We Siege at Dawn!: Sunrise at Castle Island State Park

In the wee morning hours of Friday, April 11th, a group of 15 other Harvard students and I ventured off campus to watch the sunrise at Castle Island State Park—an urban park dedicated to a historic fort with harbor-side views. Having left campus at around 5:20am, we arrived at our destination with a healthy amount of sleep deprivation and an almost unhealthy eagerness to explore. As it often happens in New England Aprils, cloud cover proved too great to see the sunrise, but a few cups of hot cocoa quickly warmed our spirits and redirected our focus to the park itself. 

Strolling around the park’s perimeter, we absorbed the unique history and innovation present in the landscape. Fort Independence, the park’s central structure, is considered the oldest fortified military site in British North America. Originally named Castle William after King William II of England, the fort has evolved both in name and construction since it was first built in the 1630s.

Because of this, “Castle Island” is an ironic remnant of a bygone era, as it is neither a castle nor an island any more. Not only was the fort renamed following the American Revolutionary War, but the island itself was connected to the mainland almost a century ago. As we gazed out at the harbor, we noticed even more engineering wonders in the other islands: many of the landmasses that dot the harbor were actually shaped by leftover dirt from the “Big Dig” infrastructure project. Known collectively as the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, this artificial marvel paradoxically provides one of the greatest opportunities for Bostonians to expose themselves to the natural world.

At the conclusion of the outing, we all agreed on one thing: we’ve got to come back here again. It can be so easy to stay within the Harvard bubble—weekends here are seen more as an opportunity to catch up on homework than an opportunity to explore the outdoors. But looking out onto the splendor of Boston’s parklands, one realizes how much more there is to the college experience.