The invitation is compelling: “Come spend a week on our tiny slice of paradise on Virginia’s Eastern Shore,” say my artsy friends, “where the shaggy-maned wild ponies of Chincoteague roam free and giant knobbed whelk shells are tossed ashore by raging Atlantic tides. Feast on all the steamed blue crabs and roasted Chesapeake oysters your heart desires. Sleep in a restored 1820s-era waterman’s cottage. Watch magical sunsets from your Adirondack chair, facing the Assateague Island National Seashore, with a big fluffball of Golden Retriever love named Alba by your side.”
Every year the invitation comes. This fall, I finally said to my shellfish-loving, beachcombing self, “Why not?” I packed a bag and went.
Chincoteague Island is barely 71/2 miles long and half a mile wide. Across a narrow channel lies Assateague Island, with 37 unbroken miles of dune-fringed beaches and maritime forests rich with wildlife; most remarkably, the ponies.
Horse-lovers worldwide know of the wild ponies of Chincoteague, and the “Saltwater Cowboys” (plus a few cowgirls!) who watch over them. Each year before dawn in late July, the Cowboys, members of the island’s volunteer fire department, begin rounding up the 150 feral ponies that roam free on the Virginia side of Assateague, and herd them along the beach for their swim to Chincoteague for Pony Penning Days. Also called Pony Swim Week, it swells Chincoteague’s regular population of 3,340 to over 50,000. Most of the ponies sold at auction go home with their buyers, but a few with the strongest bloodlines are reserved as “buybacks;” that is, the buyer gets naming rights and donates the pony back to the herd.
This year, the highest selling buyback in history was a pinto filly for $100,000. Proceeds help care for the pony population and support the Chincoteague Fire Company. The week’s most dramatic event is the Return Swim, witnessed by tens of thousands of spectators on boats and on shore.
With its 500-year history of pirates and oystermen, Chincoteague is a place out of time. Reliable maps and the Chamber of Commerce insist that it’s a real place, but for me, it’s nothing short of mystical.
Morning coffee with homemade biscotti from the local farm market taste like heaven from my spot on the screened porch as the sun rises over the creek, where a lone fisherman glides by, his boat barely rippling the mirror-smooth water. Most of the vintage cottages and vintage-styled island homes are understated in weathered tones, many with rooftop widow’s walks and large screened porches.
Misty of Chincoteague
The wild ponies of Chincoteague became legend when a newborn gold and white palomino pinto captured the heart of a visiting writer named Marguerite Henry in 1947. Her first book, Misty of Chincoteague, remains among Amazon’s best-selling children’s horse books. Misty is still with us, in a sense, as her taxidermied figure lives forever in the Museum of Chincoteague. Her heritage dominates the bookstores, gift shops, galleries, public monuments, and her birthplace, the Beebe Ranch, where some of her descendants serve as greeters.
I’m lucky to be here during the quieter fall roundup, when the ponies again cross the channel for wellness checks and vet care. I meet a third-generation Saltwater Cowboy named Hunter, who runs Cowboy Cruises. His pony tour snakes through creeks, bays, and coves where small groups of stallions and their mares graze in the salt marsh and tidal pools. He can recite the name, heritage, and habits of each one. The wild ponies of Chincoteague, he explains, are neither wild nor true ponies. They’re feral, because they receive care from humans. Local legends say they survived a shipwrecked Spanish Galleon, but most likely they’re descendants of standard horses that evolved into a stockier, shorter breed to adapt to harsh seacoast conditions. Horses shorter than 14 hands (56 inches) are called ponies.
Family-friendly happenings, besides the carnival and events of Pony Swim Week, include the Blueberry Festival (July), the Oyster Festival (October), clam digging, fishing, hiking, and kayaking year-round. The Assateague Lighthouse is open for climbing in summer, and there’s clear viewing of rocket launches from NASA’s nearby Wallops Island Flight Facility.
What to bring home?
A knobbed whelk shell, of course! Whelks date back 540 million years — way before dinosaurs! No need to pity the beachcomber (me) who visits during a calm week and finds no whelks: many roadside stands are piled with them for a couple of dollars each. For young horse-lovers in your life, grab the book Misty of Chincoteague, and as many pony replicas as will fit in your carry-on. Sadly, my doggy friend Alba did not fit into mine.
chincoteague.com
cowboycruisecompany.com
nasa.gov/wallops/visitor-center