The year I was born, 1947, Rachel Carson wrote a 23-page piece for the USA Department of Interior titled Parker River: A National Wildlife Refuge. You can access it here.
The first line reads: “The Parker River Wildlife Refuge is New England’s most important contribution to the national effort to save the water fowl of North America.” During my recent visit to the Refuge, nature proved Carson’s point. And as we drove down the main route, a flock of huge black birds suddenly occupied the leafless branches of the trees 
around us. A birder passing by identified them for us as crows. Crows apparently are not shy and were happy to be photographed. Later we saw blue birds and red birds and other migrating birds on their wise way to warmer climates.
The Refuge makes up much of Plum Island, which is 11 miles (4,662 acres) of barrier island north of Massachusetts’ Cape Ann. Conservation became a priority in 1679 when settlers’ livestock were stopped from ranging free on the island, eating up all the vegetation. The first house was built in 1752, but a bridge over the estuary separating it from the mainland was 
established in the early 1800s, mainly to service the new hotel. There is no longer a hotel on Plum Island, but the level of construction is slightly insane.
It used to be a neighborhood of beach cottages and as the years passed people added a room or a second floor or a big porch. Today, there is an alarming proliferation of McMansions, the more recent ones built on stilts, most of them massive and ugly, some of them four stories high. But the kicker is that many are built on the edge of the marsh, cutting off the view of the traditional cottages, throwing unwelcome shadows over multiple houses.
However, Parker River Refuge is the Island’s jewel and, in my opinion, should be considered one of the wonders of the world. Its undulating dunes, dramatic beaches, four rivers, bog, swamps, and the magnificent Great Marsh sit under a Big Sky. I first encountered a Big Sky when I was in Kenya in about 1996. Of all visual and physical experiences I have had while traveling, the Big Sky over Kenya’s Masai Mara ranks as my most euphoric. Likewise, here at the Refuge, the great expanse of over 3,000 acres of salt marsh with its waving grasses, crisscrossed with tidal pools, met the changing sky in an exhilarating view. I realized with a start that I was downright happy. I was breathless with a visceral joy that contrasted with my feelings these last years in which I’ve been living in basically one room watching the world suffer.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has done a sublime job in making this huge Marsh and the acres of dunes accessible. They have built many handsome boardwalks, the majority with explicit accessibility, but all with smooth faux-wooden paths elevated above the marsh and the dunes. Some of the boardwalks climbed over the dunes and descended to the sea. Some wound through the high grasslands, with creeks underneath turning into puddles, and black water nourishing reeds. All of these boardwalks are beautifully done and took me to places I would never otherwise consider climbing up or scrabbling over. Even the observation tower was only three flights of steps and I was easily able to mount it.
The rolling dunes were decorated with thickets of beach plum (thus Plum Island!) and grasses. Between the dunes are black pines and eastern red cedar trees, which reminded me of eucalyptus trees with their shedding bark. The brilliance of the walkways is that they allow visitors to be closer and deeper in the dunes and marsh than one anticipates, without any damage to the environment.
On the other hand, the Joppa Flats Education Center and Wildlife Sanctuary, apparently operated by the Massachusetts Audubon Society, offered an unpaved road and heaps of garbage at its entrance. We turned around and went back into the Refuge instead of visiting it.
Another absolute treat was staying at the comfortable, luxurious Airbnb which the owner titled “My Dream house with views of the marsh and sunset.” I am a literal person and that is also literally my dream view. The apartment did not disappoint. It was a bit too cold to use the marsh-facing porch, but when sitting in the living room chairs, I looked straight out the sliding glass doors to the marsh and its sunsets. These are so stunning that car after car of locals pulled up to watch the sunset before going on their way.
A late November trip was just what the doctor ordered. There were few folks around. Even more important, we avoided the infamous summer greenhead flies. We didn’t have to deal with ticks, mosquitos, or poison ivy, all of which flourish in the summer. Plum Island is known as a gorgeous beach destination and becomes heavily congested, I was told. I’m not a big beach lass, but now I can’t live without the Great Marsh. So let the others stretch out on the exquisite plum sand. I’ll be visiting when I have these wonderlands more or less to myself.
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