ble
TANGIER ISLAND, VA
ISSUE NO.1 2012
Isolated in the Chesapeake Bay, a 400-year-old community faces an uncertain future.
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With the exception of a few service vehicles, there are no cars on Tangier. Most people travel around the small island in golf carts or on bicycles.
Director Ramble Magazine and Student Media Center Offices 817 W. Broad St. P.O. Box GregPhone:Richmond,842010Va.23284(804)828-1058Weatherford–Director of Student Media goweatherford@vcu.edu RambleTANGIERISLAND,VATABLEOFCONTENTS At Pruitt's Railway, boats come ashore to give their owners a chance to clean and repaint them before another season on the water.
Editor Hunter
Brian Charlton – Staff Breeden – Copy Nye – Art
Mel Kobran – Editor in Chief, Photographer kobranma@vcu.edu
Welcome to the first issue of Ramble Maga zine. I hope you enjoy this issue about Tangier Is land, a welcoming community in the Chesapeake Bay, as much as we did traveling there to make it.
Nick Bonadies – Staff
Writer
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Writer Emma
Ramble3 4 Introduction to Tangier: A trip through chartered waters 6 Maps 8 Despite crab bounceback, Tangiermen must navigate state regulated waters 12 Tangier’s small buisnesses find niche in ailing economy 14 Strapped for funds, Tangier copes with a sinking feeling 18 Tangier community embraces outsiders with ‘mud between their toes’ 20 A former artist-in-residence tells of changing times on Tangier 22 Amid controversy, Tangier’s strongest commitment still thrives
I came up with the idea for Ramble Magazine as a way to make practical use of my insatiable desire to travel and explore in combination with my love of documentary photography. With the gracious help of the VCU Student Media Center I was able to do exactly that and along with my team of talented writers travel to a place, com pletely unknown to us, and find a story through the people there to tell.
My hope is that the pages of this magazine not only bring where we traveled back to our readers, but also inspire them to ramble somewhere on their own, and find a story to bring back. Kobran
-Mel
Mark Robinson – Staff Writer
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THE CROSSING
Sailing toward 400 years of Virginia history
Tangier was discovered in the summer of 1608 by Captain John Smith. More than 400 years later, less than 500 people call the island home.
Brian Charlton Staff Writer
Tom died
Prior to European colonists, Tangier was a sum mer home for the Pocomoke Indians. Although little is known of their time there, their existence on the island is evidenced by remnants found on the beaches. New arrowheads are occasionally discovered on the shore after a strong wind blows through.
Centuries of relative isolation have resulted in a manner of speaking English entirely unique to Tangier Island – the accent and dialect, Cornish in origin, have been a part of the island since the ar rival of its first English settlers.
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With an island of under 500 hundred inhabit ants, the locals know a newcomer immediately by sight. Lost tourists are quickly helped on their way by any Tangier citizen who happens to pass, whether on foot, or via golf cart, the island’s pre ferred means of transport.
“Crooked as an S-hook”
A thick layer of fog envelops Crisfield, Md. in the wake of the Sharron Kay. During a 40-minute ferry ride to Tangier Island, passengers take cover in the boat’s covered cabin. The hum of the engine subdues conversation.
He or she is unhygienic and dirty
That’s great
The ferry’s engine shudders to a stop and pas sengers line up to depart from the Sharron Kay. Captain Haynie stands by the ladder to assist any passenger in need of a steadying hand.
Locals occasionally speak with the accent strong enough that outsiders wouldn’t necessarily be able to understand at first listen. The back and forth among the watermen, in particular, is thickly rural in its sound, and so steeped in indigenous slang and reversed meanings as to require a local interpreter.
Kay rumbles to life as Mark Haynie, born and raised on Tangier, takes the wheel. As the ferry’s captain, he is an integral part of the limited transportation system between Tangier and the mainland.
he air in Crisfield, Md. crackles with sea spray and the smell of the pre-dawn catch, the Bay’s gentle breaks casting a hush over an already busy harbor town.The
TheAfrica.Sharron
Hand-built crabbers’ dockhouses emerge from the horizon with the Tangier coastline, and the crabbers themselves are not too preoccupied with their work to wave hello to the ferry as it passes –to the newcomers as well as the Tangiermen coming home. Tangier has been called – and likewise, calls itself – the soft-shell crab capital of the world. Wa termen on the docks carry wooden crab-filled crates from their boats for shipping to the mainland.
“Shorter than pie crust”
“That’s Poor”
“Well, praise the Daniel”
He or she is dishonest
He or she is accident prone
“Gilt”
Army’s assault on Baltimore during the War of 1812 – the battle which would serve as Francis Scott Key’s inspiration for the Star-Spangled Ban ner. The ‘rocket’s red glare’ Key describes came from a technology the British had introduced to the United States – until this point in Western history, rocketry was seldom seen outside the East.
He or she is small in stature
He or she is picky with food
small but sturdy Sharron Kay III shares dock space with the tug boats and crabbing vessels – one of a small number of ferries offering passage to and from Tangier Island, 12 miles offshore in the center of the Chesapeake Bay.
All the maps have since been filled out, the peninsulas clearly charted and the rivers named. But in the inhabitants of Tangier Island, whose English ancestors arrived almost as long ago as Smith, pieces of the country’s earliest history show in vestiges – protected and preserved over genera tions by a twelve-mile stretch of bay.
“Taller than a ware pole”
“Lubbersome”
He or she is lanky
A similar trip to the route of the Sharron Kay provided a strategic launch point for the British
TANGIER TALK “”
“Tom had a spell” or “Tom slipped out”
“Tainty”
“Tom’s wind slipped”
Tom fainted
An ancient oyster midden – a huge deposit of mollusk shells, broken open and presumably eaten, which could have only been left by humans – found off the coast of the island was determined to be thousands of years old by archaeologists, and is further evidence of a population before the first European settlers.
Tangier Island, like many landmasses, was discovered by accident.
Taking the first unsteady step off the main land and onto the bobbing Sharron Kay – with its sense of apprehension and a slight spike in blood pressure – may bear some resemblance to another embarkation in the summer of 1608, when Cap tain John Smith would explore the then-uncharted waters of the New World.
Before reaching the Bayview Inn, one of the three Bed and Breakfasts on the island, one can stop at a bridge over a marshy brook to take in the island – a good portion of it is visible from here. A jellyfish eases through the stream crossing under the bridge. It is far from home. The water is only deep enough for very small sea creatures to pass. R
T
Well, that beats all
In 1814, Tangier was heavily wooded and the British cut down many of these trees to make forts, repair ships and build rocket barges. These barges were used to zip from Tangier to Baltimore and back to fire off explosive rockets in an attempt to sink ships. Most of the structures built then are gone now, somewhere beneath the unforgiving sea.
Dozens of shacks poke out from the water around the island. Many are abandoned, decrepit, or even sinking, in no small part due to two recent hurricanes, Irene and Ernesto – but the broken shacks are also a reminder of the industry that once thrived on Tangier, and an indicator, as well, of where the island might be headed.
While traveling back to Jamestown from an expedition in the Potomac, John Smith was badly wounded by a stingray; he and his crew stopped on the then-unknown group of islands to search for freshSmithwater.survived the poison of the sting under the care of his onboard physician, Walter Russell, and officially named the islands the “Russell Isles” in his honor. The origin of the island’s present name is unknown for sure. The theory within the com munity, however, is that John Smith had thought the island reminiscent of the beaches of Tangier in North
Haynie was once one of Tangier’s watermen himself, but like many other watermen in a dwin dling economy, had to adapt to stay afloat. After 38 years in the job, he now provides ferry passage for both Tangier natives and tourists. In winter months, though, the island is almost void of visi tors: Haynie, as with most of Tangier’s population, is engaged in a fight to keep his home and family above water.
“Hucky”
Aluminum or paint
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Ramble7 1 6 2 3 4 5 TANGIER ISLAND 1 LORRAINE’S 2 DALEY’S GROCERY 3 WANDA’S GIFT SHOP 4 SWAIN MEMORIAL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH 5 TANGIER ISLAND AIRPORT 6 THE BAYVIEW INN 7 THE DOUBLE SIX SANDWICH SHOP 7
Commercial crabbing regulations alter age-old lifestyle, strain Tangier economy
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At its peak, 300 boats left Tangier’s harbor each morning rigged for crabbing. A 15 year decline of the Chesapeake Bay’s crab population and the subsequent state restrictions to replenish it have reduced the number of operational vessels to just 60.
Mark Robinsonn Staff Writer
SLOWED TO CRAWLA
Four years ago, the Chesapeake Bay’s soft shell blue crab stock hit an all-time low of 249 million crabs, according to a Virginia Marine Resources Commission press release. The federal government declared the Bay a disaster and pumped $15 million of relief funds in to Maryland and Virginia. As a result, the VMRC instituted its stock rebuilding program to revive the Bay’s ailing crab population.
season was shortened. Crab bing licenses were bought back. Fisheries were marked off limits. All in the best interest of the Bay, said John Bull, a spokesperson for the Virginia Marine Regulation Commission.
I
“Exactly where that line is, you’ll hear that dif ferent from every waterman,” Moore said. “It’s how it’s going to affect their pocketbook.”
Their Virginia’sdecision?crabbing
The recent developments are frustrating to Eskridge, who comes from a long line of Tangiermen,
Unused crab pots are stacked on the docks of the crab shanties that line Tangier’s harbor. Different classes of crabbing licenses dictate the number of pots a waterman can have aboard his boat.
Moore believes most crabbers will self-regulate to an extent, but acknowledges that some regula tions are needed – most Tangiermen can agree on that. But the extent to which the regulations should rule the water is another discussion completely.
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“If we hadn’t intervened when we did… this population could very well have crashed, and no body would be allowed to catch crabs in the bay for 10 years,” Bull said.
Moore quit crabbing commercially in 1995; the decreasing crab population played a role in his decision, he admits. The Bay was becoming an increasingly difficult place to make a living, he said, and regulations didn’t make it any easier.
That seems to be the million dollar question on Tangier. The island is in the midst of a culture change, in part because of state regulations on the crabbing industry. Other factors contribute to the island’s economic woes – a shrinking population and few job opportunities for those who remain come to mind – but the consensus opinion blames crabbing regulations for Tangier’s hardship.
Together, Virginia and Maryland set a goal to reduce the female crab harvest by 34 percent to help the population bounce back. They sought advice from representatives across the crabbing industry –from workers of crab-picking houses, to crab peel potters and hard potters, to marine biologists and crab experts from France, South Africa and Australia.
“More regulations will help the crabs come back,” said Lonnie Moore, a Tangier resident, “But why do you want the crabs if you don’t have the watermen to catch them?”
At its peak, 300 boats left Tangier’s harbor each morning rigged for crabbing. Only 60 still operate, according to Tangier’s mayor James “Ooker” Eskridge.
That prospect wouldn’t have sat well with the watermen of Tangier Island, who for centuries have
fished the Chesapeake Bay to catch soft shell blue crabs. Despite the success of the state’s rebuilding program, locals view regulations less than favorably and they aren’t shy to speak their mind about why.
Richard Pruitt, who has worked on the waters of the Chesapeake Bay since he was 9 years old, prods through the waters of a holding tank where water men store their catch until it’s ready for market.
n April, Governor Bob Donnell announced in a statement that the Chesapeake Bay’s crab population is at its high est point since 1993. But despite the rebound, Virginia has no plans to relax crabbing regula tions that are unpopular among some of the Bay’s remaining watermen.
CONTINUED ON p.10
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each of whom has made a living crabbing. Neither his lineage, nor the community’s heritage was considered by the state when it made the regulations, the mayor said.
I’M NOT SAYING YOU DON’T NEED REGULATIONS AND LAWS – OF COURSE YOU DO. BUT YOU NEED TO BE RESPONSIBLE WITH THEM,” ESKRIDGE SAID. “YOU DON’T PUT PEOPLE OUT OF BUSINESS.
By design, the state moratorium limits the sup ply of licenses and drives prices up into the thou sands. If a license is not endowed to an individual, it can be nearly impossible to afford.
State-sponsored buy-backs of crabbing licenses further limited the number of watermen in the Bay. For $6.7 million, Virginia took 359 commercial crabbing licenses out of circulation in 2009. There are no plans to make those licenses available for po tential watermen, Bull said. They have to try their luck on the open market.
“ ” CONTINUED
“Honest guys trying to make a living, keep a
Some residents of Tangier, like Andy Langley, believe the state’s intentions are less than nobel.
house, keep food in their kids’ bellys, keep a roof over their heads, and the state is doing everything they can to push them out,” Langley said of the regulations on watermen.
The intent, Bull said, was to protect the water man who endured the fall of the crab population from “gold rushers” who would take to the waters if the population began to bounce back.
A waterman himself, Eskridge jokingly clas sifies his peers in two types: “The watermen that look for crabs and the watermen that look for other waterman.” On Tangier, you can classify them a different way now: the watermen with a license and the watermen without one.
“When I first moved here, there were kids whose whole purpose in life was to get their own boat, become their own captain,” Langley said. “Now they can’t do that … because of the licenses.”
A waterman himself, Tangier’s mayor James “Ooker” Eskridge doesn't believe the state considered the Tangier community's heritage when it further regulated commercial crab bing in the Chesapeake Bay in 2008. FROM
Off the water, there are few jobs on Tangier for recent high school graduates. The lion’s share join the military, go to college or simply leave the island to look for a Desperate,job.many find work on tugboats. Their permanent address is still Tangier, but they’re away from the island for two weeks each month. Langley, who works on a tugboat, said even some experi
p.9
In 1999, Virginia put a moratorium on issuing new crabbing licenses to limit the number of water men who could fish commercially in the Chesapeake Bay. Additionally, the state put a hold on more than 350 crab licenses that hadn’t been used for seven years, according to Bull.
pounds)
“Since we started this, watermen are making twice as much money commercially than they did just four years ago,” Bull said, “I don’t know why they’re complaining, frankly.”
If a waterman catches his limit in a day’s work
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VMRC does not consider potential economic concerns when managing any species, including the crab population. Doing so would be “past reckless” and put the Chesapeake Bay at risk, Bull said.
BAY-WIDE COMMERCIAL HARVEST (millions of
enced watermen are exploring the option because they can’t afford to keep crabbing. It’s not a move many are happy to make, but there are bills to pay, Langley said.
Evenanymore.so,John Bull maintains the state should not be blamed for Tangier’s economic woes. Last year, the crab harvest in Virginia was double what it was four years ago, according to the VMRC website. The dockside value of crabs –which is what the watermen are paid for the crabs they catch – is also twice what it was four years ago, Bull said.
The trend underscores a culture change on Tangier that affects everyone on the island. Women are now finding ways to supplement their husbands incomes. Some start their own small businesses; others work as teachers at Tangier’s K-12 school. Crabbing used to pay all the bills, but that’s not the case
One of the stipulations of the stock rebuilding program shortened the crab-catching season. It effectively ended winter dredging – the practice of raking the bottom of the Bay to catch crabs while they hibernate. The ban put 57 fisherman out of work for the winter, many of them Tangiermen.
For now, the VMRC philosophy is ‘The more, the better.’ Crabs, that is. R
BLUE CRAB ABUNDANCE ESTIMATES
According to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission 110 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 96 90 53 107 77 72 69 77 56 62 49 47 50 47 47 58 54 49 43 55 85 67 ?
– 50 bushels – the average payout is about $2,000. Based on the numbers, Bull said watermen can make “no viable argument” that Virginia is over regulating the Bay.
TOTAL NUMBER OF CRABS (in millions)
Virginia still allows licensed watermen to fish for oysters in the winter, but it isn’t as lucrative, Eskridge said. Another state-sponsored program during the winter months compensated watermen $300 a day to retrieve stray crab pots from the bot tom of the Bay, which they could then keep if they wereScientistsusable. say the crab population still has room for growth – perhaps to double its current mark of 764 million – so many of the restrictions are likely to stay in place in the near future, including winter dredging, Bull said.
A crab population twice the current size would raise a new set of concerns for Tangier’s watermen. The Chesapeake Bay full of crabs, Eskridge reasons, would be just as detrimental to the watermen as a bay without any crabs. An abundant supply would drive the dockside value down, crippling water men’s pocketbook further, Eskridge said.
GRAPHIC BY YING JUN CHENG
Wanda Marshall originally set up her gift shop –one of three on the island – as a means to make ends meet after she lost her husband when he fell over board on his boat. Aside from teaching, job options have traditionally been scarce for Tangier women.
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MAKING A LIVING
A look at Tangier’s small businesses
side from commercial fishing, there are limited opportunities for work on Tangier Island, whose isola tion 12 miles from the mainland also isolates the job market. Several small business owners, however, man age to sustain a living providing goods and services to Tangier natives – and, in the summer, an eagerly anticipated influx of tourists.
T-shirts are her best sellers, hanging in banners and clusters throughout the small wooden build ing – but she supplements her social security check selling an array of Tangier-themed trinkets.
“They’re worried about the Fiddlers,” Marshall said. “They’re not worried about us. We’re just people.”
2 Wanda’s Gift Shop
1 Lorraine’s
Lorraine’s used to operate in a much smaller building closer to the water, but moved to its current location in September of 2010. Since the move, not as many locals hang out there anymore, Parks says. This, combined with higher food prices from the mainland, puts an obvious strain on the business –not to mention the declining population.
Lorraine’s was an innovation when it opened in 1984 – there were no other restaurants on the island at the time.
Lorraine’s is the only restaurant open during the off-season on Tangier: Others only stay open from May to September, when tourist traffic is busiest. Still, the mother-daughter team looks forward to the summer for the accompanying income boost.
With a store that can only do business during half of the year, Marshall is concerned about her future as well as the uncertain future of the island as a Shewhole.iscritical of the states refusal to build a sea wall to protect the island, as well as the regulations placed on the watermen.
Now, the restaurant owned and operated by lifelong Tangier resident Lorraine Parks acts as a sort of self-serve restaurant in the off-season, allowing regulars to help pour coffee for newcom ers when Parks and her daughter Jamie are busy cooking in the back.
Brian Charlton Staff Writer
A
Sean London, a resident of Tangier, rein vented The Double Six Sandwich Shop as a hangout for young children.
Parks has food delivered twice a week from the mainland, but the local favorites – crab cakes, or the Crème de Crab soup – are caught fresh next door.
Ocean-blue paint peels and chips from the walls of the Double Six Sandwich Shop, whose creaking door is held shut with a bungee cord. The owner, Sean London, is a local hero among Tangier’s chil dren, who gather en masse on weekends to buy soda, candy bars, bubble gum and other valuables.
Daley’s sells no alcohol, and neither does anywhere else on Tangier – although legal in the rest of Virginia, Tangier is a dry island for religious reasons. This does not stop locals from purchasing it elsewhere, however.
“It’s always been done,” Daley says. “It’s courtesy.”
2 Wanda Marshall operates Wanda’s Gift Shop out of a building located in the front yard of her own home.
JoAnne Daley, who owns Daley’s Grocery, also works the counter. She’s lived on Tangier her entire life. Daley’s, which occupies a small one-story building dating back to the 1920s, is the only place for island ers to buy necessities.
Since it opened 25 years ago, Daley’s has always provided groceries by delivery truck to Tangier residents.
3 Daley’s Grocery is the only place to buy groceries or other necessities on Tangier.
3 Daley’s Grocery
4 The Double Six Sandwich Shop displays pictures of its regular customers that have passed away.
London has lived his entire 40 years on the island, but only recently bought the shop in 2010. Before his time, the Double Six was a hangout for adult watermen rather than schoolchildren, where all the men would come together to grab breakfast before heading out on the water.
While London continues to offer a breakfast of coffee and grilled cheese to early-rising workers, his business really thrives as a result of the addition of candy and chips to the shelves: As one of the only places on the island geared toward children, Double Six caters to its own market.
1 324
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One wall displays fading photographs of cus tomers crowded around tables in watermen’s hats and work boots – former regulars who have since passed away.“There’s not been anybody to replace them,” London said.
The shelves are sparsely supplied, due to the rela tively low demands of a small populace.
1 When Lorraine Parks opened Lorraine’s in 1984 it was the only restaurant on Tangier Island.
4 Double Six Sandwich Shop
had to dig up and relocate the remains of a relative whose gravesite was at water’s edge. He reburied the remains on higher ground on nearby Port Isobel, safe from the tides of low-lying Tangier. Few havens on the island are safe from the unyielding waters of the Chesapeake Bay.
Now, after years of delay, Tangier’s living resi dents are hoping their chances of gaining govern ment funding for protection from the Bay aren’t yet dead in the water.
Without hesitation, Eskridge recalls the time he
of the island’s 450 residents, many of whom can trace their heritage back hundreds of years on Tangier. Eskridge is one of them. The mayor was born and raised on the island that he now champions for – ero sion has always been a concern, he said, but the town can’t afford to ignore it any longer.
The worn slabs that cover each burial plot are inches apart in one of the town’s cemeteries. It’s a balancing wire act to walk through the rows. Dates on some of Tangier’s headstones range back to the early 1700s.
“When it gets closer to you, you take more no tice of it – when it gets to your doorstep,” he said. It’s no Dailyexaggeration.tidescancreep under the cinder blockraised houses, locals say. Major storms have not spared the island in the past. The storm surge during Hurricane Isabel flooded 93 homes and destroyed 16 crab shanties in 2003.
The town fared better during Irene, but locals fear
t wouldn’t have been uncommon to see a headstone in someone’s front yard in the early days of the town on Tangier Island. More than 300 years later, islanders are returning to the prac tice – not out of tradition, but necessity.
Against a backdrop of white washed houses, granite markers now protrude from residents’ marshy front yards, out of place. Mayor James “Ooker” Eskridge ex plains the island’s predicament best: “On Tangier, we’re running out of room for the living and the dead.”
The most recent study by the Norfolk District of the Army Corps of Engineers found Tangier Island is losing nine acres of land a year to erosion. The combined effect of rising sea level and subsidence –or sinking land – is threatening to swamp the homes
I IN LIFENEEDResidentsofshrinkingTangierdesperatefor 1850
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Constructing the jetty at the opening on the island’s western shore would protect the channel that allows islanders to dock their fishing boats; the channel also accommodates the shanties where the harvested crabs are raised before they go to market, Szelest said.
In 1996, Congress approved a jetty costing $1.2 million that would protect the island’s harbor from large waves and ice, Szelest said.
The state of Virginia pledged $360,000 toward the construction of the jetty and agreed to contrib ute up to 10 percent of the maintenance cost for the next 30 years, Szelest said. But the project still isn’t completely funded.
“As to whether (a seawall) all around the island
Eleven years passed without funding, and by 2007, the land protecting the harbor eroded away, putting the channel at greater risk. As a result, the Corps proposed an expansion of the project to extend the jetty across the wider opening, upping the cost to $3.6 million.
federalLINEfundsastheirislanderodesaway
Mark Robinson Staff Writer
that without further protection, the next major storm could drown Tangier for good.
would prevent erosion – we would have to go into numerous studies to determine that situation,” he said.
NEED
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The proposed Tangier jetty is one of dozens of projects nationwide in need of limited federal money, Szelest explained.
In the 1980s, the Army Corps of Engineers built a seawall of large rocks on the island’s west side that ex tends southward from the harbor. It effectively shields the island’s sewage treatment plant and small airport.
1986 2000 CONTINUED ON p.16
There is no current project proposed that would protect the entire island from erosion, Szelest said, but smaller projects to protect parts of the island are being considered.
The Corps is working on the project through OF A
LIFE
The erection of a seawall structure around the entire island is popular among the island’s residents, though they know it’s unlikely due to the cost. Even if it was funded, such a project would not necessarily guarantee the island’s safety from erosion, according to Tom Szelest, a project manager of the Norfolk District of the Army Corps of Engineers Tangier jetty project.
A marker about a 1,000 yards from Tangier’s distant shoreline was once the site of a separate community on the island. It was slowly overtaken by the Bay, which is erod ing nine acres of Tangier’s shoreline a year.
Plots in one of Tangier’s cemeteries are nearly touch ing. The over-crowding has driven some residents to bury relatives in their front yards or on the mainland.
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HIGH TIDE LINE LOW TIDE LINE SEAWALL
A seawall serves as protection for the coastline by preventing the tide from removing the sand on its way back out to sea. The Army Corps of Engineers constructed a seawall to protect Tangier’s western shore from erosion, but the money to fund similar protection for the entire island is not available.
neering project total ing millions of dollars, Tangier Island will be claimed by the Chesa peake Bay, according to Carlton Hershner Jr., director of the Center for Coastal Resources Management for the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
Aside from funding, the breakwaters need ap proval from the assistant secretary of the army for civil works. If the project was approved and funded, the Uppards would be protected, along with 1,300 acres of wetland. The report predicts the added pro tection would increase the crab population as well.
“Here, inches is a lot,” said Lonnie Moore, a Tangier resident who lives on the town’s Main ridge, one of three on the island. Bad storms bring water to the edge of his back porch about 30 times a year, he says gravely.
Said Eskridge, even-keeled: “We know what the results are going to be without anything done.” R
“At the current rate of sea level rise… The island is eventually going to submerge,” he said. How soon? Fifty years by his estimate.
“The way to combat (sea level change) would be to raise the houses on Tangier Island,” he said. “Now, how far into the future that would be ef fective – that’s something I’m not prepared to
According to a study by The Virginia Insti tute of Marine Science, the water surrounding Tangier rises an inch every 10 years.
The highest point on Tangier is about five feet above sea level; much of it is less than three feet above the TangierBay.isn’t the only island in the Chesapeake Bay that’s being affected by the rising water. Ero sion trounced Watts Island, once the home of a famous light house. Nearby Port Isobel, owned by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, is now protected by breakwaters at its east entrance.
“If you lose things here – you lose more waterman; you lose more land; you don’t have a safe harbor – it af fects (the Chesapeake Bay) also,” Moore said of Tangier.
CONTINUED FROM p.15
The reasons for the sea level change can be traced back to the ice age, but are likely associated with climate change, according to Tom Lochen, a project manager for the Norfolk District of the Army Corps of Engineers aquatic ecosystem restoration study.
The community’s sense of urgency to achieve some solution for their sinking home is as unyield ing as the waters threatening it.
WE KNOW WHAT THE RESULTS ARE GOING TO BE WITHOUT ANY THING DONE. “ ”
But Lochen said the jetty may still be the is land’s best bet short-term because of the state funds. No protective structure can permanently offset sea level change, he added, but the residents of Tangier can try to adapt to nature’s course.
The eastside of the Uppards hosts the majority of the islands grass beds that serve as primary nurs ery for coveted blue crabs, finfish and other shellfish. Without protection, the beds won’t be spared from the erosion, Lochen said.
Under the program, the federal government will share the cost of a small navigation project – which the Tangier jetty falls under - as long as a non-feder al sponsor can foot the remaining portion of the bill. U.S. Rep. Scott Rigell, a Virginia Beach Republican whose district includes Tangier Island, said in an email the government has “failed to take action” or “offer a viable alternative” to aid Tangier.
Last summer, Rigell proposed a plan to sink out of commission barges off the coast of Tangier to serve as makeshift breakwaters against the waves. The plan – which Rigell said in the email has already been proven effective off the shore of Kipto peke State Park in Virginia – hasn’t gained ground with island’s residents; the town has not applied for government permits to sink the barges, according to the Corps of Additionally,Engineers.thecompany that was supposed to donate the barges, Bay Bridge Enterprises, closed its salvage yard in Hampton Roads and moved to Texas, according to a report published in the Vir giniaMeanwhile,Pilot. the problem is worsening.
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the Continuing Authorities Program, which allows them to respond to localized water resource prob lems without congressional approval.
“So far efforts to extend the seawall have been obstructed by a lack of funding and burdensome regulation that has delayed the project for far too long,” Rigell said in the email. “The people of Tangier cannot afford to wait any longer for the government to act.”
area and harbor is dwindling too.
Barringestimate.”amassive engi
The $9 million to design and build the project would be partially covered by federal funds, but the townspeople would still have to come up with $4.2 million to cover the cost, Lochen said. The cost would be more than $9,000 per person. The town simply cannot afford it. The shrinking tax base has to pay to keep the island’s sewage treat ment plant in operation.
Once the site of a community in the 1930s, the now uninhabited northern half of Tangier – termed the Uppards by locals – is slowly eroding away. With it, the protection for the island’s populated
A result of the Corps’ Aquatic Ecosystem Res toration Study is a second Corps proposed option, which would install a series of breakwaters offshore to protect the island and grass beds from erosion, Lochen said.
With predictions like Hershner’s on the table, some scientists criticize the efforts to protect the island. Others cite the environmental risks associated with the structures that could jeopardize the island’s grass beds or the irreparable damage of the inland waters, which are worsening the erosion from inland outward.Concerns and predictions aside, Eskridge believes the community should come first. Even if some of the environmental concerns are ignored to put in the protector structures, it’s better than los ing the whole island, he said.
MUD BETWEEN THEIR TOES
Nick Bonadies Staff Writer
Ramble 18
Tangier’s ‘Come‘eres’ work to fit in to a tight-knit community
Andy Langley originally moved to Tangier with his wife. a Tangier native, to serve as the town police officer.
In addition to her work in the museum and as an independent artist, Howard took on the project of building a public library in a tiny shack in the museum’s backyard. She named it the Muddy Toes Library – after the Tangier folk wisdom that any visitor who gets the island’s mud between their toes falls in love with Tangier and is destined to return.
Jim and Maureen Gott are recent Tangier ’Come‘ Maureen says the only thing she misses from the mainland is “a real good pizza.”
A word exists in Tangier slang to denote the rare non-native islander – “Come’eres,” for one who “came here.” Maureen Gott and her husband, Jim, are recent come’eres – New Jersey natives who have run Tangier’s Bayview Inn since last fall. They intend to live the rest of their lives here, Maureen says without hesitation – the community of Tangier has accepted them with open arms since their formal introduction at a town meeting.
She says the only thing she really misses from the mainland is “a real good pizza.” The Gotts son, David, who is 24, will inherit the bed and breakfast from his Debraparents.Howard, originally from Miami, cur rently oversees the Tangier Island Museum as the island’s Artist-in-Residence, and mentions her own lack of accent as sticking out in Tangier society.
“They didn’t have to, but they did. Because it’s in here,” Langley said, pointing to his heart. “And that’s what Tangier’s all about.”
Photocopied fliers dot lampposts, the walls of buildings on street corners and bulletin boards in thoroughfares like Lorraine’s: an open house at Jason and Jackies, a shower for Mindy and David's new baby. These announcements have no need of an address – everyone knows, after all, where Jason and Jackie live - and no need of an RSVP, as everyone knows who Jason and Jackie are, and Jason and Jackie know everybody and would be happy to welcome any and all of them into their home.
Andy Langley, another come’ere, moved to Tangier from Louisiana after meeting his wife, a Tangier native, in the military. He was originally offered a job as the police officer on Tangier by the mayor at the time. But due to a lack of much action to oversee – in his words, “too much not going on” – he changed careers to the tug boating business.
T
“The place works on karma,” Howard said, shelving a stack of Danielle Steele under “Fiction”.
eres ’
After being hurt on the job, Langley says, the Tangier community helped out around the house so his wife could help him recover. They made meals and looked after his children. When Lang ley’s father died in a blizzard that crippled the East Coast in 2001, he asked the pastor if his family could sit in the island’s church while the funeral took place on the mainland. The family trudged through the snow to the church, and Langley told his children stories about his father. The pastor had gotten the word out, however – 60 people came out in the snow–storm to listen to the stories about a man they’d never met.
with leaving most of the talking to Tangier’s Mayor, James “Ooker” Eskndse – she calls him “the ulti mate“He’sTangierman.“agreatface for the island because he’s a nice looking man ... very charismatic.”
The miniature screen-doored library, with a porch just a few feet from the bay, is filled with books donated and swapped out by islanders when ever they feel the urge.
“I try to go to town meetings and things to fight for the floodwall, but ... I rarely get up and speak because I don’t have the accent and no one wants to hear me,” she said. Her preference lies
“Everyone knows that we’re not from here,” Maureen says, “Because of the accent.”
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Not just owing to a small population or a small island, the singularly tight-knit Tangier commu nity has also, for the most part, lived on the island together their entire lives.
“We help each other out, not because we have to, because we want to,” he said. “Truly, it’s what humans are supposed to do – we’re supposed to look out for each other.” R
here is one convenient feature of living on an island with less than 500 people: Everybody knows you.
She recalled some weeks ago when a house burned down and an elderly woman was killed. The island banded together immediately to help the family, she said – someone walked around door to door and people gave money.
K: Yeah. There’s not many. Once they get out of high school they pretty well leave. ... There’s just no jobs, really. Like, there’s plenty of jobs, but none of them are, like, very high-paying. Like I’ll dig ditches and shit like that to make ends meet when nobody buys any artwork or boats or whatever.
ormer artist-in-residence Ken Castelli currently makes a living on the island doing odd jobs for his neighbors, selling paintings and other artwork, and making model boats – a popular Father’s Day or birthday gift for Tangiermen.
So that pretty well forced them to look else where. Once they graduate high school it’s either college or military. A lot of them go to the army or navy or marines, and stuff.
So I lived in a little house behind the museum (The Muddy Toes Library). And I’d work on setting up all the displays, and doing a bunch of research in there – which was awesome because I got to use my art degree and my history degree. I went to St. Mary’s. And they’re two of the most unemployable degrees out there. ... It’s definitely provided a good opportunity. It was only supposed to be a one-year stint over there, but no one applied for two years. …I think every single article in the museum I had to read. And I just love doing that stuff anyway.
R: You’re 27 – does that make you one of the younger people on the island?
FKENCASTELLIFormerartist-in-residencetalkslifeonTangier
K: The state’s doing a pretty good job of – they throw us a couple bones, every now and then. Like with the health center, which we desperately needed. The old one was falling apart. And then they paved the roads, and the air strip back there because they needed it really bad.
R: We’ve heard some about that.
Ken: I’m originally from the Eastern Shore. Up by Chestertown. I moved down here in 2007 to start working on the museum and stuff. ... And they wanted a guinea pig for this residence program, so we just kind of sat down and figured out what, like, an ideal residency would be.
Then in wintertime I’m just working the rail way...fixing boats and stuff. But there’s extremely limited job options for all the kids here.
Ramble: You’re not a Tangier native, then?
And then when the state did away with giving out commercial fishing licenses, it’s really hard, like - you have to have it passed down to you or pay an arm and a leg to get one.
But for some reason the state’s dragging its feet on building the sea wall, which would protect the
Ramble 20
For some reason when they opened this school, they did away with shop class, and they went all to typing. Like – typing’s great and all, but there’s nothing out here that you need a typing skill for… Like, ‘OK, we’re gonna teach you to be secretar ies and stuff.’ What do you need with secretaries around here?
PEOPLE SHOULD BE REAL PROUD OF THIS PLACE AND EVERYTHING THAT’S COME OUT OF IT AND WHAT’S HAPPENED HERE.
K: After a while, I guess there was a little bit of fear,
R: What made them think they’d be made fun of?
K: During the Depression, there was a guy that had a horse – and it was one of the only horses that’s
When they went to go get paid, the guy was like, ‘Nope. Didn’t do it right. Gotta do it again.’ And they were like, ‘There’s no way we’re getting this horse out of this hole. It’s like six feet deep and none of us are strong enough to yank this giant dead horseSoout.’they went to the guy’s shed and got a hacksaw and just cut the legs off.
R: It sounds like you’ve come to like the place.
R: What did the locals think of having a museum dedicated to Tangier history?
“ ”
K: Oh yeah, I love living here. Once you figure out, like, how to get stuff from off of here ... Like, for a while, there was this Chinese restaurant in Crisfield that would put stuff on a mailboat for you if you called up, so you could in theory get Chinese takeout on the island. It would be stone cold by the time it got here, but yeah. ... It ain’t for everybody.
K: A lot of them are really self-conscious about, like, the accent and the dialect. And a lot of them admit, like, a ton of people around here never finish school. I know a ton of people who dropped out in like eighth grade and went to work. One of my friend’s dads, he dropped out in seventh grade, just because he had to be the one to work and feed his family.
Ramble21
millions of dollars that they pump into this place every year, to keep it going. It just blows everybody’s minds out here, like – why would they spend ten million dollars drudging the harbor or, you know, doing the road, but they’re not putting anything here to stop it all from washing away? ... There’s gonna be a little like, stump, that’s all washed away, and it’ll have a hazard marker over it in 50 years. But I’m gonna stay until the government forces everybody off. ’cause I’m sure they’re gonna reach that tipping point, where it’s cheaper for the state to buy everybody out, be like ‘Arright, er’body git yer shit and move off. Don’t care where you go. We’ll buy yer property.’
R: Have you gotten to hear any stories or folk tales the people here know?
ever been out here – supposed to have been a really mean, crotchety old horse. It used to live down by the road to the beach.
So it’s probably out in the bay now, but somewhere there’s a horse grave down there. One of the kids found the skull pretty recently and it’s awesome. R
Castelli, a native of the Eastern Shore, served as Tangier's official artistin-residence until 2010.
I guess at one point the horse died. The owner told three of the teenagers around here that he’d give them fifty cents apiece if they buried it somewhere. So they dragged it down to the beach and they dug a big hole – super pumped for their 50 cents, which in the Depression was like a billion dollars. ... So they pushed the horse in. But rigor mortis had set in and the hole wasn’t deep enough, so all the legs were sticking out of the top, so they built these little mountains of sand all the way up to the hooves.
because ... when the idea for a museum first come around, people weren’t all about it, because they were like ‘oh, people who come here are just gonna make fun of us.’ No, they’re not. Quit being paranoid.
And when they took away the ability to get a waterman’s license, that was ... stupid. ’Cause that just doomed everybody for the most part out here.
FISSURES IN THE
ROCK External issues threaten Tangier’s religious foundation
Swain Memorial United Methodist Church, in its present building has met continually since 1897.
Ramble 22
Nick Bonadies Staff Writer
Stover, who pursued degrees and research in biology for many years (including some time on VCU’s MCV campus) before turning to religious ser vice, said that there were some raised eyebrows on the island at the outset of her appointment on account of her being Tangier’s first ever female pastor.
“They were scared,” Stover said. “So I said to them, and I know the opposition leaders said to them too – ‘We are Christians, and that’s not how we act.’ … I don’t know what’s going on, except that I know God’s in it. And I’m just gonna go on trusting.” R
While the two denominations now coexist in harmony on the island, at the time, their split resulted in what nearly escalated to violence. Records and photographs in the Tangier Museum document people’s boats and property being vandalized; one photograph shows the words “HA HA JOKER” smeared across the side of what was then the New Testament Church’s home.
“Some of them went digging through the scrip ture and they said, ‘Well, yeah, women are supposed to do this, there’s no question,” Stover said. “They just know their scripture here. They really try to live by the Bible – and be bold about it.”
“We joke about this being a cross-cultural appointment,” Stover said of the bishop which assigned her to Tangier Island – before moving to Tangier, she spent 16 years serving ministries in Bridgewater, Virginia and Smith Mountain Lake. “The culture here is quite different. … They have all these unspoken rules that you have to hope fully educate yourself in.”
The church building, small by many standards, seems larger, more imposing among the island’s slim roads, compact buildings and golf cart traffic. It holds prominence in the Tangier skyline from a distance, overseeing the townspeople’s day-to-day life.
“The Methodist Conference has become politi cally correct, and a lot of times that makes you bibli cally incorrect,” Eskridge said. “I believe the land belongs to Israel, and if they want to give their land up, that’s up to them. … But the Methodist Confer ence has no business forcing them to do so.”
The split came about as a result of stances the greater Methodist Conference has begun to take on different issues – particularly, the church’s support of a Palestinian state.
A number of public icons – like this cross in the marsh and the red cross on the Tangier water tower – reflect the island’s deeprooted religious commitment.
“Some of them told me outright, they’d never in a million years thought that they would ever accept a woman pastor,” she said. But it did not take long, she said, for the islanders to make her feel right at home in the community.
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P
But, since the split, “We’ve had some people start coming who would never come to church,” she said. “So I guess God is in there somewhere.”
Tangier residents who no longer agree with Methodist Conference policies have not had to go farther than down the street to fulfill their religious needs. The New Testament Church is a non-de nominational Christian congregation – and it was established, itself, around the same time as another rift in Tangier’s community in 1946.
Not unlike their uniquely preserved dialect, Swain Memorial holds regular “class meetings,” a meeting separate from regular worship or Sunday school, which dates from the earliest origins of the Methodist church and is no longer widely practiced outside the island. Stover said she regularly hosts visiting pastors from different parts of the country who want to see how it’s done.
“Course, they didn’t have TVs,” she said.
Young people, Stover said, are where she has lost the most members.
Stover, recounting the incident, described it as “a civil war” having broken out on Tangier.
“Things got really ugly,” she said.
The community’s present troubles, she said, have not resulted in any such conflict – people are still neighbors and friends outside of the church.
“The church is the center of our life here,” she said, as it had always been. She spoke of what the townspeople remember of earlier generations on Tangier, in an era before golf carts: “Didn’t matter – snow, sleet, ice. They literally would all be here every Sunday. Whatever was going on, they’d be here. Had to crawl across the bridge sometimes.”
All has not been well, however, in Tangier’s religious community. Whereas before Swain Memo rial had hosted a congregation of “about 210,” ac cording to Stover – or about half of the island – an ideological conflict culminated this past January in a rift among the Methodist congregation. Attendees at Swain Memorial now number “about 40 to 60.”
While the building has been in continual use since 1897 – its congregation extant since 1835 –Stover has served as its pastor for only three years.
Mayor James Eskridge and his family are among the most visible and outspoken of Tangier’s dissident camp. He has two tattoos, one on each forearm, of the star of David and an Ichthys (sign of the fish), and flies an Israeli flag outside of his house under neath the American flag.
“I support Israel, too,” she said. “But … Christ is first.”Another factor is the Methodist Conference’s growing ever closer to accepting openly gay pastors in its ministries. When asked about it, Stover only responds that she thinks a real decision on the matter won’t happen this year – but that “it’s coming,” and that its impact on the Methodist church as a body will be “immense,” probably causing its own ideo logical
“It’ssplit.going to happen in the next four to eight years,” she said. “It’s going to hit every church, with everything going on in the United States – what with the atmosphere and … so forth.”
Stover, for her part, said the Methodist Confer ence’s resolution had been “misunderstood.”
erhaps as strong as any Tangier resident’s loyalty to their home is their attachment to their religion. The island’s emblematic water tower, which juts out from a wide stretch of patchy, dry grass near the marsh, bears an ornate cross on one side in deep red.
“I think you can say that everyone on the island believes,” said Rev. Patricia Stover, pastor of Tangi er’s Swain Memorial United Methodist Church.
“I think (the conflict 60 years ago) just hurt them so badly,” she said. “They were terrified when they saw another split was coming, because they knew how ugly it had gotten in the past. … They see (the church) as a lighthouse – and they don’t want anything to happen to it.”
