Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum

About

The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is the sole institution in the country dedicated to the full maritime heritage of the Chesapeake Bay — the largest estuary in the United States and one of the most historically and ecologically significant bodies of water in North America. Its 18-acre waterfront campus in St. Michaels, Maryland occupies the former site of seafood packing houses along the Miles River, connecting visitors to the working waterfront economy that defined Bay life for centuries. The museum's collection includes historic working boats — skipjacks, bugeyes, deadrises, and log canoes — that represent the full range of traditional Chesapeake Bay craft. A working boatyard where traditional wooden boat construction and restoration are actively practiced allows visitors to observe skilled craftspeople maintaining and building vessels using traditional methods. The Hooper Strait Lighthouse, a screwpile cottage lighthouse relocated to the museum's campus, offers one of the most distinctive museum experiences in Maryland. Exhibits trace the ecological, economic, and cultural history of the Bay — the oyster trade that once drove the regional economy, the communities that grew up around it, the environmental changes that reshaped it in the twentieth century, and the ongoing efforts to restore its ecological health. The living Chesapeake Bay ecosystem is presented not as a static artifact but as a dynamic environment with an ongoing story. The museum's working waterfront setting and active boatyard make it a particularly tangible learning experience for visitors interested in maritime craft, Chesapeake ecology, local history, or traditional trades.

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