Synopses & Reviews
North Carolina's Ocracoke island has produced a remarkably cohesive community of islanders. For more than two centuries, these Ocracokers lived in relative isolation, enjoying the beauty and battling the destructive forces of the Atlantic. In the past two decades, tourists discovered this "unique fishing village by the sea," and the tiny island was forever altered. Alarmed at the dramatic changes in the island's character over the past generation, Alton Ballance set out to capture the story of Ocracoke and its people from the unique perspective of a native.
Ballance accompanies the people of Ocracoke on their everyday activitiesfishing, hunting, boatingall the time recording their stories about events and people that have shaped the island's history. They have lived through hurricanes, and they remember their ancestors talking of the shipwrecks and daring rescues that occurred off the treacherous coast. During the many years when no doctor resided on the island, Ocracokers delivered each other's babies and attended to their own illnesses, sometimes with local cures.
When Ballance was growing up on Ocracoke in the 1960s and 1970s, the number of year-round residents hovered around 500. Now Ocracoke is a major tourist attraction visited by hundreds of thousands of people each year. As tourism has flourished, the island has become less isolated, and Ballance discusses the consequences of this development for both islander and visitor. The modernization that accompanies tourism has provided many benefits for the island, among them better health care and schooling and more jobs. Nonetheless, the Ocracoke of old is rapidly disappearing. This book is a tribute to that Ocracoke and her people.
Review
Alton Ballance has an appreciation for Ocracoke past, an understanding of Ocracoke present, and a concern for Ocracoke future.
David Stick
Review
Well written and liberally illustrated with black-and-white photos, Ocracokers is very accessible.
Choice
Review
Vivid and informative.
Carolina Style
Review
Ballance has done a fine job of recording the old before it is gone.
Come-All-Ye
Review
Alton Ballance . . . writes with affection and sensitivity about Ocracoke, its history, and the everyday life of its people.
Journal of Southern History
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Part One: The Inlet, the Island, the Village
1. A View from the Inlet
2. Settling the Village
3. Shipwrecks, Lighthouses, and Ocean Rescues
Part Two: The Ocracokers
4. The Art of Mulleting
5. A Day Hunting on the Reef
6. The Bryants
7. Taking Care of Our Own
8. Worshipping Together
9. Ocracoke School: One Big Family
Part Three: Building Bridges
10. The National Park Service
11. Battening Down the Hatches
12. World War II at Ocracoke
13. Building Bridges
14. Tourism: The New Economy
15. A Commissioner's View
Afterword
Index