Every place on earth has its own character, which has been shaped by its environment, its landscape, and its people. This is certainly true of our Eastern Shore—which every year celebrates its uniqueness with festivals and events. Nature’s bounty abounds here with bushels of crabs in spring and summer, and bushels of oysters in fall and winter. Every February, the watermen, trappers, and hunters celebrate the outdoor life they love in Dorchester County’s National Outdoor Show. And there are so many stories to be told and to be remembered, such as the amazing life of Frederick Douglass, which is celebrated each September in Talbot County. Of course, there’s so much natural beauty here as well. While eagles swoop down to capture their prey, and herons and egrets wade in the creeks, they inspire artists, photographers, and sculptors to capture their essence. They also inspire conservationists to protect them, which is the main purpose of Easton’s annual Waterfowl Festival. These three events help to preserve this special place, our Eastern Shore.
The National Outdoor Show in February
Dorchester County waterman, Buddy Oberender, loves the outdoors. It’s where he lives and makes his living. He’s out on Shore waters most every day, either crabbing or oystering. His home is near the shimmering marshes of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, far away from the sprawling growth now taking place on much of the Eastern Shore. He’s been here since he was 14, and he has no plans to leave.
“I’ve made my living at my sport,” he says, and at age 62 he’s still at it. When asked how long he plans to work, he says, “I’ll do it ’til they put me in the grave.”
Oberender also loves his community, and he gives back to it by being president of the annual National Outdoor Show held in Dorchester County.
Only on the Eastern Shore could you find a show like this. It began at a winter picnic in 1938 at a Cambridge theater when three friends—Emmett Andrews, Frederick C. Malkus Jr., and Herbert Dozier—decided to organize a muskrat skinning contest for county farmers.
It was first held in the old Cambridge Armory and it quickly became an annual event. Now it’s held at South Dorchester K-8 School, and it showcases skills that the Native people taught to the first Europeans who landed here. Survival was key in those days and, soon, early settlers learned how to fish, trap, and hunt. Folks are still at it today, and contestants display their skills at the show to determine who’s the best and the quickest. From Duck, Goose, and Turkey Calling contests to Oyster Shucking there’s a contest for everyone.
Muskrat skinning is one of the most popular contests for both adults and kids. With a few strategic cuts, contestants manage to peel the pelt off the dead animal and come away with one that’s ready for tanning.
“You have to be quick,” Oberender says. “The best skinners can do five muskrats in a minute and a half.”
If you still have an appetite after watching a few get skinned, you can enjoy the muskrat cooking contest and then eat the results.
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Trap Setting is also a popular contest. Oberender explains that trappers snare animals such as mink and otters. “We don’t usually catch fox though. They’re pretty smart and they know how to avoid the trap. They can pick up human scent.”
Of course, the outdoor life-style of the Shore makes for good-looking and healthy children, and what could be more appropriate than a Miss Outdoors pageant and also the Little Miss and Mister Outdoors pageants. A scholarship is now awarded to the Miss Outdoors winner.
To this day, the National Outdoor Show’s purpose has always been to preserve Dorchester’s outdoor centered culture, and this mission becomes more important every passing year as the Eastern Shore lifestyle continues to fade into the past.
Frederick Douglass Day in September
On the lawn of the Talbot County Courthouse in Easton stands a statue of a man. His arm is outstretched as he begins one of his famous speeches. This man has been here before. Once, he was dragged here and thrown in the jail. Much later, he returned to this same courthouse as one of the country’s most respected orators and abolitionists. His name was Frederick Douglass, and he was Talbot County’s most famous son.
Born near the Tuckahoe River in Talbot County in 1818, he was the son of a slave woman and a white father. She named him Frederick Augustus Washington Baily. When he was about six, he was sent to live at Wye House plantation near St. Michaels, one of the numerous plantations belonging to Colonel Edward Lloyd. He rarely saw his mother who would need to walk 12 miles at night to sleep alongside him and then get up before dawn to return to work. While at the Lloyd plantation, his master was Captain Anthony who was Colonel Lloyd’s superintendent.
When he was about seven or eight, he was sent to Baltimore to live with Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Auld, relatives of Captain Anthony’s daughter Lucretia. Mrs. Auld began to teach Fred his letters until her husband intervened and told her slaves were not allowed to be taught to read. It was too late. From then on, a new world began to open for him and he was determined to enter it. He learned to read by trading bread with the white neighborhood children who in turn would teach him the alphabet.
Later, while working in a shipyard, he would see the carpenters labeling a letter on each timber for where it was intended to be placed, and by this tedious way, he finally began to figure out how to read.
At age 14, he was returned to Talbot County in 1832 where he worked as a field hand in St. Michaels. Here, he and a few others planned to escape. Their plot was discovered and they were hauled into the Easton jail. Eventually, he was taken back to his old home in Baltimore and then later escaped to New Bedford, New York, where he married freedwoman Anna Murray.
In New Bedford, he worked at any job he could get. Meanwhile he was urged to read the Liberator, an Abolitionist newspaper. He did, and when he spoke at an anti-slavery convention for the first time, he met his destiny. Trying to forge a new identity, he renamed himself Frederick Douglass. He would soon become a world-famous orator, writer, and abolitionist, and his incredible work would not cease until his death in 1895.
It was not until 115 years had passed that he would be honored by Talbot County, and this was because of the work of a committee named the Frederick Douglass Honor Society, which was formed in 2009. “We wanted to erect a statue of Douglass to honor his memory,” says its vice-president, Childlene Brooks.
It’s less of a task, however, when organizations work together, and this was the case when a partnership was established between the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum and the Honor Society. The Maritime Museum’s goal was to stress the African-American watermen’s contribution to this area. Soon it became a community-wide endeavor. Frederick Douglass Day then began as a fundraiser for the statue, and it was first held at the Maritime Museum in 2010.
“We had tremendous support for this concerted effort,” Brooks says. “We raised the money to hire sculptor, Jay Hall Carpenter, and by 2011 the statue was erected on the courthouse lawn.” Now the festival is held in Easton, where Frederick Douglass continues to have his day.
This past year, the courthouse lawn was the venue for the opening ceremony, which included school bands, speakers such as Mayor Robert C. Willey, Douglass Re-enactor Terron Quailes, and others. Children’s activities were held on the Library lawn and naturally the aroma of home-cooked barbecue and other delicacies awaited hungry citizens at the parking lot across the street.
The keynote speaker of the day was Dr. Celeste-Marie Bernier, Professor of United States and Atlantic Studies at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Having researched Douglass, his wife, Anna and their five children for 25 years and having written several books regarding the family, she emphasized that the trauma of enslavement not only marked his body, but was always carried within his soul.
The Waterfowl Festival in November
With all the events that make the Eastern Shore so appealing, none are more attended than the largest of them all—the Waterfowl Festival. November of 2019, was the 50th anniversary of this three-day event that now draws about 16,000 folks into the town of Easton. They throng the streets to enjoy the crisp autumn days that bring the trees aflame with colors of red, yellow, and gold. Flying over the crowds are V-formations of chattering geese wending their way down from Canada to the fields and marshes that await them in this fertile land.
There’s so much to see and do here during the three-day festival that celebrates this unique area. The Easton Armory, the Avalon Theatre, the Academy Art Museum, and the Pavilion are the venues for fine paintings, sculptures, and carvings. Talented artists exhibit works that showcase the waterfowl, birds, and scenes of nature that depict the essence of the Shore. Every year the festival chooses a featured artist whose work is outstanding. The featured artist for 2020 is sculptor, Bart Walter, who sculpts wildlife as they are posed for action. His aim is to get the essence of the animals, and he travels throughout the world to capture them.
Meanwhile, there’s a much livelier competition going on, and it’s between dogs. It’s the Dock Dogs Competition and its one of the festival’s most popular events. Labradors, Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, and some rather mixed breeds jump from a high dock into a waiting pool. Some dogs can’t wait to jump in while others need some serious coaxing as they look down at the water with trepidation. The ones who stay airborne the longest or jump the farthest are the prizewinners who usually deserve a bone or two.
At Easton High School, there’s a lot of racket going on in the auditorium. It sounds like geese and ducks were set loose, but they’re still outdoors. Instead men, women, and children are competing as to who can make the most authentic duck and geese calls. The World Championship Team is also a part of this noisy program.
There’s also much here for the children to do including the Kids’ Fishing Derby, the Raptor Demonstrations, and the Kids’ Decoy Painting. And what’s a festival without a good children’s book written about the natural world that surrounds them here.
How did this festival ever begin, and how did it grow into such a world class event? Margaret Enloe, Executive Director of Waterfowl Chesapeake, explains that Dr. Harry M. Walsh and William and Betty Perry were the inspiration and founders of the festival 50 years ago. Their vision was to preserve our wildlife. “Since the ’70s, we’ve lost 30 percent of our birds,” Enloe remarks. As their habitats disappear, so do the birds.
As Dr. Walsh wrote in his book, The Outlaw Gunner, “Our waterfowl, a living resource, are in need of help, and their welfare should come before our own indulgence.”
The main purpose of the Festival is to raise the funds needed for the conservation of waterfowl and for their habitats. For this purpose, the Festival’s Board of Directors established Waterfowl Chesapeake in 2011 to direct the use of these funds.
Enloe emphasizes that this is possible only because the Festival is run solely by volunteers.
“We have 42 volunteer chairpersons and 600 regular volunteers,” she says. “The whole town comes out to help. We also have an incredible list of corporate and business sponsors. And there is also the love of this unique area that is tied to our history, culture, and landscape.”
