Tourism on the Cape
With swelling summertime populations, the park is heavily used as throngs of people visit the interpretive centers, trails, beaches, dunes and ponds throughout the park. In this way the National Seashore is not walled off nor constructed as untouched wilderness that is preserving a certain type of nature but is rather self acknowledging that it is a produced and managed nature. As William Cronon critiques of popular conceptions of wilderness:
[wilderness] is not a pristine sanctuary where the last remnant of an untouched, endangered, but still transcendent nature can for at least a little while longer be encountered without the contaminating taint of civilization. Instead, it is a product of that civilization, and could hardly be contaminated by the very stuff of which it is made. (1995: 69)
While the National Seashore is similar to other preserved wilderness areas in this country, in that it has certain sanctions for appropriate uses that help perpetuate it as a more natural environment, which is monitored by a law enforcement division, it also acknowledges the rich history of the former uses of the land that date back several hundred years. For this reason the park does not promote an image of a ‘pristine sanctuary’ but rather takes pride in its historical and cultural resources and emphasizes the longstanding relationship between the community and its customary uses of the seashore.
Visitors going into the Salt Pond Visitors Center in Eastham, where one can participate in different interpretive activities, pick up maps, find trails and get acquainted with the National Seashore.
The portrayal of Cape as a natural area that is dominated by its protected wilderness is paradoxical however since this helps to bolster its image as a premier travel destination or place to own a summer home; because it is marketed as such an appealing locale, hordes of visitors come to the Cape each summer to experience the culture that is traditionally associated with Cape Cod. Time spent seeking out the ‘picturesque Cape’, can conjure stereotypical images of lighthouses, rolling dunes, old churches and cranberry bogs without a critical awareness of the diluting and reifying impact that tourism can have on places that become popular destinations.
Additionally, while the formation of the National Seashore has helped maintain a portion of the Cape from becoming built up, the rest of the Cape continues to be developed and grow in popularity with greater traffic each year from tourists and new residents. In the area outside of the National Seashore, new structures go up every year, increasing the amount of development that has occurred. In a recent feature “Popular U.S. Places in Peril”, blogger Danielle Contray posts:
Too many gift shops and mini-golf courses. That’s the main beef with today’s Cape Cod. The once character-filled ocean retreat is now comprised of bumper-to-bumper traffic and homogenized stores. The experts want to take cars out of the equation altogether by improving bike trails and public transit options. While they applaud the preservation of the dunes on the eastern end of the Cape, it’s certainly not enough. The shoreline needs to be watched carefully, as well as the overall ecological health of the area.[i]
Cars passing over the Sagamore Bridge in weekend traffic.
With greater traffic to the Cape, there emerges a paradoxical problem, since the various picturesque qualities that people seek in coming to the Cape are obscured and threatened, yet the seasonal nature of the economy relies upon the influx of tourists during the summer. With a relatively short season, spanning May-October with the greatest concentration during June-August, many residents depend upon the influx to the Cape to make the majority of their annual earnings, establishing a paradoxical relationship with the tourist population.
[i] “Popular U.S. Places in Peril.” Travel – Travel Destinations, Cheap Airline Tickets, Cheap Hotels – AOL Travel. Web. 28 Nov. 2009. <http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/galleries/popular-us-places-in-peril?ncid=AOLCOMMtravdynlprim0683>.
