Point Reyes National Seashore at 50
by Laurie Thompson and John Hart
Please join the Anne T. Kent California Room on Thusday, October 18, 2012 at 12 noon for a special illustrated talk by Marin County author and historian John Hart, on the Pt. Reyes National Seashore at 50. The talk will be held in Room 330 of the Marin Civic Center Administration Building.
John has just published a new work on the Pt. Reyes National Seashore which he had intended to make available at his talk but the book has been so popular that it quickly sold out and we are awaiting additional copies from the printer. When the book arrives, we’ll schedule a special book-signing event with Mr. Hart.
In the meantime, please enjoy the author’s introductory note, below.
NOTE BY JOHN HART
Point Reyes National Seashore observes its 50th anniversary in the midst of a grinding controversy, the debate about the closure or continuation of a certain oyster farm in a certain beautiful bay. If this is sad, it is not unusual. The park also celebrated its 25th anniversary in controversy, over the management of grazing in ranches included within its boundary. And this park that everybody loves-which nobody in its region can now imagine life without-was born in controversy, much of it over those self-same ranches.
Point Reyes is incessantly controversial because it is so near, and so far: on the fringe of a vast metropolitan area, enmeshed in a lively and fractious local community, yet wonderfully other: a world misty with remoteness, yet for so many people right next door. This is a place people care about and want the best for. There are no villains in the picture, only honest if sometimes overexcited disagreement about what constitutes the best.
This book was conceived as a straightforward celebration of the first fifty years of Point Reyes National Seashore, but a celebration that would acknowledge the debates that have taken place, from the 1950s to the present day, about the nature and proper management of this extraordinary American landscape. Some controversies, once “hot,” are now safely in the past. One, the argument over the fate of the oyster-raising operation in Drake’s Estero, has proved radioactive. Unable to write a text that would please all factions (or indeed any), I briefly considered the possibility of omitting this aspect entirely; but that would be a bit like writing about recent U.S. history with no mention of Afghanistan. Unable to find a consensus among five readers who reviewed various versions of the text, the projected publisher, University of California Press, withdrew.
Appearing now as an independent product, this book is a little longer than it was, devoting more attention, rather than less, to the points of difficulty. It is also now equipped with notes, which proved a necessity for a subject where so many basic facts seem to be in dispute. My own judgments will be, at some points, evident, but I have tried to keep my opinions distinct from matters of record. My goal is to offer an account that, some years hence, can be used as a source even by those who may currently disagree.
And I hope it will contribute even now to a celebration that is thoroughly in order. For all the frictions along the way, Point Reyes National Seashore is a success story, a crown jewel, a triumph over long odds. Region, nation, and world are richer for its existence. On a planet where so much of the deeper, longer-term news is grim, Point Reyes is not only an island in time, as Harold Gilliam dubbed it half a century ago. It is an island of hope.
Originally published at https://annetkent.kontribune.com.
