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 accumulated with 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 34 islands and peninsulas comprising Boston Harbor Islands, highlighted by lighthouses and forts.
The island was named because it once was two mounds linked by a sandbar making it look like spectacles.
With a nod to recycling, the island is now the highest point in the harbor at some 155 feet. There are about 2 ½ miles of hiking trails, a visitor center, marina, beach with swimming, and outdoor showers.
The heady history of the island includes a remarkable turnaround from leaky landfill to public recreation, renewal and restoration.
Frankly, the place was once considered Boston’s dump. That reputation started before the Pilgrims even thought of sailing across the Atlantic, Native Americans using it as a scrap heap for fish bones and clam shells.
Just a few miles from the mainland, the island quickly became a place for things to keep out of place 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 and prostitution before those enterprises were shuttered in the mid-1800s. Summer workers and their families lived there for something of a country lifestyle, too, for a spell.
Before motorized horse power, horses were the power for transportation and upon their demise were taken to the island for rendering for parts used for glue, tallow and more.
The city actually used the island for a 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 a public-health hazard.
However, 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 that rerouted the central artery through the city.
The solution became part of a harbor clean-top and millions of cubic yards of material was used to cover and connect the island with topsoil, capping that landfill.
Thousands of trees and shrubs were planted, and the island became part of the National Parks Service system in the mid-1990s, opening to visitors in 2006.
Jointly managed by the NPS and Massachusetts’ Department of Conservation and Recreation, it is one of six Boston Harbor islands open 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.
Yet a trip into the harbor provides the proverbial new perspective on a city in which you may have once lived, worked or gone to college.
Today the drumlin — small hills created by glacial action — contains trees such as red cedar, shrubs with white flowers such as false spirea and wildlife. According to a guide, the latter recently includes coyotes that swam to the island and may have left that way, too.
Also today, it’s possible to stand on a grassy island in Boston Harbor to see a spinning panorama 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.
This has all been made possible because of the big clean-up of an island once known for being down and out.
Marty Basch can be reached at mbasch@gmail.com