Spring Vacation Part IV (ducks)

Some time back in the 1990's I discovered the community of Havre de Grace Maryland. Their claim to fame is that they are on the upper Chesapeake and have a large number of decoy carvers in and around the town. Every early May the decoy museum sponsors a decoy show and sale. Most of the local carvers bring their latest creations and many collectors show up with older stock some dating back to the early 1900's.

In the late 1800's there were thousands of ducks and geese on the East Coast flyway and the market hunters made a killing there. In about 1913 or so there was a major hurricane that came through and wiped out the native celery grasses and therefore the food source. Coupled with over hunting the duck and geese populations have been almost eliminated.

There is a really nice museum that has great displays of decoys, and early hunting equipment and celebrates many of the old time local carvers.

There are other places we have visited, in Maryland, where decoy carving and now collecting is a big deal, Salisbury, Easton and Chinoteague

We have not been to Harve de Grace for several years so as it turned out this trip to the East Coast worked out that we could at least get to the decoy show for a couple of hours on Friday night before we needed to head back to Indiana.

Duck hunting in the early 1900's up to the 1950's was all about big numbers, large spreads or rigs of decoys and making the hunter look small in the midst of a bunch of ducks. Most of the boats were home made of wood and designed for a very specific use.

This boat was designed to sit very low in the water and had cast iron decoys spread out on the wooden deck to help weigh it down. There were usually canvas pieces that floated on the water to make the transition between the water and the boat seem insignificant to the duck. Of course the cast iron duck and the extra canvas made the whole rig pretty precarious and have subsequently been outlawed.

These boats above were fitted with either multiple barreled shotguns or a huge shotgun so as to sneak up on an unsuspecting flock of ducks sitting on the water and blast away often killing as many as 100 duck with one shot. These are now illegal too.

In the photo above you can see the size of a conventional shotgun compared to the market hunters gun.

Along the way decoys carvers supplied thousands of decoys for all the hunters. Certain styles developed and evolved over time, one carver using the patterns of another or working in his shop and learning his methods before moving on to set up his own shop. Over time the style in one area began to take on a look that was much different than the style of carvers in another area of the state. The decoys that I carve are likewise a blend of what I have seen over the years and what I like or think looks the best to me.

These posters kind of summarize the work of one particular carver or a community of carvers from a certain area.

These two displays of duck heads are actually a pretty common thing for a carver to do. Each species of duck has a characteristic that is unique and the carver will build an inventory of those heads with various poses.

The Museum has a nice blend of old and somewhat contemporary decoys. The ones above show a considerable amount of detail in the painting schemes indicating that these were most likely carved for the collector rather for the hunter.

There were and are several overall categories or decoys. There were the 1890's hand made and now very expensive decoys. The 1920'-19050's hand made utilitarian decoys made by carpenters, boat builders, hunters, bakers etc. were usually done in a small shop or basement. Factory decoys were pumped out by the thousands in the post war years made on duplicating machines like the one below. Today there is an emphasis on fancy realistic carving where it is difficult to tell the difference between a wooden duck and there real thing. The Harve de Grave areas tends to focus on the hand carved in a small shop type of decoys.

The man pictured above and below is Madison Mitchell. He has been pretty well displayed in the museum showing his shop, below a wax figure in a recreated shop display and further below a memorial.

The red head decoys above and below are from the same carver. The one below is a 1950 vintage model made for hunters and the one above is one most likely made late in his career to appeal to collectors.

This wigeon above is an example of another successful carvers work.

You can see that the two decoys above and below though both canvasback decoys have a much different style.

Here are more Canvasbacks.

and even more. Back in the market hunting days canvasbacks were really common, now they are fairly rare.

Above is a mallard hen, and below a nice pair of Cinnamon teal

Above a wigeon and below a blue winged teal.

A pair of ruddy ducks and a wood duck drake.

Pintail drake and a pair of old squaw below.

The duck above is made of cork.

after spedinng some time in the museum we walked along the board walk along the Chesapeake. With all of the rain that had come through recently the water quality was much muddier that at any time we had visited in the past.

There was a nice skip jack sailboar that came into the docks so we stopped to take a look as they tied up. They had a really nice dingy hung off the aft.

Late in the afternoon we headed over to the middle school where the decoy show would be opening later that day. We spotted this new duck boat that a vendor was displaying

This thing was close to 30 feet long

and had comfortable looking seating. Much different than the home made wooden skiffs that were in the museum.

At the decoy show it was not as easy to take photos since much of this is considered folk art and the artists some time get a little picky about photographing their work or collections. These two guys said sure help your self.