Visit Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum

The 1879 Hooper Strait Lighthouse is the visual centerpiece of a collection of historic buildings and boats that illustrate life and work on the Chesapeake Bay since the Native Americans hollowed out logs for canoes. In the Small Boat Shed, you can see working and recreational watercraft used throughout the bay's history, including early settlers' adaptations of Native American canoes to use for fishing and oystering.

At Waterman's Wharf, hands-on and audio exhibits draw visitors into the world of oystermen and crabbers in a typical shanty and onboard an oystering skipjack. You can also visit the former home of Eliza Bailey Mitchell, sister of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and an Heirloom Garden of kitchen and medicinal plants cultivated along the bay since Native American times. A working boatyard continues boat-building and repair traditions as staff maintains the museum's Floating Fleet.

The Chesapeake Bay hosts one of the world's great bird migrations as hundreds of thousands of water, shore, and song birds shelter in its shoreline marshes each spring and fall. Along with hunting and birding, this migration has given rise to an entire genre of waterfowl art. You can see exhibits here on the waterfowl, while each November in nearby Easton, the Easton Waterfowl Festival is the country's premier wildlife art show.

Official site: http://cbmm.org/

Address: 213 North Talbot Street, St. Michaels, Maryland

Phone: 410-745-2916

Entrance fee: $15 for adults, $12 for seniors (62+) and students with ID, and $6 for children 6-17

Google rating: 4.7/5.0