Mooncusser Films Celebrates National Seashore

Watch this great twelve-minute short from Mooncusser Films. Christopher Seufert really captures the beauty of nature on the Outer Cape. Tomorrow I will report on Town Meeting, which took place last night. The article regarding the controversial "rentals tax" was approved.

Happy 50th, National Seashore!

Today we are going to celebrate the National Seashore, which is having its 50th anniversary this year, a topic covered by Winslow's Tavern blog last week. I already wrote about the initial festivities in May. Now I would like to draw your attention to an exhibit of paintings at the Addison Gallery in Orleans, which consistently offers up high-quality art for collectors and non-collectors alike, AND the Atlantic White Cedar Swamp.

Addison Gallery has put together a marvelous assembly of artwork that conjure up Seashore beaches at dawn and dusk, the iconic buildings, the wildlife. You can admire these images on the gallery Web site. The online exhibit succeeds in putting words to the visual experience of encountering nature in the park, not a simple feat. Have no doubt that it would be well worth your while to visit Addison Gallery, but if you are not on Cape, check out the lyrical descriptions instead.

I particularly admired Stephanie Foster’s photograph entitled "Sea Splash" and its caption: “I enjoy the solitude and beauty of fall and spring when I’m alone in the vast spaces and can feel its power and observe the rhythms. Or at the start or end of day when the light is magical. The National Seashore gives me a sense of place and belonging.” I think similar thoughts when I walk through the Seashore. This is the people’s park to enjoy. It belongs to us all.

The Cape Cod National Seashore boundary is less than half a mile from Chez Sven. Regular readers have heard me mention this boundary often because the power lines run alongside the park. Check out the map to the right. All the green is National Seashore, forty miles of pristine sandy beach, marshes, ponds, and forests dotted with lighthouses and wild cranberry bogs. It's a great place to go hiking. We are fortunate that President Kennedy saved these 44,600 acres from development. Did you know 61% of Wellfleet is in the Seashore?

Yesterday Sven and I journeyed out to the Marconi site, with its vistas of pitch pine and endless blue sky. Our destination was the Atlantic White Cedar Swamp trail, which starts at the far end of the parking lot.

About 5,000 years ago, Atlantic white cedar began to grow on Cape Cod, wherever there was wet ground or swamp. The colonists cleared these forests and used the wood. Most of the white cedar is gone now. The Atlantic White Cedar Swamp, within the National Seashore, remains.

The last time we visited together, five years ago, I remember brilliant colors that I have mentioned to guests ever since: purple and yellow, in particular. We chose a sunny day, after the rain, in the hope of capturing those colors with my new camera. To our surprise, the rain had mostly been absorbed into the very dry ground. Everything was green. Green moss, green ferns, green leaves, green shadows. Beautiful, but green, not purple and yellow.

Have you visited the Cape Cod National Seashore? What is your favorite national park?

Will Homeland Security Soon Control Cape Cod?

The Department of Homeland Security may take control of the National Seashore. What sounds like a preposterous idea is actually being considered by the House of Representatives. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, introduced the bill, claiming federal and local laws and oversight have interfered with border security and that border areas are "overrun with criminal activity."



I don’t think he’s referring to Cape Cod, but still the National Seashore is definitely implicated as a coastal area. This new bill makes me shudder. Sure, sometimes I look at an empty beach at twilight and wonder whether terrorists could launch an invasion during low tide. That thought has crossed my mind. But, would they? Probably not.

Were Homeland Security in charge here, the environmental laws in effect today would cease to apply. To quote Kaimi Rose Lum in the Banner, “It would give the Dept. of Homeland Security the ability to construct roads and fences, deploy patrol vehicles and set up monitoring equipment … and it would waive the need for the Dept. of Homeland Security to comply with environmental laws in areas within 100 miles of a coastline or international border.”

But never fear. Congress has good sense. This bill will never win approval. What?? Sven tells me the House has just passed H.R. 2018 to limit state water standards. Huh? H.R. 2018 would roll back key provisions of the Clean Water Act. I just checked and Rep. Keating voted nay. Please check how your Congressperson voted. According to an editorial in the New York Times today, H.R. 2018 "is about allowing industries, municipalities, and farmers to pollute." The bill goes to the Senate next.

If you’re as depressed as I am by this type of recent activity in Congress, and by the attempts to cut/limit, change Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, listen to Keith Olbermann speak out on corporate greed.

How do you feel about Homeland Security’s potential take-over of the Cape Cod National Seashore?

Reflections on Visiting the Wampanoag Exhibit at the National Seashore

Last weekend the Cape Cod National Seashore celebrated it’s 50th anniversary. As part of the celebration, several members of the Wampanoag tribe demonstrated crafts and woodcarving. I don’t know about you, but I always feel guilty when confronted with Native American peoples. We, the Caucasians, stole their land, basically, when you think about it. They were here first. By what right did the English “colonize” this continent? Since Sven is a historian, I thought it would be interesting to hear what he had to say on this subject, so I asked. Here's what he said:

“The settlers had no rights whatsoever. They believed in their own rights. They were like conquistadors. I just read a long article on the subject. The first ones, who came to Jamestown, were looking for gold. The other ones in the 1630s, up here, were also conquistadors, but had to compromise. They had to live on the land. There was no gold. The people who came afterwards were more interested in land. And, that’s the America we have today.”

Greedy, in other words. Land, gold, corporate interests, what difference? We are told, in school, that the Pilgrims came in search of religious freedom, which makes them sound noble, but really they simply wanted a place to live. They found this amazing land and took possession.

Last week I watched Smoke Signals, a great film about modern day "Indians." I'm learning about real Native Americans on Quincy Tahoma Blog. They respected the land. The indigenous people did not have a concept that anyone could own land.

Puritans came after Pilgrims, and Puritans did not even bother to pay for land.

Did the Wampanoags understand the sale of 12,000 acres for Plimouth Plantation? I doubt it. The tribe had already been decimated by disease.

“The natives were exterminated by illnesses,” Sven went on. “They were all dead already, from an epidemic, when the settlers came to Cape Cod.”

Some survived. The brave Wampanoag weavers and carvers are their descendents.

My ancestors did not bring the germs that caused the epidemic, nor push Native Americans west and then restrict them to reservations. On my father’s side, my family lived in Russia. On my mother’s side, both families lived in England for two more centuries. Nonetheless, when I encounter Wampanoags, I feel regret at how the indigenous people were treated. Do you feel the same way?

National Seashore Celebrates 50th Birthday

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Cape Cod National Seashore. We are fortunate, here on the Outer Cape, to have this park and all the natural beauty it offers, preserved forever. If President Kennedy had not owned a home in Hyannisport, the Outer Cape would be way more developed today. I always remind guests that 61% of Wellfleet is located within the Seashore boundaries. If you drive up Route 6, you will see the headquarters and Salt Pond Visitor Center, above, on your right, at one of the traffic lights. There's a second visitor center in Provincetown, not open until next month. I send guests to the Eastham location.

Have you visited the new permanent exhibit there yet? Yesterday I stopped by and checked out a couple interesting artifacts from the Carns site, on display in "People of the First Light." The exhibit is open seven days a week from 9 to 4:30 but mark your calendars now and try to attend May 14th. From 10 to 12:30, Wampanoag artists will demonstrate weaving and woodworking. From 1 to 2, there will be a performance by the Wampanoag Nation Singers and Dancers. And, from 2:30 to 3:30 visitors are invited to drop in and share memories of the Carns Site excavation.

The Carns site got its name when a retired archeologist happened to notice something unusual while out walking and sounded the alert. The year was 1990, year of the "perfect storm." Archeologists were called in and did their best to excavate before the sands shifted again.

One of the archeologists, who participated in the Carns site dig, was a guest at Chez Sven several weeks ago. He explained how erosion had removed a section of the beach so you could see the level where people had once lived. The site had been under ten feet of sand at the time. A darker layer of sediment was uncovered. The plow marks indicated to the assembled archeological team that the site “couldn’t be that old.” Only 1000 years or so. It has washed away now. Our guest also said sand used to move across the plains of Eastham at such a rate that the area was referred to as “Africa.” The coast used to be one mile to the east. Nauset Marsh would have been fresh water.

In the post about our conversation over breakfast, I described discovery on an ossuary on Indian Neck. One thing I neglected to mention was the fact Native Americans would bury family members in separate graves, then un-bury them and place all the bones in one hole, to reestablish, in death, the community that had lived together in life. Interesting!