In 1966, when the Cape Lookout 

 National Seashore was established, 

 all but a handful of the remaining 

 buildings on Core Banks were removed 

 or destroyed by the National Park 

 Service — along with more than 2,500 

 cars, trucks, bread vans and abandoned 

 dune buggies. 



Guthrie's ties to 

 the islands are 

 strong. Her mother 

 taught in the one- 

 room schoolhouse 

 on Cape Lookout; 

 she remembers 

 when the mailboat 

 was the cape's only 

 connection to the 

 mainland. She 

 recalls, too, when 

 the road along 

 Harkers Island was 

 paved with shells, 

 and when shoes 

 weren't worn from 

 spring to fall. 



"You had a 

 church pair and a 

 pair you wore to 

 town," she says, 

 "and that was it." 

 When she walked to church, she 

 carried her black patent-leather shoes 

 in her hands. Better that her bare feet 

 gather dust, Guthrie figured, than her 

 church shoes. 



Those simple days have sadly 

 passed on Harkers Island. Today the 

 community is the first to face the new 

 challenges coming to Down East. 

 With gorgeous old trees and water all 

 around, Harkers Island has attracted 

 more and more summer-home buyers. 

 Land prices have skyrocketed; tradi- 

 tional Harkers Island industries, such as 

 boatbuilding and commercial fishing, 

 have declined. The winds of change 

 are bearing down on Harkers Island, 

 transforming an indigenous culture in 



Straw-brimmed tourists fish 

 from a Harkers Island pier 

 in the heart of Down East. 

 A lot of folks drive through this 



soggy eastern half of 

 Carteret County on their way 

 to catch the Cedar Island ferry 

 to Ocracoke. But few linger 

 to savor the flavor of the 

 lore-steeped coastal communities 

 that comprise this colorful region. 



the space of a decade. 



When I bid Guthrie goodbye, she 

 tells me to drive to the end of the road, 

 which terminates in a turnaround at 

 Shell Point with views to the distant 

 cape. Moments after I arrive at the 

 point, I'm joined by another car, and 

 Harkers Islander Nannie Rae Poole 

 emerges to tell me that this was the 

 "sparkin' place," where island youth 

 gathered to court. Poole remembers 

 when Shell Point extended far into the 

 water — a mountain of conch, oyster 

 and clam shells so high that kids had to 

 dig steps to climb to the top. She grabs 

 me by the elbow and points out to the 

 cape, her bright pink blouse ruffling in 

 the wind. 



"There is hardly a day," she says, 

 "hardly a day that I don't come down 

 here. Drive down and sit right here and 

 look out across the water, turn around 

 and I go back home. It's part of me." 



I nod and tell her I have heard that 

 if you sit on Shell Point long enough 

 you'll see every real Harkers Islander 

 who is left. It's true, 

 she says; it's true. 



It's part of our 

 lives, you know what 

 I mean?" she asks. 



No, I don't. I 

 say. But I think I 

 would like to. 



Back across the 

 straits, U.S. 70 takes 

 a sharp turn to the 

 northeast, matching 

 the checkmark- 

 shaped "hook" of 

 Cape Lookout across 

 the sound. At the 

 Smyrna crossroads, 

 khaki-clad Norman 

 Gillikin meets me in 

 a white pickup truck. 

 I follow him down to 

 Pasture Point, the 

 small peninsula 

 settled by his "great-great-great- 

 grandpappy," Cromwell Hancock, in the 

 late 1700s. A retired Pentagon public- 

 affairs officer with a trim, gray mous- 

 tache and twinkling eyes that betray a 

 mischievous humor, Gillikin both 

 guards and promotes Pasture Point's 

 natural and historical treasures. 



Chief among the latter is the 1820 

 Hancock House, where he was born and 

 through which he now guides tours by 

 appointment. "I grew up in an antique," 

 Gillikin says of the house, a cheerful 

 two-story cottage tucked under hun- 

 dred-year-old pines. He points out the 

 first-floor room where he was born and 

 the second-story window from which he 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 5 



