Halibut Point State Park sits on the northeast tip of Cape Ann in Rockport, Massachusetts. Originally termed “Haul-about” Point in the 17th Century due to its location, a spot where the prevailing wind currents, northeast and southwest, tend to shift, indicating mariners should “haul-about” their sails, this uniquely beautiful coastal landscape of fifty-five acres is managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation with twelve abutting acres belonging to The Trustees of Reservations. Halibut Point is open year-round for you to explore its trails and tidepools, picnic on its rocky ledges, enjoy its sweeping views, and learn about the nature and history of Cape Ann. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, the park is open from 8:00am to 8:00pm daily with a $2.00 parking fee per vehicle; the rest of the year the park is open from sunrise to sunset. Site of the former Babson Farm Quarry and with a Visitors Center and museum in a former World War Two artillery fire control tower, Halibut Point features an onsite park interpreter and free educational/entertainment/nature programs for the public from April thru October. Click here to download a park brochure. Directions: Halibut Point State Park is located approximately forty miles north of Boston. The best approach is to take Rt. 128 north toward Gloucester and Rockport. After crossing the Annisquam River bridge, go three-quarters way around the first rotary, following signs for Rt. 127 north (Annisquam and Pigeon Cove). After approximately six miles, turn left at the park sign by the Old Farm Inn onto Gott Ave. From downtown Rockport, drive north on Rt. 127 for three miles, turning right onto Gott Ave. The phone number at Halibut Point State Park is 978-546-2997. This is the blog of park interpreter John Ratti (johnrai@aol.com) and will be used to inform the public about Halibut Point State Park events and programs, answer questions and field comments, and to provide historical, cultural and environmental information about the park and its programs.
July features a jam-packed month of programs and events at Halibut Point State Park, kicking off with a 3:00pm July 6th Sunday Sounds concert of classic and original instrumentals by Alek Razdan and A-Train. Standard programs for the month include the park’s Quarry Tour on Saturdays at 10:00am and Tower Tower of Halibut Point’s World War Two artillery fire control tower on Sundays at 1:00pm. On Fridays July 11 & 18 at 6:00pm there will be a return of the program Ceremonial Time: The Fifteen Thousand Years of Fifty Acres. This program, a “psychological” history and investigation into the “spirit” of a place - past/present and future - gathered via history, anthropology, geology and more is based on John Hanson Mitchell’s book.
On Saturday, July 12th at 2:00pm Halibut Point will once again be the site of another trek along The Atlantic Path. This three-hour moderately challenging walk along Rockport’s resplendent public coastline from Halibut Point to Pigeon Cove and back will feature the DCR, Trustees of Reservations, Peter Van Demark of Halibut’s Birding for Beginners program and other guest educators who will be along to interpret and point out some extraordinary geology, tidepools, birding, history and more. This will be the third time Halibut Point has sponsored this special event and each time has been quite an adventure. Do not miss it!
Sunday, July 13th at 3:00 there will be another Sunday Sounds concert at Halibut Point, this time with oldie but goodies of Midlife Crisis. Sponsored by the DCR and Friends of Halibut Point, this show, like all programs and events at Halibut Point is FREE.
Saturday, July 19th at 2:00pm the park will host Rick Roth and the Cape Ann Vernal Pond Team and their Snakes of Massachusetts and the World program. Perenially one of the most popular events at Halibut Point, Rick and the team will be brnging along over thirty live snakes.
On Sunday, July 20th at 8:00am Peter Van Demark will be hosting his monthly Birding for Beginners. Meet Peter in the parking lot for this two to three-hour stroll.
Friday evening, July 25, the park will host Stargazing with the Gloucester Area Astronomy Club. Beginning at 7:00pm with the club’s What’s Up program, the park will be open for late night stargazing. Halibut Point is an extraordinary site for viewing the night sky and no telescope is necessary - there will be plenty on hand. The rain/cloud date for this event is Saturday, July 26th. For a flyer of July programs and events you can download, click here.
Coming in August at Halibut Point will be more Sundays Sounds concerts, continuing standard programs, another nature walk with Ed Jylkka, a slide show of what’s underwater off the coast of Halibut Point, more Birding for Beginners and on August 2nd a special family shadow-puppet show called A Stonecutter’s Tale -Stories of the Quarry by natural light photographer Leslie Bartlett.
Interpreter’s Notes - An Elegant Science
Published July 1, 2008 Cape Ann , Education , Geology , History , Interpretive Programming , Massachusetts , North Shore , Stone building , state parks 0 Comments
Psychologist C.K. Jung said, “A man is not a thing, but a drama.” Well, a rock is not a thing, but a drama - only existing on the vast scale of geological time. Pick one up sometime, any rock, and you’ll be holding something that contains the entire periodic table, every known element in the universe. Is it a metamorphic or sedimentary rock in an igneous environment? How did it get there? What’s its story? They all have a story, the rocks under our feet and all around us, made up of the 5,000 or so substances of the mineral world that make up 90% of the mass and volume of the Earth.
Geology, simplified, is the study of the Earth’s inorganic substances, its processes and the planet’s history. But that definition does no justice to this elegant, almost metaphysical science. Geology reflects the universal axiom of Hermetic philosophy: As above, so below, as displayed by the fact that the mineral substances in the planets and stars above are exactly the same ones inside our bodies and in the ground beneath us (and they are formed in exactly the same way). One of geology’s major concepts, fromulated by James Hutton in the 18th Century, is called Uniformitarianism, the stipulation that all the laws of the universe have been the same since the beginning of the universe. To put it spiritually and more poetically, “There is nothing new under the Sun.” This idea begat today’s science, influencing everything from Darwin’s thinking to modern physics, prodding the concept of the universe as a “closed” system - all the matter and energy in the universe has existed since the beginning of the universe, and there is only a transfer from one state to another. In other words, matter cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. Geology is the great unifying science of the world, the eye of the needle all other sciences do, at some point and in some way, pass thru - astronomy, art, linguistics, paleontology, physics, biology, philosophy, medicine, chemistry, religion, agriculture, anthropology, sociology, meterology, geography, mathematics, climatology, economics … on and on goes the list.
Cape Ann is an extraordinary geological area and Halibut Point State Park is a great place to see that for yourself. Here are some surprising facts about the geology of Cape Ann: Of the 5000 or so mineral substances that make up the vast majority of the mass and volume of the Earth, two, Annite and Danalite, were discovered on and primarily exist around Cape Ann. Annite, named after Cape Ann, was first identified in Rockport. You can learn more about Annite here. Danalite, named after geology professor J.D. Dana, was initially identified at a Rockport Granite Company quarry in the 19th century. This link gives you more information about Danalite and this Wikipedia excerpt will tell you more about Professor Dana, one of the foremost figures in the history of geology.
But that’s far from the end of the surprising facts about the geology of Cape Ann. Here’s something many are astonished to learn: Cape Ann is considered the third most active geological area in the United States. The most active geological area is the San Andreas fault, we all know about that one; the second is the New Madrid fault in Missouri, where the largest known earthquake that has happened since Europeans settled the continent occured in 1800. It was an earthquake so massive that the Mississippi River ran backwards for almost an entire day! After those two areas comes Cape Ann. The largest earthquake known to have taken place in New England happened on Cape Ann in 1755. That large quake, knocking down walls and chimneys of over a hundred buildings in Boston, was felt from Nova Scotia to South Carolina and over five hundred miles east at sea. You can take a look at this document on file at the Massachusetts Historical Society to find out more about an event that profoundly affected the New England populace, as evidenced by the no fewer than twenty-seven sermons, poems, and accounts published in the following months featuring, to quote the Massachusetts Historical Society, “such titles Earthquakes the Works of God and Tokens of his Just Displeasure (by Thomas Prince) and The Duty of a People, Under Dark Providences, or Symptoms of Approaching Evils, to Prepare to Meet their God (by Eliphalet Williams).”
If you’d like even more evidence of how geologically active Cape Ann is, check out this story from USA Weekend magazine, or this one from the Boston Globe, or have a look at this article in American Heritage. If you want to see a charting of some of the long list of earthquakes that have happened on and around Cape Ann, just go here. Better yet, click on this extraordinary map, “Earthquakes In and Near the Northeastern United States, 1638-1998″ from the US Geological Survey. If you go to websites such as Microsoft TerraServer or Google Earth you can see some of the unique features of Cape Ann’s geology. One of them you’ll notice is that the land beneath the region’s feet is so riddled with faults that it looks like a cracked windshield! Just what exactly makes Cape Ann’s geology so active and so noteworthy? That’s a longer story than a version of Notes should detail, but some clues are contained in the photographs published below this posting’s heading. Geology is a science best savored in the field, away from the classroom and all that Godwana-Laurentia-Pangaea/continental rifting/plate tectonics talk we initially experience in school when exposed to the subject. Yes, there’s a place for all that, but there’s so much to see around us to spur curiosity in this profound, graceful science and Halibut Point is a spectacular place to experience it.
An earlier version of Interpreter’s Notes promised an explanation of how Cape Ann granite achieved its unique 160lbs. per cubic foot density. Briefly - at the end of the last great Ice Age, about 15,000 years ago, retreating glacier scraped many millions of years of sedimentary rock off the massive bedrock of granite that today makes up most of Cape Ann. The bedrock granite, under the pressure of sedimentary rock for so long, became evern more compressed than it was, and once the glacier scraped the surface sedimentary rock away, it left the granite close to the surface. There may be granite of similar of greater density elsewhere, but most of it, never having had the benefit of such a staggering force of as a mile high mountain of ice to bring it near the surface, remains far under the ground where it cannot be mined. If you look above at the center photograph under this posting’s heading you can clearly see the striations on the smoothed boulder, tracking north/northwest to south/southwest that was made by the retreating glacier. Such evident examples of the last Ice Age exist all over Halibut Point, especially in the park’s “scablands” - the still existing grassy balds not far from the Babson Farm Quarry.
In Herman and Nina Schneider’s classic, Rocks, Rivers, and the Changing Earth: A First Book About Geology the author’s do a remarkable job of connecting the subject to their reader: ”The fresh, crisp apple that you may eat today is as old as the hills. And when you eat it, a tiny bit of those hills become you … Just think of what that apple may have been before it became part of you! Once it may have been in the autumn leaves that fell and crumbled into the soil near the sprout of an apple tree. Years before it may have been in the shell of a robin’s egg. And once it may have been a part of a stalactite in some dark underground cavern. Perhaps for a short while it flew high above the earth in a butterfly’s wing. Long ago it may have been in a kernel of corn planted by some ancient people. Today, when you eat that apple, these parts of the earth become part of you who are part of the world.”
How wonderfully they state it!
2008 Programs - June
Published June 1, 2008 Cape Ann , Education , Geology , History , Interpretive Programming , Massachusetts , Nature , North Shore , Stone building , state parks 0 Comments
June’s special programs & events at Halibut Point State Park begins on Sunday the 1st at 3:00pm with the kickoff of the park’s Sunday Sounds concert series featuring classic hits unplugged with Halibut favorites Livin’ on Luck. The schedule for the park’s entire season of Sunday Sounds concerts is available for download here. Standard park programs for June include the Quarry Tour every Saturday at 10:00am and Tower Tour on Sundays at 1:00pm. Also in June Halibut Point is featuring Reading the Forested Landscape on Fridays June 6 & 13 at 11:00am. Reading the Forested Landscape is an examination of the natural history of a landscape explaining how to read the clues in determining forest composition as well as the topographic and social factors that shape a land. In June, the park will feature two Tidepools programs, on June 9 at 11:00am and on June 16 at 3:00pm. Special events in June, besides the Sunday Sounds kickoff with Livin’ on Luck, will include another Birding for Beginners with Peter Van Demark on Sunday June 15 at 8:00am and a Universal Access Hike sponsored by the DCR’s Universal Access Team. This program, for those of all abilities, will take place on Saturday, June 21 at 11:00am. You can learn more about the DCR’s Universal Access Program and its statewide events here. June’s special events will conclude on Sunday the 22nd at 3:00pm with another Sunday Sounds concert, this one with Alek Razdan and A-Train. Click here for flyer with June’s events that you can download.
Still coming this season will be more of the already running standard favorites along with added standard programs Ceremonial Time: The Fifteen Thousand Years of Fifty Acres and Geology Rocks! Special events will include Stargazing Nights, Dragonflies in the Park, Snakes of Massachusetts and the World, natural light photographer Leslie Bartlett’s special family program, a silhouette puppet play called: A Stonecutter’s Tale -Stories of the Quarry, more Sunday Sounds, Cape Ann and the War of 1812 and more.
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2008 Programs - May
Published May 1, 2008 About Halibut Point , Bird watching , Cape Ann , Education , Geology , History , Interpretive Programming , Massachusetts , Nature , North Shore , Quarry , Recreation , Stone building , Tidepools , U. S. Coast Defense History , state parks 0 Comments
Before checking out our May schedule, take a moment to learn about the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Great Park Pursuit. Part of the DCR’s No Child Left Inside initiative, The Great Park Pursuit is a team challenge adventure activity meant to connect families with over four hundred outdoor places across the Commonwealth to be discovered, treasured and shared. Teams are challenged to visit different sites during a six week period as part of a Massachusetts State Parks Family Adventure. Hike to amazing views, learn to fish, pitch a tent, discover secrets of the past, ride a horse-drawn wagon, see birds of prey and even learn hows cows are milked. Complete tasks at all six state parks and be deemed a semi-finalist eligible to compete for grand prize packages. To find out more about The Great Park Pursuit, go to www.greatparkpursuit.org
In May, Halibut Point will feature its Quarry Tour every Saturday at 10:00am and Tower Tour on Sundays at 1:00pm. The park’s Tidepools programming will commence on May 26 at 11:00am and continue with another trip down to the rocks for some intertidal exploration on May 30 at 1:00pm. Special programs in May are the DCR’s Park Serve Day on Saturday May 17 from 9:00am to 2:00pm. This statewide volunteer effort to beautify and protect Massachusetts state parks, forests and reservations will conclude with a presentation of The Frog and Salamander Show sponsored by The Friends of Halibut Point State Park. To register to participate or learn more about Massachusetts Park Serve Day, go to http://parkserv.env.state.ma.us/. On Sunday, May 18, Peter Van Demark will lead another Birding for Beginners, meeting in the parking lot at 8:00am. On Saturday, May 24 at 2:00pm Ed Jylkka will lead a Wildflower Walk around the park and on Saturday, May 31 The DCR will parnter with The Trustees of Reservations for The Atlantic Path. This 2-3 hour walk along Rockport’s resplendent public coastline from Halibut Point to Pigeon Cove entails negotiating some moderately challenging terrain and features some extraordinary geology, tidepools and birding. Unless otherwise noted, all Halibut Point programs leave from the Visitors Center and all of them are always FREE. To download a copy of the Halibut Point May schedule, click here.
Upcoming 2008 programs and events at Halibut Point State Park will include standard programs Geology Rocks!, Ceremonial Time: The Fifteen Thousand years of Fifty Acres, Reading the Forested Landscape and more! Special events this year will include another season of Sunday Sounds concerts sponsored by The Friends of Halibut Point (kicking off with Livin’ on Luck on June 1 and followed by Alek Razdan and A-Train on June 22), Stargazing, Birds of Prey, Dragonflies in the Park, a special family program from natural light photographer Leslie Bartlett, monthly Birding for Beginners, Snakes of Massachusetts and the World and more to be announced.
2008 Programs - April
Published April 1, 2008 Cape Ann , Education , Geology , History , Interpretive Programming , Massachusetts , Nature , North Shore , Stone building , state parks 1 Comment
The 2008 season of interpretive programming at Halibut Point State Park kicks off on Sunday, April 13 at 8:00am with Birding for Beginners. Peter Van Demark is again hosting this monthly 2-3hr. moderate stroll along the park’s paths and rocky shore. Halibut Point, a significant viewing location along the North American migratory path, features frequent sightings of pelagic species such as gulls, terns, gannets, purple sandpipers, alcids, shearwaters, loons, jaegers, grebes and more, while in the park’s inland regions quail, towhees, tree swallows and wild turkeys are often spotted. Like all programs at Halibut Point State Park, Birding for Beginners is FREE to the public. Meet Peter in the parking lot. Bring your binoculars!
On Saturday, April 26, Halibut Point State Park will begin its weekly Quarry Tour. This popular program, beginning at 10:00am in the Visitors Center and running every Saturday thru October, features a twelve minute video about the park’s history, a granite-splitting demonstration by Halibut’s interpreter, and a one mile walk around the onsite former Babson Farm Quarry that details the physical aspects of quarrying, the history of building with natural stone in America, and Cape Ann’s unique geology. This program lasts approximately 90 minutes and is FREE to the public.
On Sunday, April 27 at 1:00pm Halibut Point State Park will debut a new standard program, The Military History of Halibut Point. Running for approximately one hour every Sunday thru October, this program features a tour of the park’s new military history display and a climb up to every level of the park’s artillery fire control tower. Halibut’s new ground-floor overview of the park’s military history dating back to the War of 1812 features text, photographs, lithographs, documents, artifacts, memorabilia and period reproductions. The five-story tower, built with steel-reinforced concrete, was constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1943 and staffed by the Army Coastal Artillery Corps, originally housed sighting instruments for aiming 16″ long-range guns as part of both the Boston and Portsmouth, NH harbor defense systems. After World War Two, the tower and its attached barracks (now the park’s Visitors Center), were staffed by US Air Force personnel engaged in radar research in conjunction with MIT’s Lincoln Lab, a classified project that led to the development of semi-automatic ground environment (SAGE) and the Cape Cod Radar System, the prototypes for the Cold War radar defense systems that blanketed the United States for decades. This program meets in the Visitors Center and like all programs at Halibut Point is FREE to the public. Check back soon for more information about Halibut Point State Park’s 2008 programming schedule that will include standard programs such as Geology Rocks!, Tidepools, Ceremonial Time: The Fifteen Thousand years of Fifty Acres, Reading the Forested Landscape and more! Special events this year will include another season of Sunday Sounds concerts sponsored by The Friends of Halibut Point (kicking off with Livin’ on Luck on June 1 and followed by Alek Razdan and A-Train on June 22), Stargazing, Wildflower Walks, Dragonflies in the Park, a special family program from natural light photographer Leslie Bartlett, more Birding for Beginners, Snakes of Massachusetts and the World, the DCR’s Park Serve Day, a trip along Rockport’s resplendent coastline in The Atlantic Path with The Trustees of the Reservations Ramona Latham and much more.
Interpreter’s Notes: Haul-about Point
Published April 1, 2008 Cape Ann , Education , Geology , History , Massachusetts , North Shore , state parks 0 Comments
Perhaps the most popular visual feature of Halibut Point State Park is the Overlook in its northeastern corner. Standing above a 50′+ granite grout pile over the rocky shore, the Overlook is the site of several weddings a year and even more marriage proposals. Perhaps that’s why Outdoor Recreation has named Halibut Point one of the top ten romantic spots in America. From the Overlook, one can see Ipswich Bay, the mouth of the Merrimac River, the miles of sandy shore at Salisbury Beach Reservation, the Isle of Shoals in New Hampshire, Mt. Agamenticus and Boon Island in Maine, and even more on the right day.
When you stand at the tip of the Overlook at Halibut Point, you are on the closest spot in the continental United States to the continent of Europe - (that’s continent-to-continent) - the next stop is Cape Finisterre, Spain.
Staring down from the Overlook, the significant mountain of granite beneath you (known in quarry slang as a “grout pile”) represents the unused remants of the long abandoned Sandy Bay Breakwater project. As far back as 1830 there was advocacy to make Rockport a national harbor of refuge, one reason being the lack of a large harbor between Portland and Boston. It was over fifty years later before the idea took steps toward rock-solid reality, finally commencing in 1885. Yet by thirty years later and after nearly two million tons of cut stone, from Babson Farm Quarry and other Rockport quarries, was placed onto sloops and scows and set beneath almost a thousand acres of sea bottom, the project remained barely one-quarter complete. Perpetually behind schedule and over budget, the federal government declined to continue financing the project, leaving what was intended as a refuge of safety to become the manmade hazard many see it as even today. From the top of the Overlook you can see the unfinished breakwater as the long line of stone offshore to the far right. You can find a detailed story about the early history of the Sandy Bay Breakwater in this 19th Century archival issue of Harper’s Bazaar.
After gazing to the far right at the Sandy Bay Breakwater, gently swing your eyes slightly left at the gull-bleached mound warting up from the sea: It’s the Dry Salvages - 
a bare knuckle of granite with a name controversy too convoluted to detail in a few words, this slab above the spit is best known as the title of the third segment of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. Eliot, born in Missouri, spent many summers of his youth on Cape Ann and The Dry Salvages is the only one of Eliot’s Four Quartets with an American setting.
(The Dry Salvages—presumably les trois sauvages—is a small group of rocks, with a beacon, off the N.E. coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Salvages is pronounced to rhyme with assuages. Groaner: a whistling buoy.)
That’s how Eliot described them in this work. Four Quartets, each one written between a span of years, was published in 1943 and many view it as Eliot’s masterpiece, even going so far as to say it’s the work most responsible for his 1948 Nobel Prize award. The work draws upon Eliot’s lifelong reflections upon symbolism, philosophy, mysticism and Christianity.
“I do not know much about gods;” …
is the famous beginning to The Dry Salvages. Eliot starts by writing about the river but soon alters focus:
“The sea is the land’s edge also, the granite
Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses
Its hints of earlier and other creation:
The starfish, the horseshoe crab, the whale’s backbone;
The pools where it offers to our curiosity
The more delicate algae and the sea anemone.
It tosses up our losses, the torn seine,
The shattered lobsterpot, the broken oar
And the gear of foreign dead men. The sea has many voices,
Many gods and many voices.”
It’s quite an experience, bringing a copy of the text out to the Overlook and reading it while pondering the Salvages and the stoney shore below. Eliot, some say, is “out of favor” today, but that’s hard to truly believe - type in T.S. Eliot on Google and you’ll come up with nearly two million hits! Granted, Eliot as a writer does make you “do your homework,” but he’s well worth it. For more about T.S. Eliot, Wikipedia’s article about him is a good information source, as is this one about Four Quartets. For the entire text of The Dry Salvages, go here.
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2007 Programs - September
Published September 1, 2007 Bird watching , Cape Ann , Education , Environment , Geology , History , Interpretive Programming , Massachusetts , Nature , North Shore , Quarry , Recreation , Stone building , Tidepools , U. S. Coast Defense History , state parks 0 Comments
In September, Halibut Point is featuring more of its popular standard programs: the Quarry Tour, Reading the Landcape, Tidepools, and one more presentation of Ceremonial Time: The 15,000 Years of Fifty Acres. Special events for the month include The Atlantic Path, a walk along Rockport’s resplendent public coastline with The Trustees of Reservations interpreter Ramona Latham on September 8th and another Sunday Sounds concert on September 16th with an encore performance by Livin’ on Luck. On Sunday the 23rd, Halibut Point will host another Birding for Beginners with Peter Van Demark. And on September 29th, the park will present The Military History of Halibut Point, an event to honor those who have served and featuring the debut of a new interpretive display inside the Visitors Center. This event, the culmination of three years research and including contributions from the DCR, Friends of Halibut Point, Coast Defense Study Group, Sandy Bay Historical Society, MIT, Lincoln Lab, the US Army Center for Military History, MITRE, the US Navy Historical Center, the Computer History Museum and others promises to be a special day at the park and all are invited. See below for September’s schedule. If you want to download a flyer with September’s calendar of programs dates and times, just click here.
Quarry Tour Saturdays 10:00am
Attend our weekly granite walk around the former Babson Farm Quarry. Beginning with the showing of a short film, this program features a stone-cutting demonstration, explains how rock is quarried, details the unique geology of Cape Ann and presents the history of building with natural stone in America. Later, the Visitors Center will be open for a climb to its five-story World War II observation tower. This program lasts approximately 90 minutes and entails a one mile moderately paced stroll around the quarry. The Babson Farm Quarry, in operation from the 1840’s until 1929 (though stone was cut at the site from the 1790’s, perhaps even earlier), is an excellent place to view evidence of progression in stone-cutting techniques and learn about the role stone harvesting, transporation and building played in the development of technology that led to the Industrial Revolution.
Reading the Landscape Sundays 11:00am
This program is an examination of the natural history of a landscape. Using the life and land of Halibut Point as an example, participants will learn how to read the clues that determine palnt and tree composition as well as the topographic, substrate and social factors that shape a landscape. This program meets at the Visitors Center and entails about two miles of walking over 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Tidepools September 3 @ 11:00am; September 22 @ 2:00pm
Halibut Point has wonderful tidepools. Come explore its intertidal life and learn about coastal splash zones. This program lasts about 90 minutes and there is some climbing about on rocks that may be slippery. You need to watch your step, but the trip os worth it!
SPECIAL PROGRAMS
Ceremonial Time: The Fifteen Thousand Years of Fifty Acres
Wednesday, September 5th 6:00pm
A “psychological” history and the “spirit” - past, present and possible future of a place gleaned via history, anthropology, architecture, geology, intuition and more. Inspired by John Hanson Mitchell’s book.
The Atlantic Path Saturday, September 8th 1:00pm
A walk along Rockport’s resplendent public coastline from Halibut Point to the Emerson Inn - and back. Featuring extraordinary geology, tidepools and birding, this two-hour trek entails negotiating some challenging terrain. Sponsored by the DCR and The Trustees of Reservations.
Sunday Sounds Livin’ on Luck September 16 3:00pm
An encore concert by Livin’ on Luck, featuring their traditional, country and classic rock sounds in an inventive “unplugged” style. Brought to you by the DCR and Friends of Halibut Point.
Birding for Beginners Sunday, September 23 8:00am
Meet Peter Van Demark in the parking lot. In August, Peter reported seeing: chickadees, catbirds, cliff swallows, herring and great black-backed gulls, common eiders, goldfinches, house wrens, double-breasted cormorants and a pheasant. September should bring some interesting sights as birds begin their movement along the coastal migratory path.
The Military History of Halibut Point Saturday, September 29 1:00pm
With contributions from the DCR, Friends of Halibut Point, the Coast Defense Study Group, Sandy Bay Historical Society, MIT, Lincoln Lab, the US Army Center for Military History, MITRE, the US Naval Historical Center and others, this program, a thank you to all those who have served, features the debut of the park’s new interpretive display inside the Visitors Center.
Interpreter’s Notes - You’re Invited!
Published September 1, 2007 Education , History , Interpretive Programming , Massachusetts , U. S. Coast Defense History , state parks 0 Comments
Halibut Point State Park’s
Military History Interpretive Display
Unveiling!
Please Join
the Massachusetts Department of Conservation & Recreation (DCR) and the Friends of Halibut Point State Parkas we unveil a new interpretive display at Halibut Point State Park’s Visitors Center
Saturday, September 29, 2007
1:00 p.m.
Halibut Point State Park
16 Gaffield Ave.
Rockport, MA
This new ground-floor overview of Halibut Point’s military history dating back to the War of 1812 features text, photographs, lithographs, documents, artifacts, memorabilia and period reproductions. This project is the result of a partnership between the DCR and the Friends of Halibut Point State Park and features contributions from the Coast Defense Study Group, Sandy Bay Historical Society, MIT, Lincoln Lab, MITRE, the US Army Center for Military History, Osprey Publishing, the US Naval Historical Center and others. Please join us at Halibut Point for the completion of Ohase One in fully interpreting the Park’s military history and its World War Two artillery fire control tower.
Refreshments will be provided by the Friends.
For more information, call the Park: 978.546.2997
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2007 Programs - August
Published August 1, 2007 Bird watching , Cape Ann , Education , Environment , Geology , History , Interpretive Programming , Massachusetts , Nature , North Shore , Quarry , Recreation , Stone building , Tidepools , state parks 0 Comments
August at Halibut Point State Park features another full month of standard programs and special events. There are special events every weekend, beginning on Saturday, August 4th at 3:00pm with photographer Leslie Bartlett’s program, Halibut Point in Winter. Les will present images from his extensive portfolio of the park created over the years, this time focusing on Halibut Point in the “off-season.” For more about Leslie Bartlett and his work, you can find his website here. On Saturday, August 11th, Halibut Point will serve as host to the Essex National Heritage Photo Safari. This event, held in two sessions at 8:00am and 1:00pm, features demonstrations, lectures and tips from professional photographers and camera manufacturers followed by participants imaging the park. Registration is required for this event - find out how at www.essexheritage.org. On Saturday, August 18 at 2:00pm Halibut Point will have the very popular live animal program, Snakes of Massachusetts and the World with Rick Roth and the Cape Ann Vernal Pond Team, with another month of Birding for Beginners the next day, Sunday, August 19th at 8:00am. And on Sunday, August 26th at 3:00pm there will be a Sunday Sounds series concert, this time with the jazz, funk and hip-hop sound of Otis Grove. Besides these special events, Halibut Point in August is scheduling these 2007 season standard programs: The Quarry Tour, Tidepools, Geology Rocks!, The Mineral Club and Ceremonial Time: The Fifteen Thousand Years of Fifty Acres. Coming in September, Halibut Point will feature more standard programs and special events like The Atlantic Path, a trek along Rockport’s resplendent public coastline with The Trustees of Reservations interpreter Ramona Latham, another Sunday Sounds concert, and on Saturday, September 29th, the unveiling of a new interpretive display inside our Visitors Center about the military and technological history of Halibut Point. See below for the dates and times of August’s programs and events, or you can download a flyer here.
Quarry Tour Saturdays 10:00am
Attend our weekly granite walk around the former Babson Farm Quarry. Beginning with the showing of a short film, this program features a stone-cutting demonstration, explains how rock is quarried, details the unique geology of Cape Ann and presents the history of building with natural stone in America. Later, the Visitors Center will be open for a climb to its five-story World War II observation tower. This program lasts approximately 90 minutes and entails a one mile moderately paced stroll around the quarry. The Babson Farm Quarry, in operation from the 1840’s until 1929 (though stone was cut at the site from the 1790’s, perhaps even earlier), is an excellent place to view evidence of progression in stone-cutting techniques and learn about the role stone harvesting, transporation and building played in the development of technology that led to the Industrial Revolution.
Geology Rocks! Sundays 11:00am
A rock is not a thing, but a drama! It refelcts the universal axiom: “As above, so below.” Geology is the great unifying science of the world. Cape Ann is one of the most geologically active areas in the United States. Learn about all this and more during this trek to some of the fascinating geological regions of Halibut Point. 90 minutes. Moderate two mile walk
The Mineral Club Mondays 11:00am
Build a volcano … create a sedimentary rock … construct a seismograph … play mineral tic-tac-toe and more. Geological activities for kids 8-12.
Ceremonial Time: The Fifteen Thousand Years of Fifty Acres
Wednesdays 6:00pm
A “psychological” history and the “spirit” - past, present and possible future of a place gleaned via history, anthropology, architecture, geology, intuition and more. Inspired by John Hanson Mitchell’s book.
Tidepools August 22 @ 2:00pm; August 25 @ 3:00pm
Halibut Point has wonderful tidepools. Come explore its intertidal life and learn about coastal splash zones. This program lasts about 90 minutes and there is some climbing about on rocks that may be slippery. You have to watch your step but the trip is worth it!
SPECIAL PROGRAMS
Leslie Bartlett - Halibut Point in Winter Saturday, August 4 3:00pm
Photographer Leslie Bartlett’s extraordinary images of Halibut Point during the “off-season.”
Essex National Heritage Photo Safari Saturday, August 11 8:00am and 1:00pm
Demonstrations, lectures and tips from professional photographers and camera manufacturers followed by participants imaging the park. Two sessions: pre-registration required. Go to www.essexheritage.org for details.
Snakes of Massachusetts and the World Saturday, August 18 2:00pm
Rick Roth, the Cape Ann Vernal Pond Team, and over a dozen live snakes!
Birding for Beginners Sunday, August 19 8:00am
Meet Peter Van Demark in the parking lot.
Peter reports spotting these birds on July’s walk:
Northern Cardinal
American Robin
Mourning Dove
Common Yellowthroat
Great Blue Heron
Barn Swallow
Cedar Waxwing
Great Black-Backed Gull
Herring Gull
Double-Crested Cormorant
Common Eider
House Sparrow
Blue Jay
Catbird (many, all over, singing like Mockingbirds)
Goldfinch
Brown Thrasher
Eastern Towhee
Bank Swallow
Sunday Sounds
Otis Grove August 26 3:00pm
The jazz, funk and hip-hop music of the guitar and keyboard Otis Grove trio. Sponsored by the DCR and Friends of Halibut Point State Park.
