Cape Cod Quotes
From the National Park Service Cape Cod site:
"A man may stand there and put all America behind him." Henry David Thoreau
The great Outer Beach described by Thoreau in the 1800s is protected within the national seashore. Forty miles of pristine sandy beach, marshes, ponds, and uplands support diverse species. Lighthouses, cultural landscapes, and wild cranberry bogs offer a glimpse of Cape Cod’s past and continuing ways of life. Swimming beaches and walking and biking trails beckon today's visitors.
Henry David Thoreau – “in wildness is the preservation of the world”
From Henry David Thoreau's Cape Cod Vol II
We went to see the Ocean and that is probably the best place of all our coast to go to If you go by water you may experience what it is to leave and to approach these shores you may see the Stormy Petrel ... running over the sea and if the weather is but a little thick may lose sight of the land in mid passage I do not know where there is another beach in the Atlantic States attached to the mainland so long and at the same time so straight and completely uninterrupted by creeks or coves or fresh water rivers or marshes for though there may be clear places on the map they would probaby be found by the foot traveler to be intersected by creeks and marshes certainly there is none where there is a double way such as I have described a beach and a bank which at the same time shows you the land and the sea and part of the time two seas.
Here Thoreau talks about the special stretch of beach from Orlean to Proviencetown. Which will in 2010 contain a 400 foot tower, dwarfing the 80 foot dunes. The wind Turbine will be the defining characteristic what was the "best place of all our coast to go to"
One of the most attractive points for visitors is in the northeast part of Wellfleet where accommodations I mean for men and women of tolerable health and habits could probably be had within half a mile of the seashore It best combines the country and the seaside Though the Ocean is out of sight its faintest murmur is audible and you have only to climb a hill to find yourself on its brink It is but a step from the glassy surface of the Herring Ponds to the big Atlantic Pond where the waves never cease to break.
Amazing, Thoreau refers to a point just north of the spot, the Wellfleet Energy Committee wishes to build their loud Wind Turbine. He takes note how he listens to the Ocean just out of sight from half mile. Even today, because of far sighted protection, you can probably do just as Thoreau. Tragic that Thoreau's vision which Kennedy protected will be vanquished in 2010 with the Giant Wind Turbine churning 103 decibels!
...in 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed a bill authorizing the establishment of Cape Cod National Seashore. A long-time summer resident of the Cape, J.F.K. had co-sponsored the legislation while in the Senate. The goal, he wrote, was "to preserve the natural and historic values of a portion of Cape Cod for the inspiration and enjoyment of people all over the United States."
In a letter to the Editor of The New York Times on August 30, 1959, p. E 10, Wellfleet residents Francis Biddle, Marcel Breuer, Edwin O’Connor, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Herbert Wechsler, Edmund Wilson, and others wrote (excerpted):
There is the feeling everywhere that some reasonable control of the Cape’s growth is needed if this lovely land is not to be suburbanized.
Ideally, of course, such control would come from the towns affected. But town zoning has been non-existent or else has come too late to meet the flood of commercialization, and as a practical matter the the defense of the Cape will come through Federal action or not at all.
The signers of this letter are among those who are in sympathy with the purposes of various bills introduced in Congress to create such a park. [But…] There is the simple matter of people and their homes.
There are many charming old Cape Cod houses, and many modern homes built to harmonize with the old houses and the land; these are owned by people who have lived in them for generations, or by writers, artists, musicians and members of the learned professions who have been attracted by the beauty of the Cape.
[T]here is no doubt that a national park plan which was sensitively worked out could save these homes, and at the same time conserve the natural beauties of the Cape for future generations. Such a plan — aimed at a genuine conservation rather than mere recreation — would recognize that while the wild life of the Cape is important, the human way of life is at least equally important.
