Scottsville outdoor park beckons canal lovers

Scottsville, Virginia has an outdoor park called Canal Basin Square that's a fun day trip for people who love canals.

Located on a horseshoe bend in the James River, Scottsville’s outdoor transportation history park is on the site of an old James River and Kanawha Canal turning basin.

There are eight exhibits in the park that tell the story of transportation from the time of the Monacan Indians through the canal era to the railroads. The signage makes for nice self-guided tours from dusk to dark. A pathway leads up the levee where visitors can take a scenic walk along the James River.

Period Boats

The park features a bateau replica – that’s one way people did river travel in the 18^th and 19^th centuries on the James in Virginia -- which participated for a number of years in the annual Bateau Festival held for a week each June with a stop in Scottsville. There is also a canal lock built to scale and a packet boat under construction by volunteers. The park is also a Virginia Civil War Trails site.

The brainchild of none other than George Washington, the James River and Kanawha Canal project was designed to open a water route to the west and facilitate freight and passenger transportation.

Scottsville’s Canal Basin Square  is located at 249 Main Street on Route 6 near the intersection with Route 20 to Charlottesville. The town lies 68 miles west of Richmond in Albemarle County.

For overnighters, there are six quaint inns and historic Bed & Breakfasts in Scottsville.

Ashland Train Day is fun for the family

What started out as a children’s theme day at a local library has turned into an annual event -- Ashland Train Day is held the second Saturday every November.

Festivities will be held on November 13, 2010 at several locations in this town just 15 miles north of Richmond including the Ashland Library where it all started. Children can ride a miniature train around the library and free cookies and cider will be served. The festival runs from 10 a.m. through 4 p.m.

Railroad folk music will provide the background for a day of fun. Visitors can enjoy wooden, lego and electric model trains set up at various locations along with the real deal -- CSX and Amtrak trains – which will be there all day near Ashland’s 1920’s train station in historic downtown. There is a Visitor’s Center there which makes it a good place to start.

Children can jump on a locomotive moon bounce, and adults can enjoy organizational displays with lots of railroad memorabilia. Event mascots, the engineer bears, will mix with visitors, many of whom dress for the occasion. 

Other locations housing the event are the Hanover Arts and Activity Center, Ashland Coffee and Tea, the Henry Clay Inn and the courtyard of the Ashland-Hanover Shopping Center.

There is parking near the library and satellite parking at the shopping center and Ashland Town Center where trolleys will be available to transport people to and from the various locations ($2 teens and adults, children free). The event itself is free.

Ashland Train Day is sponsored by the Town of Ashland, Friends of the Ashland Library, the Ashland Police Department, and Train Town Toy and Hobby.

Gordonville invites visitors with its Main Street charm

Where is this Main Street Community called Gordonsville, Virginia?

A true “small town America” kind of place, Gordonsville makes for a great day trip from anywhere in Central Virginia. The town has so much Southern charm that visitors can’t help but feel a warm hospitality calling out to stop and visit for awhile.

Right on the tree-lined Main Street, visitors can enjoy fine dining in a French restaurant named “Pomme” or at the Toliver House Restaurant, both great choices, plus there are other eateries for people in a hurry.

Gordonsville’s Main Street is home to a number of antique stores, boutiques and other shopping opportunities.
History buffs can visit the old hotel on the railroad tracks shown above which overlooks the town. It served as a hospital for some 70,000 wounded soldiers in the Civil War. The Exchange Hotel and Civil War Museum is located at 400 South Main Street.

Community Events

Community events coming up include the Annual Veteran’s Parade on November 13 and a Christmas tree lighting on December 5. From May through September there is bull riding sponsored by the local fire company (the Gordonville fairgrounds are a block off Main Street), a Cops and Kids Day in September and the Annual Gordonville Street Festival in October.

Truly a “Main Street Community,” Gordonsville is situated in Orange County, Virginia, 54 miles northwest of Richmond, 41 miles west of Fredericksburg, and 18 miles northeast of Charlottesville.

Mattaponi Indian Tribe’s mission is sustainability and harmony

Mission: Build a sustainable community on the Chesapeake Bay that will extend the thousands of years of Mattaponi history and heritage and, in doing so, demonstrate to all people how they may live successful and rewarding lives in harmony with the earth.

The Mattaponi Indian Reservation was established on ancestral land in an1658 treaty with Virginia. Situated on the Mattaponi River, the tribe was identified by the name Mattaponi and at that location by John Smith in 1607. It was one of the tribes under the famous Chief Powhatan. The treaty requires an annual tribute payment to Virginia’s governor of fish and game which the tribe still honors along with their neighbors the Pamunkey.

Fishing has always been central to the Mattaponi’s culture, shad in particular. Today the tribe operates a fish hatchery started with a grant from the Virginia Institute for Marine Science. According to their website, “Each year the Mattaponi people return millions of shad fingerlings into the river, putting back more than they take away.”

Other buildings on the reservation include homes, a church, an Indian museum and a community building that once served as a tribal school. Land is held in common but plots are assigned for members’ use.

Tribal Governance

The Mattaponi has its own sovereign government, the Mattaponi Tribal Council, made up of a chief, a vice chief and seven council members. The Custalow family has been prominent in tribal leadership for many years. The tribal roll has about the same number as were identified by the English in the 1600s, around 450 members, of whom about 60 live on the reservation.

The reservation, located in King William County east of Richmond off routes 360 and 30, consists of about 125 acres, part of it wetland, which they are hoping to expand. To this end, the non-profit Mattaponi Heritage Foundation has been formed to seek funding. Their dream of the Mattaponi:

 “Combining modern science with indigenous knowledge about the ecology of the river and bay, the Mattaponi people seek to show all of mankind how to live in harmony with the natural world while sustaining the highest quality of life.”

Pamunkey Indians seek federal recognition for the tribe of Chief Powhatan

           

The Pamunkey Indian tribe of Virginia has filed for federal acknowledgment as a self governed nation in Virginia. The tribe’s 1,200-acre reservation on the Pamunkey River in King William County is the oldest continuously inhabited Indian reservation in America. This is the tribe and the land where the famous Pamunkey Chief Powhatan once ruled, father of Pocahontas.

The tribe filed its petition with the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs on Oct. 14, 2010 documenting how the Pamunkey has remained an identifiable Indian tribe with self-governance throughout the centuries of English and American rule.

Supporting evidence

Evidence supporting its claims of sovereignty include newspaper articles showing that the Pamunkey pay an annual tribute to Virginia’s Governor every Thanksgiving to honor their part of the 1646 and 1677 treaties. In full tribal dress, they come to Richmond bearing gifts of wild game like deer or turkey along with traditional pottery. It’s said that they have never missed a payment since the treaties were signed hundreds of years ago.

Federal acknowledgement would establish a government to government relationship and provide access to federal services and benefits for the some 200 tribal members.

Open to the public

The Pamunkey reservation is about 50 miles east of Richmond and is open to the public on weekends, 10-4 Friday and Saturday and 1-4 on Sunday. A museum and gift shop sells many Pamunkey handcrafted items including pottery that is made using centuries-old techniques with clay dug from the Pamunkey River. The tribe has also constructed a miniature village and railroad depot on the reservation.

According to the Pamunkey’s website, their “museum is the only documented history of a tribe that has existed on its present homeland since the Ice Ages.”

Visitors can mapquest the reservation at 175 Lay Landing Road in King William, Virginia 23086.

The Pamunkey were the largest tribe in the Algonquian Powhatan Confederacy. It was the Pamunkey who gave gifts of food to the Jamestown settlers in 1607 and kept them from starving that winter. It is one of only two tribes that still retain reservation lands assigned by the 1646 and 1677 treaties, the nearby Mattaponi being the other.

Raven’s Roost provides rock climbing on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Raven’s Roost is an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway with stunning views and rock climbing opportunities.

Located at milepost 10 south of Interstate 64, the overlook provides great views of Torrey Ridge and the Shenandoah Valley looking west. A trail on the south end of the parking lot crosses a broad rock ledge where ravens roost, hence the overlook’s name. Ruins of an old iron furnace from the 1800s is nearby.

The Raven’s Roost trail goes down to the base of the cliff, which is great for trad and top roping. The trail is steep and turns from south to west before reaching the base. The rock is metamorphic.  Although a bit smooth with no continuous crack systems, because of the angle of the strata, there are plenty of in-cut edges for climber holds on the west-facing side of the cliff making for safe climbs.

Difficulty on the ascents of the various routes range from 5.1 to 5.12 according to rockclimbing.com.

Bouldering is also available on the granite traverse wall at Raven’s Roost.

Elevation at Raven’s Roost is 3200 feet, 1800 feet above the valley floor.

For more pictures, see my slide show.

Rockfish Gap joins Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway

Rockfish Gap is an old junction in Virginia’s majestic Blue Ridge Mountains where the Skyline Drive meets the Blue Ridge Parkway. Visitors can enjoy stunning views at Afton Overlook, the first stop south on the Blue Ridge Parkway, or turn north onto Skyline Drive for a trip through the scenic Shenandoah National Park off of Route 250 over Afton Mountain. The parkway is free and the drive has a fee.

After sightseeing or hiking the Appalachian Trail in the Rockfish Gap area, visitors can stop at the Afton Mountain Vineyards Afton which is open daily from 10-6 (closed Tuesdays). This is one of the state’s first farm wineries with some vines dating back decades. The farm produces the usual Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon but also wines unusual for Virginia producers -- Gewürztraminer and Sangiovese.

 

People wishing to spend the night may find accommodations in the Afton Mountain Bed & Breakfast Inn, an 1848 Victorian farmhouse at 10273 Rockfish Valley Highway in Afton. The inn has lots of antiques and original heart pine floors, an original staircase and stained glass entranceway with wireless internet access and private baths.

 

A gap with a history

 

Rockfish Gap is the site of an old Indian trail that became Three Chopt Road, also known as Three Notched Road, in the 1700s. This is the trail that opened the Shenandoah Valley to westward expansion. It was at Rockfish Gap where sitting president James Monroe, former presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and Chief Justice John Marshall met in a tavern in 1818 with others and selected Charlottesville as the site for the University of Virginia.

 

A railroad tunnel was built under Rockfish Gap in the 1850s and used by Stonewall Jackson to move troops in 1862 during the Civil War. The old tunnel – a nearby town Crozet is named after its engineer – is still in good shape.

 

Located between Charlottesville and Waynesboro off of Interstate 64, Rockfish Gap is 78 miles from Richmond .

Drivers should turn on their headlights and pay attention to the fog warning signs as they ascend Afton Mountain as dense fog can roll in suddenly. There have been multi-car pileups – two involving over 60 vehicles. Rock slides have also been reported, adding to the excitement of crossing Afton Mountain. Rockfish Gap is also known as a wind gap.