Cape Cod trip adds to vacation Provincetown set up well for scenic walks

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It was good to have had time away from work during last week’s “school vacation.” My wife and I had the luxury of moving a few pieces of furniture out of the house and garage and into our daughter’s apartment in Providence, R.I. Several more such trips and our nest might be empty enough to allow some internal movement. (How do we collect so much stuff?)

After the move and a day or two spent visiting with families, we were both ready for a couple of days of decompression and we headed for Cape Cod – no particular part, just the cape. It took several hours of meandering the entire outer coastline, but eventually we wound up at the end of the line, Provincetown, at the last motel on the point. Lucky for me, said my wife, there was a room available. (Actually there were many rooms available, it being offseason.)

We hit a grocery store, stocked up on vitals, and settled in for the night while outside the temperature plummeted into the low 40s and the winds howled. When we left Boston earlier in the day, temperatures were in the mid-80s!

Next day we decided to walk the breakwater/dike, a 11/2-mile-long stone pathway built across the western end of Provincetown Harbor in 1911. It was built to control erosion and keep shifting sands out of the harbor. About halfway across it occurred to us to wonder about high tide, since in one place the waves were lapping the topmost stones. No fear, a local who was on her return walk told us, it was past high tide.

We walked across the breakwater, then down the beach to Wood End Light Station, one of Provincetown’s three lighthouses. We could have walked to the nearby Long Point Light at the very tip of the cape, but it appeared to be about a mile away and we’d already covered several miles. I found reference to a walk across the breakwater encompassing Wood End and Long Point and returning as being a four-hour walk.

The third of Provincetown’s lighthouses, Race Point light on the north near the airport, is accessible by car. We checked it out later.

This week, still curious about the long, stone dike, I contacted Laurel Guadazno, curator of education, Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum, and she sent me something she’d written about it.

“A nice thing to do in pleasant weather is to walk across the west end breakwater at low tide to Long Point. The breakwater or dike was one of two projects built in town by the Army Corp of Engineers. The breakwater in the west end of town was built in 1911 to prevent quantities of sand from washing into the harbor. A stroll across the breakwater has long been a pastime for local residents.

“Mary Alice Luis Cook in an essay titled ‘Fond Memories of Provincetown’ remembers, ‘As teenagers, we would walk up to the breakwater in the west end of town and, if the tide was low, we would walk as far as we could on the large blocks of stone until the water was too high for us to jump from one rock to the other – just as you can see people enjoying themselves in this way today.'”

Crossing the breakwater you enter the Cape Cod National Sea Shore. Here’s how the national park service describes the park: “[It] comprises 43,604 acres of shoreline and upland landscape features, including a 40-mile long stretch of pristine sandy beach, dozens of clear, deep, freshwater kettle ponds, and upland scenes that depict evidence of how people have used the land. A variety of historic structures are within the boundary of the Seashore, including lighthouses, a lifesaving station, and numerous Cape Cod style houses. The Seashore offers six swimming beaches, 11 self-guiding nature trails, and a variety of picnic areas and scenic overlooks.”

I’d describe it as one long, long stretch of sandy beach – more sand than you’d ever see in Maine, that’s for sure.

Several years ago I received a map of the park and I had foolishly entertained thoughts of kayaking the length from Provincetown south to the southern tip of Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge. After seeing a fair amount of sand dunes, I’ve reconsidered. Unless one were to go inshore to the bays and marsh areas, the scenery on the outer shore is pretty much the same.

Interestingly, in 1620 when the Pilgrims first landed in Provincetown and signed their compact, the area was wooded. They named Wood End as such because it was “compassed about to the very sea with oaks, pines, juniper, sassafras, and other sweet wood.”

Canoe poling event postponed

Due to high water on the Kenduskeag Stream, the 16th Maine Canoe Poling Championships set for Sunday right here in River City have been postponed to May 8.

The all-day poling event features an instructional workshop in the morning and an afternoon of competition poling. Beginners can learn basic poling skills at the workshop, then put them to use in one of the intermediate poling races if they wish or just stay to observe and learn from watching some of the best competitive canoe polers in the country.

Warren Cochrane of Greenville is one of the masters of this skill and he can show you a thing or two about standing up in a canoe, upstream or down, whitewater or flat.

Registration for the event begins at 8:30 a.m. at the Valley Avenue park near the I-95 overpass in Bangor. Instruction and races take place on the stretch of river adjacent to the park. The event usually draws a friendly group of polers and spectators.

There is a $5 registration fee to participate in the workshop or to compete. For more information contact Cochrane at 695-3668.

Something fishy

Ever wonder about alewives?

Wonder no more. Check out a presentation by Naomi Schalit of Maine Rivers entitled “Maine Alewives and Current Implications for the Orland River Run.” Schalit will give her free talk at 7 p.m. on May 12 at the Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery in East Orland. The Friends of Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery Inc. will provide light refreshments.

According to the invitation I received, “Alewives [Alosa pseudoharengus] are native to Maine rivers, and like sea-run Atlantic salmon, striped bass, rainbow smelts, American shad and several other species, they’re anadromous, spending their adulthood in the ocean and migrating to fresh water habitats to spawn.”

Directions to Craig Brook: Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery is located in East Orland, 6 miles east of Bucksport and 13 miles west of Ellsworth on Route 1. Watch for blue and white Maine DOT signs for the hatchery. Turn onto Hatchery Road at Toddy Pond; the hatchery is located 1.3 miles down Hatchery Road.

Call Bob Mushrall, president, Friends of Craig Brook NFH, at 469-2400 or the hatchery at 469-6701, ext. 215, for more information.

Fun on two wheels

The Bicycle Coalition of Maine has distributed the first copies of its new 2005 BikeMaine Event Calendar that lists 160 biking events across the state and some 90 weekly rides. The calendar is free, and if you are one who likes getting around on two wheels under your own power and are socially inclined, here’s your ticket to heaven.

The calendars are free. Just call Jeffrey Miller at 623-4511 or check out the coalition’s Web site at www.bikemaine.org. Or you could visit your neighborhood bicycle shop and pick one up there.

Paddle Smart Safety Symposium

If your calendar is still out, be sure to mark May 14 for the upcoming fifth edition of Paddle Smart Safety Symposium that will be held at a new location this year – the YWCA on Second Street in Bangor. Two pools promise you the chance to get your feet wet and try out a boat. There will be a host of informative seminars and demonstrations as well as a gymnasium-full of exhibits all related to paddling and safety on the water. And as usual there will be door prizes and raffle items galore. The fun begins at 1 p.m. and will wrap up around 5 p.m.

Best of all the afternoon’s fun is free (except for the raffle so you can spend your allowance on those tickets).

If you paddle, are thinking about paddling, or are just plain curious about all fuss around the experience, I’ll see you there. I guarantee you’ll find something to rattle your chain.

Jeff Strout can be reached at 990-8202 or by e-mail at jstrout@bangordailynews.net.