We are subject to great periodic sea changes on this peninsula. Tides rise and fall up to nine feet twice a day, sweeping out in places in Cape Cod Bay to reveal tidal flats over a mile in extent. Waves and currents continuously undermine and cut into the great glacial cliffs of the Outer Cape, removing an average of three feet a year from our eastern boundary. Autumn and winter storms rearrange the ocean beaches, undermining the foundations of lighthouses, beach parking lots, and shorefront cottages, strewing the beaches at times with the carcasses of thousands of sea creatures, from whelks to whales. Tides and winds build and unbuild ridges and bowls of sand dunes, which in turn march across the land, threatening to bury marshes, forests, ponds, roads, and, in the past, whole villages and harbors. Major storms, like that of the Great Blizzard of February 6-7, 1978, change the very outlines of Cape Cod, cutting barrier beaches in two, creating new islands, flattening entire dune systems, creating new inlets, and plugging up old ones. The Cape is a river of sand into which we can never step twice. For whatever reasons we come, the continuing attraction of the Cape to tourists and new residents (known as “washashores”) has proven a mixed blessing, providing a valuable source of income to the local populace but also bringing an increase in development and commercialization that threatens the very things we seek here: clean air, unpolluted waters and beaches, the harvest of the sea, unspoiled vistas, a sense of rooted historical continuity, the free interplay of natural forces and wild inhabitants, and the opportunity for discovery and self-discovery in a landscape that has had a perennial allure for the human spirit for over three and a half centuries. [Illustration: (Fishing boat unloading its catch.)] It was with the intent of preserving this experience for the public at large, and not for just a privileged few, that the idea for the National Seashore was born more than 30 years ago. The formation of the National Seashore was unique among the creation of the Nation’s public parks. Prior to its establishment in 1961, national parks, forests, seashores, and monuments had been created from land already owned by federal or state governments, or from land or funds donated by private individuals. No federal monies had ever been spent to create such places. [Illustration: _Today Nauset Light alerts mariners off Eastham’s treacherous Atlantic coast. Since the days of the earliest Indian inhabitants, Cape Codders have plied the bay and ocean for food and related marine products. Commercial fishing boats still work out of Provincetown, Chatham, and Wellfleet within the National Seashore._]