From the tiny summit, a huge world appears.
Instead of mountains, shimmering buildings of stone and glass tower in the sky. Though there are birds, it is the never ending stream of giant silver birds migrating from all over the world that is amazing, taking off and landing at the airport on water’s edge.
The summit doesn’t have an influx of weary, backpack-carrying hikers with miles of alpine wandering and weathered knees. Rather, there are giggling, smiling, loquacious and curious youngsters standing for group photos and selfies.
Such are some of the finds on top of North Drumlin, a small hill on Spectacle Island reached by a short commercial ferry ride from Boston’s Long Wharf.
Spectacle Island is one of the 34 islands and peninsulas that make up the Boston Harbor Islands, which also boasts lighthouses and forts. The island was named because it once was two mounds linked by a sandbar making it look like spectacles.
It’s heady history includes a remarkable turnaround from leaky landfill to public recreation, renewal and restoration. The island is now the highest point in the harbor at some 155 feet. There are about two and a half miles of hiking trails, a visitor center, marina, beach with swimming, and outdoor showers.
That is a remarkable turnaround for a place was once known as Boston’s dump, a reputation that started before the Pilgrims even thought of sailing across the Atlantic as Native Americans used it as a scrap heap for fish bones and clam shells. Just a few miles from the mainland, the island quickly became a place to keep things hidden and out of mind once settlers arrived. After the Pilgrims came, it wasn’t long before Spectacle was used as a quarantine hospital for those afflicted with smallpox in the 1700s. Infected people were sent there, a safe distance from the city, to stay and often die.
For a spell, the island became something of a resort with a couple of summer inns. But the businesses developed an unsavory reputation for gambling, prostitution and dancing before those enterprises were shuttered in the mid-1800s. It was also a place where summer workers and their families were able to found housing in something of a country setting.
The island was also used for rendering horse carcasses, turning them into glue, tallow and more.
The city started using the island for an actual dump starting in the 1920s, but it eventually closed. However, it leaked toxins into the harbor which contributed to the harbor’s reputation as something of a cesspool and created a public health hazard.
But a wave of serendipity washed upon Spectacle’s shores in the 1990s when the state legislature had to figure out what to do with the excavated matter, like gravel and dirt, from Boston’s ambitious Big Dig construction project.
The solution became part of a harbor clean-up and millions of cubic yards of material was used to cover and connect the island with topsoil, thus capping that landfill. Thousands of trees and shrubs were also planted and the island became part of the national parks system in the mid-1990s and opened to visitors in 2006.
Jointly managed by the national park system and state Department of Conservation and Recreation, it is one of six islands in Boston Harbor opened seasonally to the public.
During a summer celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, it may seem counter-intuitive to head to the concrete land of the T, Fenway Park and Logan Airport to experience the great outdoors. But a trip into the harbor provides a new perspective on a city where you may have once lived, worked or gone to college.
Today the drumlin (basically smalls hills created by glacial action) contains trees like red cedar, shrubs with white flowers like false spirea and wildlife, including coyotes that swam to the island and may have left that way too, according to a guide.
The drumlin also offers panoramic views of South Boston’s Dorchester Heights, Logan Airport, the egg-shaped containers of Deer Island’s wastewater treatment plant, the flashing of Boston light on Little Brewster Island, the 20-plus chain of Blue Hills and nearby Thompson Island, an early settlers’ trading post.
All made possible because of a big clean-up of an island once known for being down and out.