While visiting Lake Mattamuskeet, Carson stayed at the old pumping station at New Holland. 



Carson's visit to Hyde County 

 made a deep impression on her. Her 

 letters to her closest friend, Dorothy 

 Freeman, have just been published in 

 "Always, Rachel." Carson wrote to 

 Freeman about Lake Mattamuskeet in 

 1959: 



"I hope I can take you to Lake 

 Mattamuskeet in North Carolina ... . 

 I'll never forget ... the countless 

 thousands of Canada geese wintering 

 there. During the evening and — I 

 seem to remember — even far into the 

 night, the throbbing chorus of their 

 voices rose from the lake where they 

 were resting. But the greatest thrill 

 came when we went out just before 

 sunrise to watch the flocks rising up 

 and heading out into the neighboring 

 fields where they forage by day. They 



would pass literally just over our 

 heads — so low the sunshine made 

 their dark heads and necks look like 

 brown velvet. And all the while the air 

 filled with their music." 



Six months before her death, 

 in a November 1963 letter, Carson 

 recalled again "the constant, haunting 

 music of the geese" at Lake Matta- 

 muskeet. 



Carson returned to Bird Shoal in 

 June of 1951. She had just written 

 "The Sea Around Us," which soon 

 make her an international celebrity. 

 This stunning portrait of the world's 

 oceans was translated into 32 lan- 

 guages and remained on the best-seller 

 list for 86 weeks, a record at the time. 

 In Beaufort, Carson sought solitude at 

 what she called her "favorite beach." 



She spent her days "getting acquainted 

 with a whole village of sea anemones 

 ... wading around in water up to my 

 knees, not a human soul in sight." 



In her next book, "The Edge of 

 the Sea," Carson introduced by name 

 the site of her secluded excursions in 

 North Carolina. "To visit Bird Shoal," 

 Carson wrote, "one goes out by boat 

 through channels winding through the 

 Town Marsh of Beaufort." Thousands 

 of fiddler crabs greet the visitor, 

 Carson observed, and she likened the 

 "sound of so many small chitinous 

 feet" to "the crackling of paper." 



Carson saw beauty in the least of 

 Bird Shoal's creatures. She marveled 

 at the "mysterious forces of creation" 

 at work in the long, twisted strand of a 

 whelk's egg sac. She tracked a 



22 MAY/JUNE 1996 



