were empty. Maybe word of these campsites has not yet spread -- or maybe stories of the mosquitoes have kept people away. So far, during the daytime and especially out on the water, the bugs were not biting us much.
You don't have to camp on Janes Island in order to see it. There are also campgrounds and cabins on the mainland by the marina, just across a slender canal from the island, and from there you can spend the day kayaking through the island's 30 miles of marked water trails, see some egrets or canvasback ducks, maybe come upon a muskrat or sea otter. That is how people have visited the island for years.
But staying on the island itself is a different experience. In fact, the solitude and peacefulness of the campsites on Janes Island could very well be the Chesapeake's best-kept secret.
Ironically, it was a park ranger at Janes Island who almost talked me out of going there at all. When I first heard about the island last summer, I called the park for information, and as the ranger described the place, it sounded perfect. Until I asked about the bugs.
"Ever been to Assateague?" he asked me. I told him I had. "Well, our mosquitoes make theirs look like sissies."
Yes, I've hiked Assateague's back country in the summer, when the bugs descend in such density that they seem to be a single being -- a giant, buzzing, bloodthirsty phantasm. I've also canoed in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota, home of 10,000 lakes and 10 quadrillion mosquitoes. Fact or fiction, I decided not to tangle with Janes Island's alleged uber-mosquitoes in the prime of their season (mid-May to September).
Still, the idea of camping on an island in the Chesapeake kept haunting me. So this year some friends and I started making plans. Or better, we devised a defense strategy.
First, we chose to stay at the campsite on the southern end of the island, because it borders the beach and is exposed to the bay breeze -- worse for the bugs, better for us. We brought bug repellent, citronella candles, Tiger Balm -- anything tested, proven or even rumored to keep biting insects away. We packed hats, pants and long-sleeve shirts. Thus prepared to do battle with the bugs, we set out.
Getting to our campsite on the island involved a four-mile paddle, first through Daugherty Creek Canal, a mile-long channel that separates the island from the mainland. Then we entered the Little Annemesex River, which runs between the island and the town of Crisfield, Md. To our right, on the island, we passed great blue herons standing along the grassy shore, and to our left, on platforms built above channel markers in the waterway, osprey perched atop enormous nests of sticks and twigs.
As we neared the campsites, the Stack came into view.
The Stack is the only apparent trace of a once-thriving human settlement on Janes Island, first occupied 200 years ago. Here on the southern tip of the island, where watermen passed on the way to the Crisfield docks (and still pass today), a fish-processing plant with a 50-foot-tall brick chimney was built in the late 19th century.
Once, there were several houses, a ship chandler's store and a maritime school here, as well as a small community of farmers who grew watermelon, cantaloupes, apples and peaches on what was then the highest and most fertile land on the island.
Farther north, across from Crisfield, there was a "pest house," where victims of smallpox and other infectious diseases were quarantined. Farther north still were crab shacks and more farmland. By the 20th century, rising water levels in the bay -- partly due to climate change -- transformed Janes Island's farmland into marshland. Wind and storm, tide and time have scoured the island, leaving almost no remnants of this settlement except for the fish plant's chimney on a narrow spit of sand bordering a small inlet.
As we paddled through the cove later on Saturday, past the Stack and toward the marsh grass on the other side, it was hard to imagine where such a settlement could have existed. Within another 100 years -- when scientists predict that the water will rise another two feet -- the island could disappear entirely into the bay.
That evening, we returned to the campsite and cooked dinner on camp stoves (no open fires are allowed). Across the cove, as the sun set, we could see the Stack, a monument to what the Chesapeake once was, and a warning of what it might become.
In the campsite, meanwhile, the mosquitoes were going at us, yes. But it was not an all-out bloodletting. The breeze seemed to keep the bulk of the swarm at bay. But after sunset it was another story, as the tiny vampires began to stake their claim in earnest. Our insect repellent became about as effective as a crucifix brandished by a wide-eyed horror-movie victim. We retired to our tents.
The next morning, an hour before high tide, I sat alone on the beach, languid ripples of waves advancing over the gentle slope of sand. A white tern darted and dove furtively, nearly skimming the water in front of me, searching for breakfast. As I walked to the water to look for young crabs hiding in the sea grass, I stared south along the shore and all I saw was salt marsh, miles away, bordered by the open bay.
We left the campsite before noon on Sunday, sorry to go but eager to beat an impending storm. We landed at the marina just as the first raindrops fell. As for the bugs, they had annoyed us a bit, bitten us some, but not enough to tarnish the trip.
At the marina I talked to a scoutmaster who had taken his troop out canoeing for the day. He asked what the camping was like. "I just found out about those campsites today," he said. "I'd never heard anything about them before. Next time I'm going to take the kids camping out there."
He asked the inevitable question: "How are the bugs?"
Part of me wanted to tell him they are the size of vultures, that they carry off hapless scouts to their doom. Why not perpetuate the rumors, keep the island to myself?
I didn't. I told him that if you're prepared for them, the bugs aren't so bad.
So if you are going to camp on Janes Island, go now. You won't beat the mosquitoes, but you just might beat the Boy Scouts.
ESCAPE KEYS
GETTING THERE: Janes Island State Park is about a three-hour drive from Washington. Take Route 50 east over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, to Route 13 south at Salisbury, Md. Take a right on Route 413 at Westover, then in 11 miles go right on Plantation Road. After a mile look for the park entrance on right.
STAYING THERE: Visitors can camp at back-country sites on the island for $7 a night. On the mainland, there are campgrounds ($18-$23), simple camper cabins ($35) and full-service cabins ($65-$80 a night, one week minimum). Info: 410-968-1565, www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/eastern/janesisland.html; to reserve cabins and campsites, 888-432-2267.
In nearby Crisfield, Md., stay at the Pines Motel (127 N. Somerset Ave., 410-968-0900, www.intercom.net/biz/pines) for $55 a night, or the Gossamer B&B (211 S. Somerset, 410-968-3478, www.bbonline.com/md/gossamer) for $70.
EQUIPMENT RENTAL: Tangier Sound Outfitters (410-968-1803, www.members.tripod.com/tsokayaking) rents canoes, kayaks and camping equipment, and offers pick-up/drop-off service.
EATING: Crisfield is one of many self-proclaimed "Seafood Capital of the World." Try the crab cakes or crab soup at Watermen's Inn (901 W. Main St.), or order all-you-can-eat crabs on the outdoor deck of the Side Street Seafood Mar ket and Restaurant (204 S. 10th St.).
INFO: Crisfield Chamber of Commerce, 800-782-3913, www.crisfield.org.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2002/06/12/AR2005033106780_pf.html
