We Come in Peace: Invasion by Commercial Fishing and Tourism of Harkers Island and Shackleford Banks Harkers Island is filled with 28,500 acres of undeveloped barrier islands only accessible by boat. Surrounded by two large bodies of water, the Core Sound and the Westmouth Bay, Harkers Island has become one of the largest nature reserves in North Carolina, with a steady population in Banker Ponies, only located in this particular region. The lush environment and relaxing atmosphere invites families and wildlife to live harmoniously within nature. But when this harmony is interrupted, it leads to less-than-peaceful solutions. The invasion of one’s home land and territory is neither a pleasant nor yearned for experience. The presence of unwanted strangers can have a personal and environmental impact on a person’s life and surroundings. Expansion of small towns is typically considered apart of economic growth but can actually lead to an extreme amount of unwanted invasion. In turn, this causes generations upon generations of families to feel overrun, and the spiraling decline of commercial fishing in places where it naturally thrives. While politicians and large businesses attempt to convince the people that expansion is beneficial both socially and economically, the reality is that small communities can be devastated by growth. Carmine Prioli depicts the lives of many local ‘Ca’e Bankers’ and the way economic growth has affected their families, jobs, and lives in his book Hope for a Good Season; The Ca’s Bankers of Harkers Island. Prioli accomplishes his task to inform by appealing to the reader with well-stated factual information, personal remarks made by the local Ca’e Bankers, and photographic evidence of the past and present development of Harkers Island. Harkers Island, North Carolina, contains hundreds of years of history in it’s relatively small coastal town. According to Prioli, the habitants of Harkers Island “call themselves ‘Ca’e Bankers’, a popular contradiction signifying the descendants of men and women who lived in the ever-changing worlds of Cape Lookout and Shackleford Banks.” Giving these specific persons a different title than the average shore men creates a more personal defining relationship between the reader and the people of the island. By using the natives’ term throughout the book, this establishes a deeper connection between the reader and the Ca’e Bankers, making the reader feel more like an insider than simply the audience. Prioli also states in his foreword that “…survival depends upon adjustment to changing circumstances.” An in-depth look at the term “adjustment” gives the reader more insight into Prioli’s rational argument that the local Bankers are being replaced by more than just the wind and the sea that has taken its toll on their ancestors from centuries ago. Adjustment has become a newly adopted ritual to the local islanders out of necessity, rather than choice. With the growth and development of Harkers Island comes the competition of businesses and large fishing companies that have blown family-owned fishing docks and stores—literally—out of the water. Prioli’s personal concern with this island gives the reader a sense that this is more than just a story about an author’s hometown being overpopulated; it is about a town and it’s local inhabitants being overrun by tourists with no historical connections and who ruin the act of‘simple living’ by bombarding the island with growth and development. The competition of commercial fishing stems from several environmental and social factors. Prioli states that these factors have been affecting the Bankers since the 1980s and have only progressed. The already-weakened industry declined even further downhill with the progression of foreign competition, increased regulation and licensing fees, fuel costs, and the abundance of part-time commercial and sports fishermen. The people of the island knew something had to be done; their solutions to the problem included banning inshore and near shore net fishing. In 1995, the North Carolina Fisheries Association Auxiliary, an organization made up of wives, mothers, sisters, and girlfriends of commercial fishermen, called a meeting to discuss the proposed ban on net fishing. They announced: “If you wish to fish with a net you are now looking down the barrel of a gun: what are you going to do about it? Come to our next meeting and join forces” (50). This clever and to-the-point directive defined every southern Ca’e Bankers repressed feelings about net fishing and their dedication to terminating it. The Ca’e Bankers knew that banning net fishing was not going to be an easy task; Prioli highlights one local fisherman, Peter Willis, and his statement: “…it’s getting harder every year and things are getting more complicated. There’s going to be more of us [fishermen] and we’re getting right much plagued with the Yankees, you know, to be honest with it” (50). The term ‘yankees’ is used by the Ca’e Bankers to address everyone who lives north of Harkers Island but migrates south after making their state’s fishing quotas. These ‘yankees’ are not the only foreign travelers the Ca’e Bankers have to worry about; Northern crabbers also travel from places as far as Florida to capitalize on the North Carolinian waters, leading to serious economic consequences for local fishermen and watermen. To the Ca’e Bankers, the fishing industry is a means for survival; it is the main job on the island and provides food to surrounding families, as well as income for them to live off. According to Prioli, these outsiders not only threaten the economy and the local natives’ means for survival, but they also “upset the subtle balance that for years has existed between nature’s capacity to produce a resource and the local fisherman’s need for…that resource” (51). The communities of Harkers Island and the surrounding coastal towns have an essential need for the sea life; they depend on the fishermen and the supply that nature provides for them every year. For hundreds of years, the fishing industry has been a reliable source with many forms, depending on the seasons. For the invading outsiders, fishing in these limited coastal waters is merely extra profit. They sail into town with huge shrimp and fishing vessels and overpower the local fishing company’s smaller boats. One local fisherman made the remark that these outsiders’ greed is “…bringing us down quick. It’s doing away with everything. Where we set two or three hundred [crab] pots, they’ve got to set a thousand pots” (51). This occupation has now become a test for survival of the fittest, where natives must catch more fish than the outsider in order to provide for themselves and their families. However, the overcrowding of Harkers Island cannot solely be blamed on these ‘yankee’ fishermen. Prioli states that throughout the years, there has been an alarming increase in the amount of tourists, summer vacationers, and year-round permavacationers (or retired people). For about three to four months out of the year, usually in the warmer weather time, the population of these visitors nearly doubles the measly 1,600 locals that have permanent bonds to the island. This influx has led to a real estate crisis all over the island—small sound-side cottages rent for about $700-800 a week during the summertime, and property values increase everywhere, along with tax rates. Home ownership for young couples and families has become almost unattainable. Prioli cites several examples of real estate influx, some of the most alarming being “Land purchased by the acre for one dollar in 1900 sold recently for $30,000. What little side property is available commands $1,000 per foot of waterfront. And half-acre parcels of land on property where Ebenezer Harker’s home once stood can be had for $125,000 apiece” (52). The lifestyle of the Ca’e Banker includes far more than just fishing; these locals have made adjustments in their everyday lives. Despite the loss of property and pastimes, the Ca’e Bankers have learned to adapt to their new, expanding lives on the shores of Harkers Island. Some have turned to model boat building, some to decoy carving; any job that will pay the bills and attract attention from the most populated persons in town—tourists. Other locals continue to build their own boats, and set and repair their own crab pots and pound nets. The culture in which they were raised still resides in their minds and hearts, and they will continue to pass on their techniques, traditions, and talents to generations to come. Prioli points out the optimistic attitude of one local fisherman in his statement, “…we live from one season to the next. We hope! We hope for a good season and that takes you to the next one… and so you live on hope more than you do on money” (52). But optimism can only last so long before the Ca’e Bankers are forced to look for alternatives. In his book, One Life at a Time, Please, Edward Abbey provides several unconventional solutions to overpopulation and overcrowding. Abbey states that “growth, they tell us, means more jobs, more bank accounts, more cars, more people, leading in turn to the demand for more jobs, more economic expansion, more industrial development” (20). Whether the expanding town of Harkers Island or Abbey’s example of the growth in Tucson, Arizona, Abbey questions when will this spiraling process of growth comes to a rational end, or of equilibrium? The effects of growth are not always positive, evidenced by Harkers Island. In the case of Tucson and Harkers Island, growth leads to more people, fewer jobs, and an expansion of industrial development to the point that it becomes unaffordable. But what happens when there is no more land to expand on? No more jobs to be had? Abbey compares growth to the ideology of a cancer cell: “Cancer has no purpose but growth; but it does have another result—the death of its host” (21). To him, it is obviously apparent that the increase of growth does not solve economic issues like unemployment, crime, traffic, poverty, or water and air pollution. To accommodate the growth of Harkers Island, habitants would have to sacrifice certain luxuries such as the bright blue sky, the clean air, the open space, the abundant wildlife, and the sheer delight of physical freedom, all of which originally attracted the inhabitants to Harkers Island. In Abbey’s final discussion of solutions to the rising issue of growth, he states that “growth, they say, is inevitable. There is nothing, they say, we can do about it…this is the baldest lie of them all” (23). Abbey posits that elected officials should carry the blame of growth, since they in fact, dictate how much and how quickly expansion occurs. The government also has the power to take away land dictated to another purpose. One example of this occurred in 1966 when President Lyndon Johnson signed Public Law 89-366, allowing legislation for the Cape Lookout National Seashore. Under the bill, 30,000 acres of land stretching from Ocracoke Inlet to Beaufort Inlet would be turned over to the federal government. This enabled the land to be bought out by the National Park Service and to be developed into an ‘exquisite’ seashore. Prioli states that the National Park Service estimates “by the fifth year of operation, more than a million annual visitors living within 250 airline miles of the North Carolina coast would be romping through their ‘Bicentennial’ seashore park at Cape Lookout” (Prioli 34). Prioli continues to inform that this bill took action in the late 1970s when the government filed condemnation proceedings to clear the title of 2,369 acres of Shackleford Banks and another 2,000 acres of marshland. Most of the cottages on this land were owned by locals who had passed down the property for generations and had been an important part of these people’s lives for many years. Whether or not that is the case, the government gave them their one-choice ultimatum and a sum of money as a settlement to give up their land and homes. According to the park service guidelines, to designate Shackleford as ‘wilderness,’ the existence of all human activity must be “substantially absent.” This not only gave permission to eliminate man-made structures, but also the removal of domesticated animals, including sheep, goats, and cattle defined as ‘exotic’ and not indigenous to the area. Local residents of Harkers Island and Shackleford Banks deemed these approaches by government and park services as “insensitive to the preservation of their lifestyle and heritage” (Prioli 37). The natural beauty of the lands and the history of their previous generations were forcibly removed without their consent, and many thought of these decisions as ‘high-handed.’ In Abbey’s essay, “Eco-Defense,” he states that “if the wilderness is our true home, and if it is threatened with invasion, pillage, and destruction—as is certainly is—then we have the right to defend that home, as we would our private quarters, by whatever means are necessary” (31). Although Abbey’s statement seems a little harsh and executive, does he not have a point? To what degree can people, invaders, the government step in and take over our lands before we step up and do something about it? Abbey states that “we are the majority; they—the powerful—are in the minority” (31). Although Abbey never states specifically how to defend our home, he does state that it “is a matter of the strategy, tactics, and technique which eco-defense is all about” (31). Abbey assures the reader that it is a justified act—we have the right to defend our homes and by not defending what we love is a dishonorable act. He also states that “Eco-defense means fighting back. Eco-defense means sabotage. Eco-defense is risky but sporting; unauthorized but fun; illegal but ethically imperative” (31). In his personal experiences, Abbey states that his Aunt Emma from West Virginia swears by the act of “spiking trees.” To delay or completely halt the US Forest Service from conducting a chainsaw massacre of the forest, Abbey’s aunt hammers a nail into the trunk of the tree as a means of protection, in defending nature. Essentially, this creates a potentially injurious mantrap for the loggers, but is completely harmless for the tree, and ensures them a longer life. When the logger attempts to cut the tree down, the tree spike will catch on the saw blade, causing it to break or shatter, resulting in injury to the logger. As Abbey ensures, “It’s good for the trees, it’s good for the woods, and it’s good for the human soul. Spread the word” (32). In a similar occurrence, the Bankers resented the government and park officials for taking over their residences and claiming their property; like Abbey, they also felt that they had the right to defend their homes when threatened. Prioli states that although many Ca’e Bankers did not have legal deeds to the land, they still carried emotional ties within themselves and for the generations before. They considered the island “communal property” and argued that “their camps connected them spiritually with a past that was increasingly threatened by tourism and commercialism that were rapidly overrunning their mainland environments” (Prioli 38). Regardless of the locals’ perseverance to keep their land, the government took control of their properties and forced them to abandon their camps. In December of 1985, during the uproar, a sequence of uncanny fires occurred—which were thought to be connected to the angry islanders. Several cottages were torched by their previous owners, in a means of rebelling against the government. But Prioli states that the most shocking illegal act came from the destruction of the Cape Lookout National Seashore visitor center, located at the eastern end of Harkers Island. The damages and destruction of the structure and its six years of loggerhead research studies totaled about $100,000. Authorities were brought into the investigation and although some reports blame the fire on faulty wiring, investigations led the police to believe that the fire had been set intentionally. The FBI was brought into the case for further examination and two rewards of several thousand dollars each were offered, but no one came forth and no one was ever charged for the burning. In 1993, the park service rebuilt the visitor center and opened its new regional office, located on Harkers Island. Prioli states that the park service was fully aware of the negative feelings and resentment that the Bankers held for the national park officials. Even today the feelings still reside, but some Bankers have made civil efforts to work with park officials to establish a form of mutual bonds between the local islanders and the federal government. Prioli states that these efforts were established in “1993, [when] park officials and members of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum endorsed a Memorandum of Understanding that included a 30-year leasing agreement for 16 acres of land at Shell Point, on the eastern tip of Harkers Island” (39). Although they have tried to create amends among the Ca’e Bankers, the bond will never fully be civil between the locals and the outsiders. Abbey mocks Dianne Feinstein, the mayor of San Francisco, when she states that “A city not growing is dying” (60). As seen by the growing population of Harkers Island and Shackleford Banks, the expansion has become more of a burden on the local residents and their territory than an accommodation. In response to Mayor Feinstein’s statement, Abbey says, “When a city finally stops growing its citizens can finally begin to live. In peace. Security. With a modicum of domestic tranquility” (60). Abbey displays quite a bit of sarcasm and extreme solutions in his book and although his ideas may seem crazy to many of us, to what degree will it take for this invasion to cease? The local fishermen and their families of Harkers Island suffer from the supply and demand ratio while their competition, large fishing companies, flourishes off their greed ,cleaning out the ocean and the sound’s sea life. These residents have been raided and overrun by a wide range of invaders including commercial fishermen, tourists, and government officials but have continued to adjust. Seeing no quick fix to their predicament, the Ca’e Bankers have learned to live with the issues and have adapted to their new, competitive way of living until another established solution comes their way. With the passing of one season comes their optimistic attitude and a renewed ‘hope for a good season’. Works Cited Abbey, Edward. One Life at a Time, Please. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1988. Prioli, Carmine and Martin, Edwin. Hope for a Good Season: The Ca’e Bankers of Harkers Island. John F. Blair Publisher, July 1998.