Bivalve: not quite a shell of its past

A trip to the Delaware Bayshore isn't complete without a visit to Bivalve and Shellpile, and I wanted to share both locations with Ivan, who hadn't been there before.

On my last visit, most of the Bayshore Discovery Project museum wasn't open, so I was very happy to see that the exhibit rooms were unlocked and prime for wandering this time. We were there about two minutes before a bunch of people showed up with a guide leading the way. Oops... I guess we were supposed to check in before we wandered around.

Housed in an old packing shed, the Delaware Bay Museum Folk Life Center's exhibits focus on the lives, work and tools of the people who once called the community home. It's chock full of artifacts, including a long-handled oyster rake, shucking implements, a big old captains wheel and a section of post office boxes where residents could pick up their mail when they were in town. A set of shelves held oyster cans in a variety of sizes from household to institutional, labeled with different brand names. Our fellow visitors pored over the old photos arrayed in the exhibit, recognizing some of the people in them as parents and grandparents of friends.

Old vessels on the Bivalve docks lend authenticity
to the legends of this fascinating and historic place.

When we'd seen what the museum had to offer, we walked out back, to a covered dock area with three or four bays. One still held a sunken vessel whose bow and exhaust stack barely breached the water's surface. A hundred yards or so across the gentle waters of the Maurice River, we could see a few geese wading about on a spit of land.

We were there around 3 p.m., after the small restaurant had closed up for the day, but from the menu accessible from the Bayshore Discovery homepage it looks like a good place to get a seafood snack on the weekends. It's good to see life coming back to the waterfront there, even a tiny bit.

As we walked back out to the car, we ran into the guide who'd staffed the museum earlier. We got to chatting with him about life there and the potential for decent birding nearby. Mentioning the boardwalks and platforms PSE&G had built in the nearby estuary area, he advised us to drive past the big shell pile and the shellfish processing facilities, which would bring us within an easy stroll of the walkways. I had my doubts, based on prior experience, but okay.

Here's why I had my doubts: I know something about that shell pile. Four years ago, almost to the day, I visited Bivalve and made the video below. Check it out to see what I mean:

What this video doesn't mention is the souvenir I brought home: the rank stench that ended up on my vehicle. The drive to the shell pile was paved with crushed shell and pockmarked with potholes brimming with shellfish leachate. Even at a crawl, my tires kicked up some of the stench-laden water and transferred it to the undercarriage of my car. It tracked me all the way home, forcing me to make an unplanned visit to the car wash.

Despite having had that experience, I was willing to check it out for the sake of finding a few shorebirds. I was set to draw the line if I saw a lot of standing water in our path, but it appeared that the owners had worked on the road a bit in the four years since I took that video. We drove through a few thready puddles, but I wasn't overly concerned. 

I parked near the end of the road, and Ivan and I simultaneously opened our doors to step outside. Almost immediately, and absolutely simultaneously, we shut them again. UUUUUUGGGGGGG!!!!!!!! In those few seconds, the foul odor of decaying bivalves had invaded the cabin and our olfactory organs. We had to leave the area immediately to air out the car and our noses.

Well, maybe not immediately, because the shell pile was rife with birds. Gulls and shorebirds of various extractions... even a few snowy egrets were picking around the clam carcasses. Where else in heck do you see snowy egrets doing that? Where was my video camera this time around? 

The sheer volume of birds was impressive, but alas there were no remarkable finds, and we were soon on our way to find sweeter air. I'm disappointed, because the potential stories would have been great. Imagine the post to the bird boards: "XYZ Tern at Bivalve shell pile, foraging with several other terns and gulls. Drive carefully and do not open your doors or windows."

Only slightly clammy: the towns of Bivalve and Shellpile

If you're sick of congestion and crowds and noise, have I got the place for you!

Years ago I found Shellpile and Bivalve, twin communities in the larger community of Port Norris, which is, in turn, part of the even bigger Commercial Township. These mollusk-themed places share a common link to the fortunes and downfall of New Jersey's oystering heritage.

It just looks as if these boats are sailing on shells.

You read that right: New Jersey and oysters. It's not widely known now, but in the first half of the 20th century, Delaware Bay was home to an abundant oyster population and a significant fishing industry to capitalize on it. A vibrant business community settled in Shellpile and Bivalve to harvest and process oysters, shipping them in long freight trains to markets in New York and Philadelphia. The name Shellpile, in fact, refers to the vast mountains of oyster shells dumped outside the processors' factories. Thousands of people lived nearby, mostly in sub-standard housing, filling the demand for labor at all stages of the oystering process.

A lethal parasite called MSX (Multinucleated Sphere Unknown) decimated the region's oyster population in the late 1950s, taking the fates of Shellpile and Bivalve with it. Today, a few companies continue to process clams and oysters brought in from other areas, but for the most part, the community has taken on a ghost town-like aura. The only time it livens up is for the annual Bay Day in June.

To get to Shellpile or Bivalve, you first need to drive through Port Norris, an experience straight out of a Twilight Zone episode. The streets are lined with homes and the occasional business or government building, but rarely is there a soul to be seen. The place doesn't look especially well-off, though it's definitely liveable. Where is everyone?

I wasn't sure what to expect when I visited recently. It had been a while since I was down there, so I didn't know if some of the structures I knew would be gone, but I was pretty well assured nothing would have improved. I'm still hurting from the time I visited to find that the fabled Shellpile Restaurant had been sold. I didn't have the heart to go inside and find out whether the owner had sold his out-of-this-world crabcake recipe along with the building.

On this visit, I was pleasantly surprised to see a big red, white and blue banner flapping in the breeze near the waterfront, welcoming visitors. The Bayshore Discovery Project had restored one of the historic shipping sheds, and it was actually open for visitation. When I went inside, two women were engaged in a meeting, busily talking about an upcoming event to be held there.

The Bayshore Project people have been in Bivalve for years, as it's the home port for the official New Jersey state schooner, A.J. Meerwald. Formed in the late 80's, the Project organization is responsible for the restoration and upkeep of the Meerwald and use it for a variety of educational purposes. Their larger goal is to motivate people to take care of the environment, the history and culture of New Jersey's Bayshore Region through education, preservation and example. During the summer, the Meerwald offers sailing excursions and summer camps to give kids and adults alike the opportunity to see what life was like on an oyster schooner in years past.

Unfortunately, the museum exhibit was closed during my visit, but I wandered through the building and outside a bit to find signs that it's probably pretty active during the warmer months. They even have a raw bar set up, which is enough to get me to return.

Outside of the immediate wharf area, Bivalve was very very quiet, looking, as always, like a painting Edward Hopper might have done during a period of severe depression. Old boats up on blocks had obviously not felt salt water lapping their hulls in many a year, and the church building was as shut-up and abandoned as it had been when I first saw it over a decade ago.

I took the narrow road through fields of phragmites to check out the Shellpile waterfront and found the same, if not more so. Summertime near the old Shellpile Restaurant is often more active, given the boat launch nearby, but on a Saturday in December, there wasn't much more than a few turkey vultures and a flock of gulls picking through a small pile of clam shells. When I first started visiting the area, I found it eerie. Now I find it curiously calming. Yeah, there's the possibility of a random visitor or resident driving by, but I've never been questioned or confronted by anyone when I was there. Somebody would actually have to be around for that to happen, and it often feels as if I'm the only human being within miles.