The Outermost House, Henry Beston’s Cape Cod

By Don Wilding

When taking the initial walk down the path to Coast Guard Beach in Eastham, MA, one might not have the notion that a deeper understanding of the great cosmic picture could be right here among the surf, sand and stretches of beach and marsh. It was on this beach over 70 years ago that Henry Beston, a burned out magazine editor, tried to hash out the relation of nature to the human spirit when he gathered the material here for his literary nature classic, The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod.

Having never seen the house (named "The Fo'castle" by...