Cape Lookout National Seashore

North Carolina Outdoors

Cape Lookout National Seashore

Cape Lookout Photo Tour

Just the Facts... Local Links Regional Books & Music

Want to know what our coastal barrier islands looked like before postwar development got the best of them? Visit Cape Lookout. It is the closest thing to a seaside wilderness to be found south of Maine.
But dont let the pristine appearance of this national seashore's three islands - North Core Banks, South Core Banks, and Shackleford Banks deceive you. People have lived and worked in this difficult environment for a long time. Verrazano reported natives living on Core Banks during his 1524 voyage to the New World. Colonial sailors frequently used Lookout Bight as a safe harbor during storms and hurricanes. Pirates, such as Blackbeard, found its protected waters a convenient place to launch raids on merchant shipping. The wild ponies that live on Shackleford Banks today are believed to be descendants of feral ponies left behind by Spanish explorers.

Portsmouth, on North Core Banks, was established by North Carolina's colonial assembly in 1753 and settled shortly thereafter. At its peak in 1860, the village had 505 permanent residents, of which 117 were slaves.

While many of Portsmouth's buildings remain, the traces of other human habitations on the seashore have all but disapperared. Diamond City, at the eastern end of Shackleford Banks, was a thriving whaling and fishing village of 500 people in 1899. But a succession of hurricanes prompted residents to load their homes and belongings onto boats and move to the mainland. By 1903, Diamond City was a ghost town. No trace remains today except a few pieces of lumber and shards of pottery and glass.

The legacy of human habitation shapes this landscape today nonetheless. The feral horses on Shackleford Banks eat vegetation such as marsh grass and young trees, stunting plant succession and limiting the island's ecological diversity. The maritime forests that once covered much of the entire Seashore has been reduced to a small remnant near the western end of Shackleford Banks.

The most enduring and romantic legacy of human habitiation on the seashore is the Cape Lookout lighthouse. Built in 1859 to replace a smaller one built in 1812, its height of 150 feet makes it one of the tallest on the East Coast.

Just the Facts...

Location: Carteret County east of Morehead City and Beaufort.

Access: Boat only. Take Highway 70 east from Morehead City and follow signs to Harkers Island and Cape Lookout National Seashore. Several marinas on Harkers Island provide ferry service to Cape Lookout and Shackleford Banks for $10 to $14 round trip. See links below. Intrepid canoeists and kayakers can put in at the public park near the eastern tip of Harkers Island. Be aware that the water in Core and Back Sounds can get very rough!!

Size: A 56 mile long section of the Outer Banks between Ocracoke Inlet on the northeast and Beaufort Inlet on the southwest. Average width is about 1/2 mile.

Established: March 10, 1976. Included on the North Carolina Registry of Natural Heritage Areas May 23, 1986. Designated as a component in the Carolinian-South Atlantic Biosphere Reserve in 1986.

Interesting Trivia: When he anchored off Core Banks in 1524, Italian explorer Verrazano thought the body of water on the west side of the dunes that we know as Pamlico Sound was the "oriental sea... which is the one... which goes about the extremity of India, China, and Cathay." For the next 150 years, many European explorers embarked on a fruitless search for "Verrazano's Sea." and a short route to the Far East.

For detailed visitor information, please check out the National Park Service' official Cape Lookout home page .

Local Links

Cape Lookout National Seashore - The NPS site for the Cape Lookout National Seashore.

Tide Chart - Cape Lookout

Coresound Waterfowl Museum - Harker's Island. Decoys and watefowl education exhibits. A must visit.

North Carolina Maritime Museum - In nearby Beaufort near the waterfront.

Beaufort-Cape Lookout History - An online history by Mark Wilde-Ramsing of the Underwater Archaeology Unit of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History.

Cape Lookout Weather - Current, real-time weather data from the automated weather station at Cape Lookout, sponsored by NOAA's National Data Buoy Center.

Outer Banks Rent Direct Service - Rent an Outer Banks cottage directly from the owner.

North Carolina's Outer Banks - A comprehensive commercially-oriented guide to the Outer Banks.

Click for Morehead City, North Carolina Forecast

Books on the North Carolina Coast

The Outer Banks of North Carolina - by David Stick. Simply the best book on the history of these unique islands.

Graveyard of the Atlantic : Shipwrecks of the North carolina Coast - by David Stick. Another classic work on North Carolina history by the dean of Outer Banks historians.

An Outer Banks Reader - edited by David Stick. An anthology of 450 years of writing about the Outer Banks.

The Waterman's Song: Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina - by David S. Cecelski. Published 2002. Engaging, thoughtful, and scholarly. The best book on NC history I have read in several years.

The Beaches Are Moving : The Drowning of America's Shoreline : With a New Epilogue - by Orrin Pilkey and Wallace Kaufman. A classic treatise on the folly of beach hardening. Pilkey's work led to NC's 1985 ban on seawalls, one of the best pieces of conservation legislation in this state's history. Pilkey is universally scorned by coastal developers, which means he must be speaking the unvarnished truth.

A Birder's Guide to Coastal North Carolina - by John O. Fussell. I keep this guide in my car anytime I travel downeast. Thorough and clearly written. Maps and directions included.

North Carolina Hiking Trails - by Allen de Hart. Comprehensive. Covers 968 trails. My favorite.

Hiking North Carolina (Falcon Guide) - by Randy Johnson. Covers fewer trails than de Hart's book, but covers them in more detail; maps and photos included.

Exploring North Carolina's Natural Areas: Parks, Nature Preserves, and Hiking Trails - edited by Dirk Frankenberger.

Newcomb's Wildflower Guide - The best field guide. My copy is only two years old, but already dogeared.

Eastern Trees (Peterson Field Guides)

A Field Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians (Peterson Field Guides)

A Field Guide to the Birds (Peterson Field Guides)

Old Time Music

O Brother, Where Art Thou? - Soundtrack from the movie. An incredible collection of old time music. This is REAL country music. It is everything that today's slick new Nashville pop isn't. Featuring Norman Blake, Emmy Lou Harris, Gillian Welch, Allison Kraus, John Hartford, The Stanley Brothers, and more. An astonishing collection! Rated five stars by Amazon reviewers.

Salt Sea Bound - Polecat Creek. First release (March 2002) from this triad-based group. Original music in the Old Time tradition. Outstanding song writing and beautiful harmonies. My favorite album of 2002.

Ballads, Banjo Tunes, And Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina - by Bascom Lamar Lunsford. A Smithsonian Folkways CD, rated five stars by Amazon reviewers.

Clarence Ashley And Doc Watson: The Original Folkways Recordings, 1960-1962 - Doc is a NC legend and national treasure. This is one of his earliest recordings. A Smithsonian Folkways 2-CD Set. Rated five stars by Amazon reviewers.

The High Lonesome Sound - by Roscoe Holcomb. One of the greatest of the old-time banjo players, Holcomb did almost all of his playing at Holiness Church services and square dances. A Smithsonian Folkways recording. Rated five stars by Amazon reviewers.

Music From The Lost Provinces: Old-Time-Stringbands From Ashe County, North Carolina & Vicinity 1927-1931 Various artists. A classic of the old-time genre. Rated four stars by Amazon reviewers.

The Legacy Of Tommy Jarrell, Vol. 1: 1: Sail Away Ladies - Tommy Jarrell was one of the greatest old-time fiddlers. Rated five stars by Amazon reviewers.

Ways That are Dark - by Daniel Gore, with Peter Rowan, Tim O'Brien, Jack Lawrence, and others. A musical companion to Horace Kephart's classic book, Our Southern Highlanders .