Trimming the sail on a wooden mast similar to that on the boat used by Capt. John Smith and his men, author and historian Ed Haile floats along a stretch of the Rappahannock that is little changed from the time it was first seen by English explorers.

A small buck eyes an intruder at the edge of a soybean field at Belle Isle State Park near Morattico. In Algonquin society, practically every part of the deer was used--antlers for tools, skin for clothing, even the bladder was fashioned into a water container.

Like quills on a giant green porcupine, bullrushes point skyward on Lancaster Creek, a tributary of the Rappahannock River. Marsh grasses were a valuable commodity for Indians living along the river: they were used to thatch roofs of longhouses and for making baskets.

Corn was an important Indian staple grown along the fertile banks of the Rappahannock River in the early 17th century. Fields were burned over each year and prepared by hand; beans and squash were grown next the the grain, a combination known as the three sisters.