![]() In a room under the visitor center, Burke handles artifacts and processes primary data, adding to and interpreting Cape Cod’s historical record each day. Thanks to his work, loose flotsam tells the stories of shipwrecks, scrimshaw (carved whale bone) the stories of the whalers who chiseled it, and dune shacks the stories of families who waited anxiously for sailors to return from sea over the Cape’s long maritime history. He oversees the process by which historical artifacts and data become historical narrative ready for consumption by visitors eager to learn the natural and human history of Cape Cod. If they’re lucky enough, they will encounter William “Bill” Burke ’84, cultural resources program manager for Cape Cod National Seashore - in other words, the park’s historian.īurke has worked for the National Park Service since college and at the national seashore since 1988. In the 19th century, Henry David Thoreau described it as “a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world.” This quote greets visitors to the Salt Pond Visitor Center in Eastham, where guests can see artifacts dating back centuries. Cape Cod is “a grand place to be alone and undisturbed,” playwright Eugene O’Neill wrote in 1919. ![]() Driving along the two-lane highway to the Outer Cape, visitors can feel they’re headed nowhere. It’s a long way from the Bourne or Sagamore bridge to Cape Cod National Seashore, where 40 miles of federally protected beaches, woods, and ponds, covering 43,600 acres, run from Chatham in the south to Provincetown in the north.
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