it’s defined by its proximity to no other place?
It’s a question that has long intrigued me. I’m a born-and-
raised Rhode Islander. Other than a six-month stint in Boston,
I’ve never lived anywhere else. Furthermore, I’m a city boy. All
of my nearly forty years have been spent either in Providence or
one of the towns directly bordering it. Thus, I’m prone to a Prov-
idence-centric, city-state mentality. It’s not that I don’t leave the
city and venture into other parts of the state; I’m just always
hyperaware of the gravitational pull from the urban center. How
could the middle of nowhere exist in such close proximity to
New England’s third-largest city? Even the Middle of Nowhere
Diner is barely thirty minutes outside Providence. In light traffic,
you could leave one at the start of “Wheel of Fortune” and arrive
at the other in time for “Jeopardy!”
Data reinforce this perception of a place without frontier. We
all know this is the smallest state, but less widely recognized is
that Rhode Island is the second most densely populated (we see
you, New Jersey), with more than 1,020 residents per square mile.
It is also the second most urbanized (another tip of the hat to
Jersey), according to the 2010 census. With just 1,200 square
miles within its borders, more than 38 percent of which are covered
by urban development (and, according to the website dunkin
donuts locationsfinder.com, which of course exists, more than
180 Dunkin’ locations), Rhode Island is not exactly the Great
Wide Open. I wanted to know: How far out into “nowhere” is it
possible to go while still remaining within the state’s borders?
A Facebook query seeking possible “middle of nowhere” loca-
tions produces nearly fifty suggestions from friends. “Pulaski Park
is out there,” says Steve from high school, a sentiment that is
resoundingly endorsed by three others (and later, an employee of
the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s
Division of Parks and Recreation). Eric, also from high school
(and also my wife’s cousin — Rhode Island, am I right?), suggests
Long and Ell Pond, which is seconded. Other destinations earning
multiple nods are Arcadia, Big River, Buck Hill Management Area
and the legendary “desert” in West Greenwich.
I decide to limit my explorations to the contiguous mainland
of Rhode Island. Sure, sparsely populated Prudence Island or
the outer reaches of Block Island might be remote and isolated,
but they seem distinctly somewhere, destinations at which to
arrive. I am in search of a place to wander endlessly without
ever arriving anywhere. Plus, I don’t own a boat.
I also conclude that while I do not want this to become a Gee,
Rhode Island sure is a beautiful place-style hiking story, hiking
would have to be the primary mode of exploration. Though the
fantasy of traveling downriver into the wilderness has a certain
Huck Finn-esque charm to it, 1) I don’t own a canoe either and
2) I start this story in late November — hardly peak season for
outdoor adventures, and certainly no time for a novice explorer
to go all Lewis and Clark without a Sacagawea.
Driving is out of the question. We simply don’t have enough
land area to hit the open road like a character in a Springsteen
56 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l
APRIL 2020
song and chase an endless horizon. I’d catch too many traffic
lights and pass too many Dunkins.
So off on foot I go, with a thirst for adventure and a newly
purchased blaze orange vest (“Doing some hunting?” one fellow
hiker asks when he sees it. “Trying not to get hunted,” I reply),
hot on the trail of the middle of nowhere.
The trouble is, how will I know when I find it? With so little
space in which to wander, what differentiates an expedition into
the nether reaches of the state from a run-of-the-mill walk in
the woods?
After all, the North-South Trail, which stretches the entire
length of Rhode Island from the Atlantic Ocean to the Massa-
chusetts border, is only seventy-eight miles long. The distance
across Death Valley National Park is nearly twice that. The
entirety of both Rhode Island and Delaware combined would
fit within Yellowstone National Park. It’s not as if I could just
march off into the wilderness like some low-rent Christopher
McCandless and disappear into the vast, unbroken nothingness.
Even if I reach the edge of civilization and start on a path
directly away from it, I’d also be walking inevitably toward some-
where or something else.
The basic criteria for nowhere-ness seems fairly self-evident:
quiet, secluded, away from commercial development and resi-
dential neighborhoods, preferably away from roads altogether.
But even this measure seems inconclusive. With most hikers and
outdoor enthusiasts retreating indoors for the coming winter,
most everywhere is quiet. And one needn’t travel great distances
to reach seclusion. March a mile or two straight into the woods
and sure, it’ll feel isolated — but is it really the middle of nowhere?
A Providence high school student would need to live further than
that from school to be eligible for the bus.
In the end, I decide to define the middle of nowhere by the
same standard Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart applied to
pornography: I know when I see it.
M
y first stop on the road to nowhere is
the aforementioned “desert,” also
known as the sand dunes in West
Greenwich. This former quarry site
is actually part of the Big River Man-
agement Area, but it stands alone
amongst Rhode Island’s landscapes, a relatively barren stretch of
sand in the otherwise heavily forested 8,300 acres that make up
the preserve.
My guide is Greg, a Providence-based web designer and avid
birdwatcher who frequents the dunes. He brings along an extra
pair of binoculars so I can join him in scanning the trees for
Eastern bluebirds and red-tailed hawks. Greg was one of the
respondents to my Facebook post and offered to take me on a tour
of some of his favorite spots. We are bundled heavily on an unsea-
sonably cold November day, but the weather doesn’t seem to be
keeping anyone indoors. The area is a popular spot year-round,