editorial feature
Call of the DUNES
Province Lands Provincetown’s landforms— dunes, marshes and beaches and its pockets of forest—are geologically among the newest in North America, only 3,000–5,000 years old, formed after glacial ice retreated following its peak 22,000 years ago. Glaciers created the moraines and sand plains of Cape Cod—but the Province Lands dune fields are even newer, created by the ocean through the action of waves, tides and storms. The Province Lands were built entirely by the sea, out of marine sand. Although the first people arrived at least 12,000 years ago and used the land for gathering, hunting and fishing, the Provincetown landscape took shape in the last several thousand years when they began a more settled life, seasonally at first. The New England Tribes: Wampanoag, Pamet, Nauset, Massachusett, Narragansett and others, traveled and traded across the South Coast and Cape Cod as far as the Province Lands. Native people in New England had customs that paid respect to all animals, whether they were predators or prey. In recent centuries, sheltered pockets of forest and swamp accumulated in the hollows, nurtured by groundwater and thin layers of soil laid down over the sand. The dunelands themselves, when not anchored by beach grass, vines and shrubs, have moved with the prevailing winds and weather, creating giant parabolic ridges pocketed with little hollows. Over time a unique ecological web of wildlife and plants found refuge here, including nest sites for 26 | provincetownartguide.com
migrating terns and plovers, habitat for endemic spadefoot toads and hognose snakes, as well as deer, coyotes, “fisher cats” and other small mammals. Another hardy group who found refuge in the Province Lands were the “dune dwellers.” The offshore Peaked Hill Bars were extremely dangerous shoals, and from the 1700s onward many ships wrecked there. Because survivors could wash ashore into remote dunes with little chance of finding help, authorities and local residents established small huts and later formal lifesaving stations. Fishermen, wreck salvagers, cranberry pickers, and later artists and writers began constructing small personal shacks in the dunes. Some reused lumber from shipwrecks or abandoned structures.