Island Beach Statepark

JERSEY SHORE LANDMARKS Shifting IslandSands Beach - Past to Present by Gordon Hesse “To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years…is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.” — Rachel Carson, Under the Sea Wind Left: A diversity of plants bloom in spring at Island Beach State Park. Below: This 180-degree panorama shows the former Forked River Life Saving Station No. 112 to the south and the park’s natural dune system to the north, giving a sense of the expanse of dune and path. Opposite Page: Autumn offers majestic views of the subtle changes in vegetation along the Barnegat Bay wetlands. Gordon Hesse Gordon Jersey shore • FALL/HOLIDAY 2014 FALL/HOLIDAY • Jersey shore 34 Gordon Hesse Gordon It was formed from the sea and This seascape’s system of dunes is These forests provide shade, food, transformed from a peninsula to an held together by grasses, shrubs, and water, and shelter for wildlife. island as tempests breached the beach maritime forests. Today, along with Because the salt spray off the ocean barrier gushing into the bay; days its winds and waves, it can transport is deflected upward by the dunes, it and decades later, the sands returned, and evoke reveries of a realm of ages. can prune trees in the maritime for- creating, once again, a peninsula. Island Beach has been called est by stunting new growth. When The white sands of Island Beach’s a “Rustic Paradise,” New Jersey’s soil conditions are stable on the bar- dunes are like those in an immense “Forgotten Beach,” and “A Museum rier island, tree seedlings can grow in hourglass that mark time not in Piece Of Oceanfront.” It offers an the moist protected hollows behind hours, but in centuries. Grain by idyllic expanse of trails through the dunes. Some trees are twisted and grain of sand, it moves as a living hearty pitch pine, red cedar, black bent by the forces of nature and seem thing, forming and reforming. It goes cherry, red maple, American holly to have been wrought rather than on still at Island Beach. trees, and Atlantic white cedars. grown. jersey shore • FALL/HOLIDAY 2014 • FALL/HOLIDAY jersey shore continued on page 36 Gordon Hesse 35 JERSEY SHORE LANDMARKS ISLAND BEACH, continued from page 35 The dunes harbor beach plum, bayberry bushes, and beach heather. Sight, hearing, smell, and touch inten- sify the moment, strengthening and refreshing. The salty air swirls with the likes of peregrine falcons, black skimmers, and nesting osprey. This is their domain, and you are a guest. The bay side of Island Beach is lined with reeds and a muddy estuary that is home to blue crabs, herons, and other marine birds. The park is an excellent site for bird watching with osprey nests and paths to bird blinds. Island Beach is home to an estimated two thousand diamond- back terrapins, a species of turtles that reside in brackish estuaries. Ray Bukowski, the manager of Hesse Gordon Island Beach State Park, is a Richard This man-made nest stand for ospreys (on the right) can be seen from the blind located near the Stockton College graduate with a Nature and Interpretive Centers. There are about thirty nesting pairs of osprey in the park. degree in Environmental Studies. they miss the park’s natural beauty to Barnegat Inlet. He seems a perfect fit with his and unique ecosystems. According Popular activities at the park are local background as an avid angler to Bukowski, there are now fifteen surf fishing, hiking, biking, kayaking and hunter. He has been with the research projects being conducted at and canoeing, bird watching, and Department of Environmental the park. He also pointed out that photography. Horseback riding is Protection since 1992 with special the Asbury Park Press had rated Island available by reservation from October experience in the Coastal and Land Beach State Park as New Jersey’s best through April, and the park has a six- Use program. He recently offered beach. The park is the largest unde- mile bridle path. me a tour of places I had never seen veloped barrier beach in New Jersey The Fishermen’s Walkway trail in my visits to Island Beach. He and one of the largest in the United near Parking Area 7 provides a wheel- pointed out that most of the park’s States. Bordered on the north by chair-accessible boardwalk and obser- visitors focus their attention on the Seaside Park and Berkeley Township, vation deck. There is also the Tidal guarded beaches and bathhouses, but Island Beach extends nearly ten miles Pond Trail that leads to an enclosed bird observation blind overlooking Barnegat Bay. Glossy ibises, great blue herons, kingfishers, and the harder- to-find myrtle and cerulean warblers can be spotted. Migrating birds are best observed in May and October. The bounty of the sea attracts ocean anglers seeking stripers, fluke, bluefish, kingfish, blackfish, and the less common drum, false albacore, and cobia. Along the Barnegat shallows, bayside anglers land bluefish, weak- fish, and bass. Without human intervention, Barnegat Inlet would gradually have worked its way southward. This per- sistent movement of barrier islands and inlets on the New Jersey coast is the result of littoral transport, a natural process caused by the com- bined actions of the waves and cur- rents. The waves hitting the beach Gordon Hesse Gordon Jersey shore • FALL/HOLIDAY 2014 FALL/HOLIDAY • Jersey shore The Fisherman’s Walkway provides a boardwalk that crosses from the bay through the dunes to suspend sand, and the prevailing the ocean beach. Many boaters anchor in the bay, wade ashore, and walk to the ocean. 36 south-flowing current carries the “…we came to…Ilands, which was in uct of fertile imaginations. sand and deposits it further along length ten leagues. The mouth of that One such tale is noteworthy for the coast. Once a structure was built, Lake of water [Barnegat Inlet] hath its dramatic detail. According to the such as Barnegat Lighthouse in 1859, many shoalds and the sea breaketh on late Ocean County historian Pauline engineers were forced to combat the them as it is cast out of the mouth of Miller, in her book 300 Years at natural processes. The construction it… This is a very good Land to fall Island Beach, Kidd and the crew of of stone jetties, completed in 1940, with, and a pleasant Land to see.” his sloop San Antonio were report- helped capture the shifting sand and Dutch explorer Cornelius May ed to have captured the British brig stop the island’s march south. christened the inlet “Barendegat” or Starlight out of Liverpool in January Island Beach State Park is part “Breakers Inlet” in 1614. That same 1697. After transferring the valuables of the New Jersey Coastal Heritage year, a map was published that cor- to his sloop, Kidd reportedly gave Trail, which marks the historical and, rectly showed streams emptying into, the crew and passengers the option coastal habitats along the 127 miles what evolved into its current name, of joining the pirate crew or walking of New Jersey’s Atlantic coastline, Barnegat Bay. the plank. The crew joined Kidd, but and more than 83 miles of shoreline Island Beach was occupied by the passengers chose a watery grave. along the Raritan and Delaware Bays. whalers as early as 1640, and whal- The night after, the pirates celebrated ing became an important industry their success on the beach with cap- ~~~~ ~~~~ after licenses were granted in 1684. tured liquor. Kidd and three others, The whalers lived on the island however, slipped away in a longboat in February and March during with treasure and buried it on a small For the native Lenni Lenapes, Island the migration season. They would island. They rejoined their shipmates, Beach provided fishing, clamming, row out to the whales offshore, but were never able to return. This hunting, and fruit-gathering grounds. harpoon them, bring them to treasure of legend, which may have It was a refuge for whalers, pirates, the beach, cut them up, and originated with a vendor who wanted smugglers, squatters, and sportsmen. boil the blubber for oil. A single to increase rentals of rowboats and It has been the location for three Life whale could produce from forty shovels, has never been found. Saving Stations, a steel magnate’s to ninety barrels of oil. When the Alas, recent research shows Kidd ambitious vision for a resort, and the demand was high, as during the was in the Indian Ocean at the time top-secret site of missile tests during British blockade in the War of of the aforementioned date and did World War II. Today, with its pristine 1812, ox-drawn wagons loaded not “turn pirate” until April of 1697. dunes, wildlife, and vegetation, Island with oil would make the ten-day He did not return to the seas off Beach provides recreation, educational trip through the New Jersey Pine the Mid-Atlantic region until April programs, and a myriad of activities Barrens to Philadelphia, bringing through June of 1699, just weeks for nature lovers. in as much as $60,000. before he was caught and later tried How did this barrier island and hanged in England. remain in such a natural state History Abounds On Island Beach after centuries of human activity? Colonial Activities and Ephemeral Beginning about seven thousand Part of the answer comes from trac- Inlets years ago, predecessors of the Lenni ing its ownership.

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