June 2, 2022 @ 10:00 EDT
Site Visit #33
Great Egg Harbor National Scenic & Recreational River is an unusual unit of the Park Service. It is entirely managed by state and local authorities. The only visible presence of the National Park Service is the passport stamp table in the Fox Nature Center and a stack of the familiar black-edged NPS pamphlets for the river.
I sometimes struggle to understand why something becomes an official unit of the park service. The Great Egg Harbor River is not particularly scenic – at least in the very few places I could actually see it. Most of the land bordering the river is private, so there are only a few places where one can actually see the river if not in a canoe. It did not strike me as a great canoeing river either. Yes, it is nice that the watershed is protected, but even the Park Service brochure struggles to justify this as one of the precious 423.
I’m further confused and confounded by what makes one park an “official” unit and another not. Flowing only a few miles west of the Great Egg Harbor River is the Maurie River, which is designated Maurice River National Scenic & Recreational River. Notice the exact same designation? There is a black-edged glossy park brochure for this unit and a passport stamp in its Visitor’s Center. It too is mostly managed by local authorities. In short, I see no difference between these two units of the National Park Service, yet one is part of the official 423 units and the other is just…what? Unofficial? Maybe someday I will figure it out.
I did stop by the Visitor’s Center at Fox Nature Center. There was some information on Atlantic County Parks, which manage much of this area. I then drove to a few spots I had picked out in my planning and took a few photos of the river. Then I headed for Cape May. Unfortunately, my goal of having a photo of me by the park sign for every park was broken here. I did not find one sign anywhere indicating the Great Egg Harbor National Scenic & Recreational River. Maybe, given how long the full name is, it would have cost too much for a sign.
Steve
