May 2010 Programs & Events

 

 

The May 2010 schedule of programs and events at Halibut Point State Park begins on Saturday, May 1st at 10:00am with the park’s Quarry Tour.   Meeting at the Visitors Center and running every Saturday thru the end of October, this popular Halibut Point standard program features the showing of a ten minute video, a granite-splitting demonstration, a tour of the former Babson Farm Quarry and an introduction into the history of building with natural stone in America.

On Sunday, May 2nd at 12:00pm and on every Sunday thru May Halibut Point is offering The Military History of Halibut Point.  This program, taking place inside the Visitors Center, features a visit to the park’s new military history display, details about its two-centuries long military history and a climb to the top of the park’s five-story World War Two artillery fire control tower.

In May there will be four trips down to the shore for some intertidal exploration.  The Tidepools program, meeting at the Visitors Center,  will be offered on Sunday, May 9 @ 2pm; Friday, May 21 @ 2pm; Sunday, May 30 @ 9am and Monday, May 31 @ 10:00am.

On Sunday, May 16th at 8:00am Halibut Point is presenting Birding for Beginners with Peter Van Demark.  This two-hour stroll along park paths and along the rocky shore meets in the parking lot.  Note: The May Birding for Beginners program usually takes place at the peak of the wrabler migration!

Halibut Point’s May special programs begin on Sunday, May 16th at 2:00pm with The Secret Life of the Eastern Coyote.  Co-sponsored by the DCR and Friends of Halibut Point State Park, join Jon Way of Eastern Coyote Research and author of Suburban Howls who will present unique insights into these misunderstood, fascinating and highly successful predators.  This program meets inside the Visitors Center and like every program and event at Halibut Point State Park is FREE.  For more on Eastern Coyote Research, visit: www.easterncoyoteresearch.com.

Essex County Amphibians will be at Halibut Point on Saturday, May, 22 at 12:00pm.  Join Richard Wolniewicsz and live frogs, toads, salamanders and more!  Preceded at 9:00am by a volunteer coastal clean-up, both sponsored by The Friends of Halibut Point State Park.  To get involved, go to: www.halibutpointfriends.org.

Sunday, May 23rd at 3:00pm will feature Halibut Point’s first 2010 Sunday Sounds concert with the classic hits unplugged of long-time park favorites Livin’ on Luck.  Future 2010 Summer Sounds concerts will feature musical acts such as Alek Razdan and rock legend Willie Alexander.  For a flyer of Halibut Point’s May 2010 programs and events you can download and/or print out for yourself, just click here.

www.halibutpoint.wordpress.com

 

Coming Events – October 2009

 

In October, Halibut Point State Park is offering standard programming along with one very special event.   The park has its Saturday morning Quarry Tour scheduled at 10:00am thru October 24th and Halibut Point’s Tower Tour will take place on Sundays at 12:00pm thru October 18th.  The DCR Universal Access Team is sponsoring a Universal Access Hike at at park on Friday, October 2nd at 11:00am and Peter Van Demark will again host Birding for Beginnerson Sunday morning, October 18th – meet him in the parking lot at 8:00am.  And as always, DCR programs are FREE, including this special event detailed below:

The Cape Ann Ice Age Trail

Did you know the pattern of recent Ice Ages is the defining event on Earth over the past several million years?  Do you know what defines and causes an Ice Age?  That the most recent Ice Age is likely the cause of the rise of the modern human species?  That until 12,000 years ago North America was the greatest land of predatory creatures since the Jurassic era? Or that the entire New England region was under a mile of ice that recently?  Cape Ann is one of the most significant geological areas in America and one of the best places to see and know the last Ice Age up close in front of you and on Saturday, October 11th and Sunday, October 12th the DCR and Trustees of Reservations are combining to provide The Cape Ann Ice Age Trail.  This two day special program will be hosted at the DCR’s Halibut Point State Park on October 11th and at the Trustees Ravenswood Park in Gloucester on October 12th.  Both programs get underway at 2:00pm.  For a flyer you can download with October’s Halibut Point programs and events, click here.

Coming Events – August 2009

In August, Halibut Point State Park is featuring special programs and events every weekend, kicking off with an August 2nd, 3:00pm Sunday Sounds concert of well-known R&B, jazz and swing instrumentals by Alek Razdan and A-Train.  

On Saturday, August 8th the park is hosting Nature Day with two back-to-back live animal programs with the theme of creatures seldom seen.  At 1:00 Kristen Lamb from the Center for Wildlife, Cape Neddick, Maine will present Nocturnal Animals, a wonderful introduction to the creatures of the night.  And at 3:00pm, Richard Wolniewicz will offer Creepy Crawlies with newts, frogs, salamanders and more.  Bring the family for these special presentations and receive free Park Passports for the kids.  

Peter Van Demark will offer Birding for Beginners on Sunday, August 16th at 8:00am – meet him in the parking lot. 

There will be another Sunday Sounds concert on August 23rd at 3:00pm with bluegrass originals and favorites from the Squatcho Bondo Band. 

On Friday, August 28th at 5:00pm it’ll be Shakespeare in the park with the Rebel Shakespeare Company’s Teen Intensive Program performance of Twelfth Night against the backdrop of the Babson Farm Quarry.  To learn more about the Rebel Shakespeare Company, go to – www.rebelshakespeare.org  This performance, like all programs & events at Halibut Point State Park, is FREE.

August’s standard park programs are the Saturday 10:00am Quarry Tour which includes a stone-cutting demonstration.  On Sundays at 12:00pm the park offers a Tower Tour detailing the almost two centuries long military history of Halibut Point and on Fridays, Reading the Forested Landscape, an examination of the natural history of a landscape that includes deciphering clues determining forest composition will be offered at 10:00am.  Finally, down to the sea rocks for some inter-tidal fun with Tidepools will be on Monday, August 10th at 10:00am.   All programs meet at the park’s Visitors Center.  For a brochure of August programs & events that you can download, click here.

www.halibutpoint.wordpress.com

Coming Events – July 2009

In July, Halibut Point for the first time is featuring a number of the park’s most popular standard programs together in a single month.  The Quarry Tour will continue on Saturdays at 10:00am and there will be Tidepools programs on three dates: Friday, July 3rd at 2:00pm; Saturday, July 26 at 10:00am and Friday, July 31 at 2:00pm.  Geology Rocks! will be on Sundays, July 5, 12 and 16 at 11:00am, and Ceremonial Time: The 15,000 Years of Fifty Acres will take place on Tuesdays July 7, 14 and 28 at 10:00am

Special programs and events for July are Dragonflies in the Park, and exploration of the world of odonata, one of the oldest species of life on the planet.  This program will take place on July 10 and 24 at 11:00am.  July’s Birding for Beginners will be on Sunday, July 19 at 8:00am – meet Peter Van Demark in the parking lot.  On Saturday, July 25 at 8:00am Halibut Point will host the  Essex National Heritage Photo Safari featuring Tamron and Hunt’s Photo and Video.  To register for this event, go to: essexheritage.org/photosafari.  Halibut Point’s July schedule of special programs and events will conclude on July 26 at 3:00 with another Sunday Sounds concert featuring the oldies but goodies of Midlife Crisis.  For a flyer you can download with the July schedule and more information about the month’s programs, click here.

www.halibutpoint.wordpress.com

Coming Events – June 2009

The June schedule at Halibut Point State Park is featuring several special programs.  On Saturday, June 6th at 2:00pm the DCR will undertake the first Atlantic Path program of the season.  The Atlantic Path, since beginning as a Halibut Point event three years ago, has grown to become a very popular program: a three-hour trek along Rockport’s resplendent public coastline featuring some birding, great tidepools, interesting history and what many come to the program for – the stunning geology of the blue quartz and amethyst pegmatites at Andrews Point, which is among the most significant geological areas in New England.  The Atlantic Path includes guest environmental educators and includes some caveats – this is not a “path” per se, but a rocky coastline that can be, in sections, due to bouldering somewhat challenging to negotiate; it’s best not to wear shorts due to poison ivy, hard rocks, thorny thicket, poison ivy and biting insects and please consider that  there are no amenities while we are out there.  If you can handle all that, you may find The Atlantic Path one of the most rewarding nature programs you’ll ever attend.   

The next special program at Halibut Point in June is Follow the Full Moon.  This program, which follows the full Moon over a period of months at Massachusetts northeast region state parks takes place at Halibut Point on Sunday, June 7th beginning at 8:00pm and offers evening activities related to scientific and cultural interpretations of the full Moon. 

On Friday, June 12th at 8:00pm the park will host a special event – Mars in 3-D.  Sponsored by the DCR and Gloucester Area Astronomy Club, this program is about Mars, a planet of mystery and imagination and in recent decades a series of robotic explorations have stripped away much of the unknown.  Sky & Telescope magazine Editor-in-Chief Robert Naeye will  present recent images of Mars in spectacular 3-dimensions and provide an update about ongoing Mars missions.  Red-and-blue 3-D anaglyph glasses will be provided for all attendees.  Besides his affiliation with Sky & Telescope magazine, Robert has worked on the editorial staffs of Discover and Astronomy  magazine as well as being senior science writer for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s Astrophysics Science Division.   He has written two books: Through the Eyes of Hubble: The Birth, Life and Violent Death of Stars and Signals from Space: The Chandra X-ray Observatory.  Following Robert’s presentation, there will be public stargazing (weather permitting) with telescopes provided by the Gloucester Area Astronomy Club.

Snakes of Massachusetts and the World is the next June special program at Halibut Point.  Licensed herpatologist Rick Roth of the Cape Ann Vernal Pond team will bring over twenty live snakes for viewing and handling on Saturday, June 27th at 2:00pm.  This is perenially one of the popular programs every season at the park and is sure to bring a crowd.  Bring the young ones and a camera!

Halibut Point’s monthly Birding for Beginners will be on Sunday, June 21st at 8:00am.  Meet Peter Van Demark in the parking lot.  In May, Peter and others reported an extraordinary amount of warblers in the park.  Bay-breasted, Blackburnian, Black-throated, Black & White, Yellow-rumped and Magnolia warblers were some of the ones spotted at Halibut Point in the later part of May. 

On Sunday, June 28th at 3:00pm the park will host its  second  Sunday Sounds concert with the original and well-known R &B, jazz and swing instrumentals of Alek Razdan and A-Train.  Sponsored by The Friends of Halibut Point State Park.

Besides the above schedule of special events and programs Halibut Point in June is also offering its standard Quarry Tour on Saturdays at 10:00am and Tower Tour on Sundays at Noon.  There are also two Tidepools programs, on Monday, June 15th at 11:00am and on Friday, June 19th at 2:00pm.

As always, every program and event at Halibut Point State Park is FREE.  For a flyer of June’s events you can download, click here.

www.halibutpoint.wordpress.com

 

Coming Events – May 2009

 

 

 

Programming for May 2009 at Halibut Point State Park begins on the weekend of May 2nd and 3rd with the premiere of an art installation created by students from the Montserrat College of Art.  The displays, situated inside the Visitors Center as well as out & about in the park, center around the interpretive themes of Halibut Point.  The installation will remain on view at the park until May 17th and all are invited to meet the students, who will be onsite from 1-4 p.m. on the 2nd & 3rd.

On Saturday, May 9th at 10:00 a.m. Halibut Point State Park’s Quarry Tour will begin and run every Saturday.  Meet at the Visitors Center and join us for this ever-popular program which entails a video, granite-splitting demonstration and tour of the former Rockport Granite Company’s Babson Farm Quarry.

Beginning Sunday, May 10th at 12:00 p.m. and continuing on every Sunday thereafter the park’s Tower Tour will commence for another season.  This program, taking place inside the Visitors Center, details the two centuries of military history at Halibut Point and features a trip to all five levels of the park’s artillery fire control tower, one of very few that are open to the public. 

Halibut Point’s Tidepools program will be featured twice in May 2009 – on Sunday, May 17th and Sunday May 31st at 9:30 a.m. meeting in the Visitors Center for a trip to the rocky shore and some inter-tidal exploration.

The park’s monthly Birding for Beginners program will be on May 17th at 8:00 a.m.  Meet Peter Van Demark in the parking lot for this two hour stroll around the trails & shore in search of the sights and sounds of local birds.  You can download a checklist of the species of birds one may see and/or hear around Halibut Point State Park by clicking here.

Sunday, May 31st at 3:00 p.m. is the kickoff to Halibut Point State Park’s Summer Sounds concert series.   Our opening show features a return prerformance of classic hits unplugged by Livin’ on Luck.  The concert takes place outside the Visitors Center and is sponsored by The Friends of Halibut Point State Park.

All programs and events at Halibut Point State Park are FREE.  To download a flyer with the park’s May schedule of programs & events, use this link.

www.halibutpoint.wordpress.com

Coming Events – September 2009

The September schedule of special programs & events at Halibut Point State Park begins with the park’s final Sunday Sounds concert.  On Sunday, September 6th at 3:00pm it’ll be Willie Alexander and the Persistence of Memory Orchestra.  Don’t miss this long-time Boston rock legend and enduring icon.  Willie Alexander’s career spans the 1960′s “Bosstown Sound” as a member of The Lost and Bagatelle, thru a stint in The Velvet Underground, onto ground-breaking 1970′s punk as leader of Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band and in recent decades noteworthy solo projects in music, art and literature.  For more on this musician and his resplendent body of work, go to: www.williealexander.com.  This concert is sponsored by the Friends of Halibut Point State Park and like all programs & events at Halibut Point, it is FREE.  Yes, it’ll be Willie Alexander at Halibut Point! 

On Sunday, September 20 at 8:00am the park will host its monthly Birding for Beginners program.  Meet Peter Van Demark in the parking lot.

The Center for Wildlife of Cape Neddick, Maine is once again offering a special program at Halibut Point, this time on Saturday, September 26th at 1:00pm.  New England Birds of Prey features live ambassador raptors such as hawks and owls along with a presentation detailing the lives of these amazing creatures and the challenges they face today.  Please have a look at their website – www.yorkcenterforwildlife.org – to learn more about their mission of strengthening regional capacity to protect wildlife through rehabilitation, conservation and education.  This program is sponsored by the Friends of Halibut Point State Park. 

Standard programming for September at Halibut Point include the Quarry Tour every Saturday morning at 10:00am which entails a video, granite-splitting demonstration and a walk around the Babson Farm quarry.  The Tower Tour, every Sunday at 12:00pm, details the military history of the park, including a climb-up the five stories of its artillery fire control tower.  Tidepools will be offered twice in Spetember – on Monday, September 7th at 8:00am and on Monday, September 14th at 2:00pm.  And Dragonflies in the Park, an exploration of the life of odonata, is scheduled for Friday, September 4th & 11th at 1:00pm.  Click here for a flyer you can download containing Halibut Point’s September schedule.

Coming in October – The DCR and Trustees of Reservations present The Cape Ann Ice Age Trail – a two day event at Halibut Point State Park and Ravenswood Park in Gloucester.

www.halibutpoint.wordpress.com

2008 Programs – September

In September, Halibut Point State Park is featuring a full schedule of standard programs and special events.  The park’s Quarry Tour will continue every Saturday at 10:00am, the Tower Tour remains on the schedule every Sunday at 1:00pm and the popular Geology Rocks! program will be featured on two Mondays, September 1st & 8th at 1:00pm. Special events for September include Halibut Point’s final Sunday Sounds concert for the season on Sunday, September 7th at 3:00pm with perennial park favorites the Squatch Bondo Band and their bluegrass renditions of popular music.  On Saturday, September 13th at 2:00pm the park will host Cape Ann Beneath the Sea, with diver and underwater photographer Dave Milhouser presenting images of marine life off Cape Ann.  On Saturday, September 20th at 2:00pm Halibut Point and The Trustees of reservations will once again offer The Atlantic Path.  This three-hour, moderately challenging trek along Rockport’s resplendent public coastline from Halibut Point to Pigeon Cove and back features extraordinary geology, tidepools, birding and more.  Sunday, September 21st at 8:00am Peter Van Demark will once again be leading Birding for Beginners - this program meets in the parking lot.  Also on Sunday, September 21st at 5:00pm Halibut Point will present natural light photographer Leslie Bartlett’s A Stonecutter’s Tale: Stories of the Quarry.  A silhouette puppet-play for the entire family, this program takes place outside overlooking the Babson Farm Quarry.  And on Saturday, September 27th at 2:00pm the park will offer Birds of Prey.  Sponsored by The Friends of Halibut Point State Park and presented by The Center for Wildlife from Cape Neddick, Maine, this program will explore, via birds, posters and hands-on materials the different kinds of raptors that live in New England.  Unless otherwise noted, all programs begin in the park’s Visitors Center and are always FREE.  For a flyer you can download with Halibut Point’s September programs & events, click here.

Coming in October Halibut Point will offer more standard park programs, the Masschusetts Department of Public Health’s Keep Moving program, an autumn Nature & Wildflower Walk with Ed Jylkka and more Birding for Beginners.

www.halibutpoint.wordpress.com

Interpreter’s Notes – The Overlook

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.

www.halibutpoint.wordpress.com

                                             

 

 

2008 Programs – August

Besides regularly scheduled standard programs, in August Halibut Point State Park is featuring a half-dozen special events beginning on Saturday, August 2nd at 6:00pm with natural light photographer extraordinare Leslie Bartlett’s special presentation – a silhouette puppet-play titled, A Stonecutter’s Tale: Stories of the Quarry.  This event will take place outdoors overlooking the Babson Farm Quarry and is for the entire family.  For more on Les Bartlett’s work please visit www.followthegleam.com.  On Sunday, August 3rd at 3:00pm there will be another Sunday Sounds with the Squatcho Bondo Band and their bluegrass renditions of popular music and on Sunday, August 24th there will be the last in our concert series - the swinging, introspective and innovative jazz quartet, Barbara & Al Boudreau.  Please note the special 2:00pm start time for this show, sponsored by the Friends of Halibut Point State Park.  On Saturday, August 9th at 2:00 Halibut Point will be visited by The Horses of Sea View Farm.  Bring the children and your questions about our equine friends to this learning visit and speak with individual horse owners and representatives of Rockport’s Sea View Farm.  On Sunday, August 17th at 8:00am Peter Van Demark will once again be offering Birding for Beginners.  Meet in the parking lot for this 2-3 hour stroll.  And on Saturday, August 24 at 2:00pm Ed Jylkka will be offering a late summer Wildflower/Nature Walk exploring Halibut Point’s plant, flower, tree, bird and marine features.

Halibut Point State Park’s standard programs for August are its Saturday 10:00am Quarry Tour and the Tower Tour on Sundays at 1:00pm.  There will also be two Tidepools programs – on Friday, August 8th @ 11:00am and on Friday, August 22nd @ 9:00am.  Also in August is the return of Geology Rocks!  This program, about the exquisite geology of Halibut Point and Cape Ann, is being offered on Mondays at 11:00am.  For a flyer with Halibut Point’s August programs and events that you can download, click here.

Coming in September are continued standard programs, another version of the The Atlantic Path (Saturday, September 20th @ 2:00pm) and a special live animal program on Saturday, September 27th.  Also in September is the annual meeting of the Friends of Halibut Point, Essex National Heritage’s Trails & Sails and more! 

www.halibutpoint.wordpress.com