Tangier Island lies in the Chesapeake Bay about midway between Tidewater Virginia and Virginias Eastern Shore, about ten miles below the Maryland state line and about forty miles above Cape Charles. Since Tangier was settled, nearly three hundred years ago, most of the men who have lived there have worked the water, and to a large extent that is still the case. Until recent years, the islanders lived in remote isolation. They were an independent lot, self-reliant, and not infrequently rather eccentric. The tales in this collection are true. For the most part they recount events in the life of Elmer Crockett, born on Tangier in 1903, who has shared with Mr. Chowning the reminiscences of his lifelong occupation as a waterman. A few of the stories involve earlier generations of Crocketts and the accounts, handed down, have become part of the island lore. Sometimes two or more events have been woven together, sometimes names have been changed, a little poetic license has been taken, butall in allthe tales are a true mirror of life on Tangier Island. This is the real stuff, told by a natural-born storyteller, recorded by a sensitive reporter with an ear for the turn of phrase and the rhythm of the island speech. The barcat of the books title refers to a workboat characteristic of the Tangier areaa small skipjack, usually 26 to 28 feet long, with a catboat rig.

"Tangier is a mere dot of land in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay situated just below the Maryland-Virginia line. This study is an account of the Islanders' beginnings in the late 1700s, a portrait of them as an isolated community under siege, and a description of the way they talk."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

In The Oyster Question, Christine Keiner applies perspectives of environmental, agricultural, political, and social history to examine the decline of Maryland’s iconic Chesapeake Bay oyster industry. Oystermen have held on to traditional ways of life, and some continue to use preindustrial methods, tonging oysters by hand from small boats. Others use more intensive tools, and thus it is commonly believed that a lack of regulation enabled oystermen to exploit the bay to the point of ruin. But Keiner offers an opposing view in which state officials, scientists, and oystermen created a regulated commons that sustained tidewater communities for decades. Not until the 1980s did a confluence of natural and unnatural disasters weaken the bay’s resilience enough to endanger the oyster resource. Keiner examines conflicts that pitted scientists in favor of privatization against watermen who used their power in the statehouse to stave off the forces of rural change. Her study breaks new ground regarding the evolution of environmental politics at the state rather than the federal level. The Oyster Question concludes with the impassioned ongoing debate over introducing nonnative oysters to the Chesapeake Bay and how that proposal might affect the struggling watermen and their identity as the last hunter-gatherers of the industrialized world.

All but forgotten, buyboats served for nearly a century throughout the Bay region as floating middlemen buying fresh catch off smaller workboats and whisking it away to customers on the shore. Chowning preserves a fading way of life, the vessels that powered it, and the voices of those who worked it.

"The restoration and preservation of the Chesapeake Bay are to a great extent dependent upon the knowledge, concern, and commitment of citizens. The Chesapeake Education Alliance and the Mid-Atlantic Marine Education Association developed this directory to assist educators in locating information and developing programs; it is divided into eight sections, each dealing with a different type of educational resource, each readily available and particularly useful to educators. A form is included at the end of the directory for recommendations of other materials to be included in the next edition"--National Sea Grant Library publication website

The authors have crafted here a picture of a small, perhaps dying, occupation. Theirs is a book for all who care about the nature and quality of occupational life, whether as participants or scholars.