A waterway, about 28 km (17.5 mi) long, of southeast Massachusetts connecting Buzzards Bay with Cape Cod Bay, the southern part of Massachusetts Bay. The canal was built (1910-1914) to shorten the water route between New York and Boston.
Cape Cod
| Dictionary: Cape Cod Canal |
A waterway, about 28 km (17.5 mi) long, of southeast Massachusetts connecting Buzzards Bay with Cape Cod Bay, the southern part of Massachusetts Bay. The canal was built (1910-1914) to shorten the water route between New York and Boston.
| 5min Related Video: Cape Cod |
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Cape Cod |
For more information on Cape Cod, visit Britannica.com.
| US History Encyclopedia: Cape Cod |
Cape Cod is a narrow, sandy peninsula in southeastern Massachusetts bounded by Nantucket Sound, Cape Cod Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean. The Vikings may have visited in 1001. The Cape's sixty-five-mile arm—hooking into the ocean—was subsequently a landmark for many early European explorers. Giovanni da Verrazano sailed around it in 1524, Esteban Gomes arrived in 1525, and Bartholomew Gosnold named it in 1602 because of the abundant codfish in adjacent waters. Samuel de Champlain charted its harbors in 1606 and John Smith mapped Cape Cod in 1614. The Pilgrims landed at Provincetown in 1620 before settling at Plymouth and they established communities at Barnstable (1638), Sandwich (1638), Yarmouth (1639), and Eastham (1651).
The English colonists, who had peaceful relations with the native Wampanoag and Nauset people on Cape Cod, found the soil too poor for farming and turned to fishing and whaling. Harvesting clams and oysters and obtaining salt from the evaporation of seawater were industries before 1800 and cranberry bogs were first established in 1816. Shipbuilding flourished before the American Revolution and Sandwich was famous for glass making from 1825 to 1888. Many of the 100,000 Portuguese immigrants to New England, attracted by whaling, fishing, and shipping, had settled in Cape Cod communities as early as 1810.
Because of the many shipwrecks in the vicinity, the picturesque Highland Lighthouse was built on a scenic bluff in Truro in 1797. The Whydah, flagship of the Cape Cod pirate prince, Captain Samuel Bellamy, was wrecked in a storm off Orleans in 1717. The lighthouse and the Whydah Museum in Brewster are popular attractions for tourists visiting the Cape Cod National Seashore, established in 1961. The Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod with Buzzards Bay, was built in 1914 to shorten the often-dangerous voyage for ships sailing around Provincetown from Boston to New York City.
By 1835 Martha's Vineyard had attracted Methodist vacationers to summer campgrounds and tourism had become a cornerstone of the modern Cape Cod economy. Henry David Thoreau, who wrote Cape Cod in 1865, was one of many writers and artists attracted by the unique scenery of the Cape. Provincetown had a bohemian summer community by 1890, including an avant garde theater company, the Provincetown Players, in 1915. Summer theaters and art galleries continued to entertain visitors through the twentieth century. In Wellfleet, the ruins of Guglielmo Marconi's first transatlantic radio station in 1903 can be seen on the Cape Cod National Seashore's Marconi Beach.
The distinctive Cape Cod house, a one-story, center-chimney cottage built in the eighteenth century, is found across the United States. The moraines, high ground rising above the coastal plain, and sand dunes reveal a forest of pitch pine and scrub oak with marsh grasses, beach peas, bayberry shrubs, beach plums, and blueberry bushes. The naturalist Henry Beston described life on the Cape Cod dunes in The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod (1928). Most of the ponds and lakes on Cape Cod are kettles formed by melting glacial ice. Because the Gulf Stream tempers the New England climate on Cape Cod, retirement communities and tourism, as well as fishing and cranberry growing, are the major industries on Cape Cod.
Bibliography
Adam, Paul. Saltmarsh Ecology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Schneider, Paul. The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket. New York: Henry Holt, 2000.
—Peter C. Holloran
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Cape Cod |
Cape Cod, narrow peninsula of glacial origin, 399 sq mi (1,033 sq km), SE Mass., extending 65 mi (105 km) E and N into the Atlantic Ocean. It is generally flat, with sand dunes, low hills, and numerous lakes. Bartholomew Gosnold, an English explorer, visited the Cape in 1602 and named it for the abundant fish found in surrounding waters. Fishing, whaling, shipping, and salt making were important until the late 1800s. Tourism and cranberry growing (Cape Cod is the nation's largest producer) are now economic mainstays. Housing development and population (now about 200,000) have gradually increased, and the Cape is faced with strains on water and road systems as well as with increasing pollution. Towns on Cape Cod include Barnstable; Provincetown, site of the Pilgrims' first landing (1620); Falmouth, location of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; and Bourne, through which the Cape Cod Canal passes. This lockless canal, 17.5 mi (28.2 km) long, 32 ft (10 m) deep, was built (1910-14) from private funds and purchased by the U.S. government in 1927; it accommodates oceangoing vessels and cuts the distance between New York City and Boston by 75 mi (121 km). Parts of Cape Cod constitute Cape Cod National Seashore (43,685 acres/17,686 hectares; est. 1961). It contains beaches, sand dunes, heathlands, marshes, freshwater ponds, and historic sites, including the first Marconi wireless station in the United States.
Bibliography
See histories by H. C. Kittredge (2d ed. 1968) and P. Schneider (2000).
| Geography: Cape Cod |
Resort area on the Atlantic Ocean in Massachusetts. Its fishhook shape is easily recognized on a map.
| Wikipedia: Cape Cod National Seashore |
- This article refers to the protected land run by the National Park Service. For other meanings of Cape Cod, see Cape Cod (disambiguation).
| Cape Cod National Seashore | |
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IUCN Category V (Protected Landscape/Seascape)
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| Location | Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA |
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| Nearest city | Provincetown, MA |
| Coordinates | 42°04′26″N 70°12′19″W / 42.07389°N 70.20528°WCoordinates: 42°04′26″N 70°12′19″W / 42.07389°N 70.20528°W |
| Established | August 7, 1961 |
| Visitors | 3,712,812 (in 2005) |
| Governing body | National Park Service |
The Cape Cod National Seashore (CCNS), created on August 7, 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, encompasses 43,500 acres (176 km²) of ponds, woods and beachfront on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The CCNS includes nearly 40 miles (60 km) of seashore along the Atlantic-facing eastern edge of Cape Cod, in the towns of Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans and Chatham.
The CCNS is run by the National Park Service, with the dual goal of protecting precious, ecologically fragile land, while allowing the public to enjoy a unique resource.
Notable sites encompassed by the CCNS include Marconi Station, site of the first two-way transatlantic radio transmission, and the Highlands Center for the Arts, formerly the North Truro Air Force Station. The glacial erratic known as Doane Rock is also located on the grounds.
As part of the NPS Centennial Initiative, the Herring River estuary will be restored to its natural state through removal of dikes and drains that date back to 1909.[1]
Gallery
 An entrance to the Cape Cod National Seashore in Eastham, Massachusetts |
 Cape Cod National Seashore |
 Nauset Light |
 View from Highland Light |
 Marconi Beach |
 Late July Sunset at Race Point Beach |
References
- ^ Bomar, Mary A. (August 2007). "Summary of Park Centennial Strategies" (PDF). National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/2016/assets/files/Summary-of-Park-Centennial-Strategies.pdf. Retrieved 2008-02-15.
External links
- National Park Service, Cape Cod National Seashore
- Color map of the Park, with roads, beaches, and trails (PDF format)
- The Penniman House: A Whaling Story, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan
- Cape Cod National Seashore travel guide from Wikitravel
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| US History Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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| Geography. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more |
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Mentioned in
- Nantucket (Geography)
- Buzzards Bay (inlet of the Atlantic Ocean)
- Cape house
- Yarmouth
- Sandwich
- Arridae (vertebrate zoology)
- Georges Banks (geology)
- Sarah Pratt McLean (literature)
- Georges Bank (sandbank)
- Hyannis (town of southeast Massachusetts)
- Massachusetts Bay (inlet of the Atlantic Ocean)
- Cape Cod cottage (house of one or one-and-a-half stories)
- full Cape house
- half house
