Country: USA
Distance: 6,414 km
Travel time: 5 days
On postcard: Cape Cod
Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in theNortheastern United States. It is coextensive with Barnstable County. Several small islands right off Cape Cod, including Monomoy Island, Monomoscoy Island, Popponesset Island, and Seconsett Island, are also in Barnstable County, being part of municipalities with land on the Cape. The Cape's historic and maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer months.
Cape Cod was formed as the terminal moraine of a glacier, resulting in a peninsula in the Atlantic Ocean. In 1914, the Cape Cod Canal was cut through the base or isthmus of the peninsula, forming what may be loosely described as an island. The Cape Cod Commission refers to the resultant landmass as an island; as does the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in regards to disaster preparedness.
Unofficially, it is one of the biggest barrier islands in the world, shielding much of the Massachusetts coastline from North Atlantic storm waves. This protection helps to erode the Cape shoreline at the expense of cliffs, while protecting towns from Fairhaven toMarshfield.
Road vehicles from the mainland cross over the Cape Cod Canal via the Sagamore Bridge and the Bourne Bridge. The two bridges are parallel some four miles apart, with the Bourne Bridge to the west, and the Sagamore to the east. In addition, the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge carries railway freight as well as tourist passenger services.
Geography and political divisions
The elevation of Cape Cod is from 306 feet (93 m), at the top of Pine Hill, in the Bourne portion of the Massachusetts Military Reservation to sea level.
The body of water located between Cape Cod and the mainland, bordered to the north by Massachusetts Bay, is Cape Cod Bay; west of Cape Cod is Buzzards Bay. The Cape Cod Canal, completed in 1916, connects Buzzards Bay to Cape Cod Bay; to shorten the trade route between New York and Boston by 62 miles. To the south of Cape Cod lie Nantucket Sound; Nantucketand Martha's Vineyard, both large islands, and the mostly privately owned Elizabeth Islands.
Cape Cod incorporates all of Barnstable County, which comprises 14 towns: Bourne, Sandwich, Falmouth, Mashpee, Yarmouth,Harwich, Dennis, Brewster, Chatham, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown and one city: Barnstable. Two of the county's fourteen towns (Bourne and Sandwich) include land on the mainland side of the Cape Cod Canal.
In the 17th century the designation Cape Cod applied only to the tip of the peninsula, essentially present-day Provincetown. Over the ensuing decades, the name came to mean all the land east of the Manomet and Scusset rivers - essentially the line of the 20th century Cape Cod Canal. Now, the complete towns of Bourne and Sandwich are widely considered to incorporate the full perimeter of Cape Cod, even though small parts of these towns are located on the west side of the canal. The canal divides the largest part of the peninsula from the mainland and the resultant landmass is loosely referred to as an island. Additionally some "Cape Codders" – residents of "The Cape" – refer to all land on the mainland side of the canal as "off-Cape."
For most of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, Cape Cod was considered to consist of three sections:
The Upper Cape is the part of Cape Cod closest to the mainland, comprising the towns of Bourne, Sandwich, Falmouth, andMashpee. Falmouth is the home of the famous Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Marine Biological Laboratory as well as several other research organizations, and is also the most-used ferry connection to Martha's Vineyard. Falmouth is composed of several separate villages, including East Falmouth, Falmouth Village, Hatchville, North Falmouth,Teaticket, Waquoit, West Falmouth, and Woods Hole, as well as several smaller hamlets that are incorporated into their larger neighbors (e.g., Davisville, Falmouth Heights, Quissett, Sippewissett, and others).
The Mid-Cape includes the towns of Barnstable, Yarmouth and Dennis (Not including Dennis Port). The Mid-Cape area features many beautiful beaches, including warm-water beaches along Nantucket Sound, e.g., Kalmus Beach in Hyannis, which gets its name from one of the inventors of Technicolor, Herbert Kalmus. This popular windsurfing destination was bequeathed to the town of Barnstable by Dr. Kalmus on condition that it not be developed, possibly one of the first instances of open-space preservation in the US. The Mid-Cape is also the commercial and industrial center of the region. There are seven villages in Barnstable, including Barnstable Village, Centerville, Cotuit, Hyannis, Marstons Mills, Osterville, and West Barnstable, as well as several smaller hamlets that are incorporated into their larger neighbors (e.g., Craigville, Cummaquid, Hyannisport, Santuit, Wianno, and others).The villages of Yarmouth are South Yarmouth, West Yarmouth and Yarmouth Port. There are five villages in Dennis including, North Dennis, East Dennis, and South Dennis. Dennis Port is considered to be a Lower Cape area.
The Lower Cape traditionally included all of the rest of the Cape, or the towns of Harwich, Brewster, Chatham, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown. Dennis Portwhich is a village of Dennis is said to be a part of the Lower Cape. The Lower Cape area includes the Cape Cod National Seashore, a national park comprising much of the outer Cape, including the entire east-facing coast, and is home to some of the most popular beaches in the United States, such as Coast Guard Beach and Nauset Light Beach in Eastham. Stephen Leatherman, aka "Dr. Beach", named Coast Guard Beach the 5th best beach in America for 2007. The major villages of Harwich are Harwich Port, Harwich Center, South Harwich, Pleasant Lake, West Harwich, East Harwich and North Harwich. Chatham's major villages are North Chatham, West Chatham and South Chatham. Brewster is mainly three areas South Brewster, West Brewster and Brewster (CDP). Orleans major villages are East Orleans and South Orleans. Eastham is mainly divided into North Eastham. Wellfleet major village is South Wellfleet. Truro main area is North Truro and Provincetown has one major village.
"Upper" and "Lower"
The terms "Upper" and "Lower" derive from early usage and reliance on scaled maps and charts. When one travelled to the east, one went down the scale (toward zero at Greenwich, England). On the other hand, travel to the west was up the scale. To this day, on nearby Martha's Vineyard, "Up Island" is the western section and "Down Island" is to the east. And in Maine, the eastern portion of the state is called "Down East." Also, prevailing fair weather winds out of the southwest have been used as the basis for the designations, as winds have traditionally been a basis for directional descriptions by European settlers and their descendants in eastern North America. That is, one would be travelling "down [wind]" to the east with a westerly wind at one's back.
The best known colloquial reference, however, is the "arm" shape of the peninsula as it appears on maps and charts, thus making the southern portion of the Cape the "Upper Arm",Orleans the "Elbow," and the north-south portion that is most like an Atlantic barrier island, the "Lower Arm." Some even refer to Provincetown as the "Hand," with its various points (e.g., the current Race Point, Wood End, and Long Point) as fingers.
In the late nineteenth century, as the Cape began drawing more vacationers and artists on retreat, the nautical nomenclature and potential negative connotation of referring to the towns from Orleans to Provincetown as the "Lower Cape," lost favor to the simpler "Outer Cape."
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