The Bitter Southerner: “The six full-time rangers of the Maryland island’s state park wrangle a hell of a lot — 85 horses, 2 million tourists, and innumerable moments of magic. If you take Maryland Route 611 south from its outset near Ocean City as it winds eight or so miles past a few small farms, a handful of developments, the regional airport, and the campground-cum-amusement park Sun Outdoors Frontier Town, you’ll eventually round eastbound to a beautiful stretch of sky and road yearning up over a bridge, the Verrazano, that gives a soul-filling view: the whole of Assateague Island, reaching long and low along the horizon line between glittering stripes of ocean and bay. The famed barrier island is barely above sea level; creamy pillow tops of dunes are the high points, the scrubby gothic bay pines veritable skyscrapers over the emerald marsh fingering out into the bay. If the heavens have smiled and it’s a glassy day, the slick bay and cool sky will become a seamless mirrored sheet of blue-gray on both sides — the horizon completely vanished, giving the otherworldly feeling of being suspended in space, the island ahead the only visible anchor to the world. If you’re very lucky, you’ll see what many hope to: the island’s famous wild ponies, biding time as they do, stoic specks amidst the vista…”

No one can deny that Assateague owes its fame to the horses. Since Marguerite Henry published her beloved children’s book Misty of Chincoteague in 1947, people have been traveling from all over to see Assateague’s famous wild herds, among the few remaining in the U.S. Technically, there are two herds on the island, separated by the Maryland-Virginia line; the Maryland herd has 85 horses and is managed jointly by the national and state parks, while the Virginia herd has 150 horses and is owned and managed by the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company. The horses’ origin remains unknown, though there are many competing theories: equine refugees from a shipwrecked Spanish galleon; farm runaways; abandoned livestock. In appearance they’re somewhere between mangy and cute, and quite photogenic. But in demeanor they are very far from their domesticated brethren…”