The job is done
Junior Spencer Bowman, a student trip leader, is proud of the work his group did for the National Park Service.
On our second day of production, we visited Ship Island. Preservation efforts to connect the east and west sides of the island into one were finished just last month. The project took two years to complete and is important to protecting the island as well as the coast, which is protected by this and other barrier islands during hurricanes.
Before we left, we took a stroll along the north side of the island to look for birds. What we found, however, was an aggregation of treasures that had washed ashore in the island’s closed season. Among the cache were a multitude of horseshoe crab carcasses, an unidentifiable bone and the remains of a pufferfish. Having only hosted rangers and preservation workers for the last five months, the island was in a state of serenity, and the shores were nearly untouched. Seeing the shore as the ocean shaped it was a unique and moving experience.
The island all to ourselves, it almost felt as if we were intruding on something sacred. The birds, so used to the steady trickle of rangers and preservers, seemed surprised by our appearance in their sanctuary. The beach displayed a pattern of waves frozen in time before we left our footsteps. Even the ospreys, a shy and cautious breed, felt emboldened to build their nest atop a ranger watch tower, a structure that will likely get more use in the summer months and is well within the sight range of walkable beaches.
Seeing the island in this manner had a magical effect, transporting us from a time of modernity and industrialization to one of peaceful cohabitation, ruled by the tide. It was a surreal experience, being dropped into this ecosystem in the middle of the sea, at once solitary and a joyous congregation of human and animal.
The park’s hand in its preservation is a gentle, guiding one that allows this quiet habitat to flourish in a world which people have claimed much of as their own.
