Submerged Pastures the waterscape of oystering
Why, then, the world’s mine oyster, Which I with sword will open.
— William Shakespeare. The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1597
James Moses
In 1606 Samuel de Champlain sailed into what is now called Wellfleet Harbor on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, and confronted an oyster reef so expansive that the waters were almost unnavigable. He named the body of water Port aux Huîtres as part of his survey of Nouvelle France. Today there are still oysters in the harbour, although they are neither wild nor organised as reefs.
left: chart of Champlain’s 1606-7 shoreline exploration from Nova Scotia on the middle right to just south of Cape Cod at lower left.
Library of Cogress Geography and Map Division,, Washington DC
Puffer Oyster Farm, Wellfleet Harbor, Cape Cod, Massachusetts; an agricultural land/ waterscape so subtle one needs to know what to look for. left: The oyster beds are in the left middle foreground, visible at low tide, submerged as the tide comes in. above: the oyster farm infrastructure of rebar cages that hold hats (for oysters to start on), and mesh bags for young oysters to develop in. The height of the rebar frames in relation to the ocean floor determines whether the oysters are bottom-cultured, or off bottom.
james Moses
aquaculture Wellfleet Harbor: approaching the harbour from land at low tide, one crosses a small strip of dune that smells of beach plum and sea grass. A light breeze off the water carries the briny, algal, sulphuric aroma of the exposed ocean bottom. The high tide line is registered by a stripe of dry seaweed as white sand gives way to a mix of sand, pebbles and small shells. This, in turn, leads to an expanse of mud, deposited by the surrounding nutrient-rich estuaries of the Herring River, Duck Creek, and Blackfish Creek. Living in the watery depressions in the mud are millions of periwinkles, hermit crabs and tiny fiddler crabs; minnows brush one’s ankles as just another part of the underwater landscape. A couple of pickup trucks are parked in the mud.
30 on site review 49 :: shorelines
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