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Cape Cod Canal

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What’s 17 miles long, 540 ft wide and connects Cape Cod Bay with Buzzard’s Bay? Answer: The Cape Cod Canal

I thought I’d write a little about the canal because it’s a beautiful area and it’s fascinated me for years. I have had a goal to bike the length of it since I moved out here 30 years ago. Still haven’t done it. Maybe this year.

The canal is spanned by 3 bridges, the Cape Cod Railroad Bridge, the Bourne Bridge and the Sagamore Bridge. I was amazed to learn that there  are traffic lights at each end of the canal to regulate vessels that are over 65 ft!

The idea of the canal was first considered by the pilgrims back in 1623. William Bradford surveyed the area trying to find a way to reduce travel time to the new trading post he established and there the matter ended until 1697 when the General Court of Massachusetts took the first formal request to build a canal under consideration. Over a series of years the area was explored and surveyed numerous times. Even George Washington got involved as one of the surveyors on the project but each time the project fell by the wayside.

The first attempt to actually put shovel to ground and try to dig the canal did not come until the late 19th century. Any previous attempts had been doomed by either money or the shear immensity of the project. It would take someone with real vision and audacity to  get behind the idea.

 That man finally stepped forward in the form of August Belmont Jr, American financier and thoroughbred racer and June of 1909 construction finally began. Almost immediately the engineers ran into difficulty. The builders had “tons” of obstacles to over come and I mean that quite literally. The builders soon discovered huge boulders in the path of the canal left over from the retreat of the glaciers after the last ice age. That problem was tackled by blasting and dredging but it made for slow going. Add to those headaches are the problems inherent in trying to complete a major outdoor project with New England weather to contend with and , well you can see how the canal could be called the original “Big Dig”.

Still the engineers plodded on and finally the canal was opened partially in 1914 and finally completed in 1916.

From 1916 to 1935 the canal muddled along. It was narrow and shallow and navigation was difficult. There were numerous accidents that marred the reputation of the waterway. Finally the government stepped in and under the US Army Corps of Engineering the canal was widened and deepened until it became the widest sea level canal in the world!

Today in addition to being a commercial and recreational waterway, the area has been developed into a heavily used recreation area for biking, walking, skating and fishing. It has benches set at scenic areas along the canal where people like to sit and watch the boat traffic. There are access roads on both sides of the canal that make it easy to reach the best fishing spots.

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So now I just have to get a bicycle!

May Day

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This is a little side bar or diversion from my usual posts. May 1 was yesterday and it’s a kind of quasi holiday so I felt it should have some recognition.

Since I was at work all day I wasn’t out dancing around the Maypole in the sunshine 🙂

In fact May Day isn’t just about flowers in your hair and Maypole dances. I was surprised to learn that in many places it’s labor day or  the “official” name International Workers’ Day.

International Workers’ Day began in 1856 in Australia as a “workers holiday’ commemorating the fight for an 8 hour workday. The original day was April 22 but as the idea spread around the world it was moved to May 1.

As interesting as that bit of trivia is I was thinking more about the tradition of the Maypole and the more ancient celebrations. Traditional May Day celebrations are actually tied to the Celtic Festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgs Night. May Day marks the end of the unfarmable winter half of the year in the northern hemisphere. It’s a festival of rebirth and hope as the cold disappears and green grass and trees return. Baby animals are born and the cycle of life is reaffirmed.

Even earlier Mayday was associated with Flora, the Roman Goddess of flowers.

The Maypole is a tall wooden pole that is raised  as part of various folk festivals. Even with the tradition clearly documented no one seems to agree on the significance of the pole. Makes me think of the story of the lady who was cooking a ham and always cut the ends off. One day her daughter asked her “Mom, why do you cut the ends of the ham?”. Her mother replied, ” because that’s the way grandma always did it.” So when the little girl saw her grandmother she asked her and Grandma said the same thing. Finally the great-grandmother spoke up. She said “We always cut the ends off because we didn’t have a pan big enough to hold the ham.”…but a tradition was born and no one remembered where it came from.  Seems like that’s what goes on here with the Maypole.

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In any case, I like the idea of spring and flowers and ribbons on a pole and everyone skipping and dancing around it. It’s a happy vision 🙂 So no matter where the idea or tradition came from, I hope it continues to stay around a long time!

Cape Cod Spring

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It was a beautiful, warm spring day in Taunton. The sun was shining, the breeze was warm, the kind of day when you can believe that anything is possible.  I spent the morning running errands and generally puttering around but after lunch wanderlust kicked in. I’ve been working on a post about Cape Cod National Seashore, not to mention that there was a good possibility that there would still be whales around that might be seen from shore so it was easy to talk myself into an afternoon jaunt to the cape.

One of the nice things about Cape Cod this time of year is that everything is fresh and new. Trees are budding and folks are sprucing everything up to get ready for the summer season but the tourists haven’t arrived yet…at least not “en-mass”. There are a few vacationers but they are the exception so travel is easy. No traffic jams. It seemed like a good time to try to get pictures for that post.

It seemed like a good idea that is until I hit Bourne. I hadn’t even got to the bridges when the fog rolled in. Not little wispy fog but great , dense fog and over cast skies. I worked my way from scenic overlook to scenic overlook, debating all the way if I should turn around and save the gas or gamble that the fog was localized near the canal. Gambling won and it was a pretty good gamble.

By the time I reached the Salt Pond Visitor Center in Eastham the sun was shining again. There were a few hikers around but the Visitor Center was quiet. The Ranger at the desk asked me if I needed help  as soon as I walked in to ask about the fog conditions around the cape and if any whales had been sighted  today. He said the tip of the cape, Provincetown, Race Point and part of Truro on the bay side were pretty much socked in by fog but the ocean side of the cape was still clear with just a haze filtering the sunlight. He said most of the whales were down around Race Point but that some had been seen near Head of the Meadow Beaches in Truro.

Always the optimist I set off to look for the whales again. This time I had a new camera lens and I hoped it would be enough to let me catch some shots from shore. I went to Nauset Light first as that was where I saw the whales the last time. Nothing today. I moved on down to Marconi Beach. Struck out again. By now the clouds were starting to gather and the breeze was turning into more of a wind.

I decided one last stop and if I struck out there I would take the long way home and sight see up 6A  to the Sagamore Bridge. I pulled down to Coast Guard Beach and there I hit pay dirt. As soon as I pulled in I could see multiple blows on the horizon. The wind was really starting to blow too so I pulled on a wind breaker, gathered my 500 mm lens and the monopod and stepped up to the fence to brace against the wind.

Through the camera I could see the whales quite clearly. They were very active. The sun was still shining but it wasn’t as intense as it had been and there was definitely a slight mist. The blue sky seemed to blend into the ocean making the horizon line a fuzzy blur. It was really different and I was happy to try to capture those unusual conditions. It made me think of a piece of art or a multi-hued tapestry as it seemed to have a texture all of its own.

It was almost more mesmerizing than whales as they were so far out as to be tiny specs and spots in the mist.

I tried for pictures again without much better luck. Better lens, worse weather conditions, can’t win. I was joined by a couple from New Hampshire who were trying to video tape the action. He was having trouble holding his little video camera steady in the now gale like winds. He tried a tripod but that was shaking too. I was having my own troubles holding my big lens steady on the monopod. I wouldn’t have had any luck if not for the fence.

Before too long we had quite a crowd lined up watching for spouts. With that many people watching I doubt if any sightings were missed. Over the sound of the wind you heard an almost continuous chorus of there’s one, and there’s another , oh there’s two and I see a tail, that’s a flipper and so on. I was there over 3 hours before finally packing it in just before 6pm. I was tempted to stay around to see if there would be enough of a break in the clouds for a nice sunset but thought better of it. It was getting quite cold and sunset was still over an hour away.

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I said good-bye to my fellow whale watchers and headed home. I was anxious to see if I had caught anything under these conditions. The result was disappointing, again, but the day was not! I will keep trying until the whales move on or I get that “money” shot.

An Interesting Evening

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Good Morning. This will be a short post because between work and my trip into Boston last night I just haven’t had time to properly prepare anything. Still I owe you something if I am going to meet my goal of 6 posts a week.

Last night instead of applying myself and preparing today’s adventure, I went into Boston to the BCAE (stands for Boston Center for Adult Education) to take a class called Travel Writing. It was taught by a feature writer from the Boston Globe, David Abel. I read the Boston Globe travel section regularly and get lots of ideas in the New England section for places to go and see that I then write about here.

David Abel’s pieces tend to be the international stories, the features that lead the travel section. Those are the premier spots so it was really exciting and kind of intimidating to be in a class taught by someone whose work I read every Sunday.

Right out of the gate, David had us write a lead in to a story. Then he had each of us read our lead in out loud. There were 7 of us in all and it seemed that I was the only one that did not have international travel experience. I also had the lead in that needed the most work. I don’t think I do my best writing under those conditions but the class critique was ok. As usual I was harder on myself than my classmates or the teacher 🙂

The class was about 3 hours long and consisted of 6 women and one man. It went fast, always a sign of an interesting topic. We touched on blogs as a way to develop our writing skills and to provide examples of our writing to potential editors. He asked how many of us have blogs and 3 of us raised our hands. In reply he said, then start one! He also looked at my Blog Book and pronounced it well done and showed it to the class.

The main thrust of the class was to  GET PUBLISHED!  David addressed the differences in writing for a magazine vs a newspaper such as the Boston Globe. How to “pitch” a story and what you might expect to be paid. He spent a good part of the class stressing the different parts of the story and how each part supports the lead in. I am not going to share too much of that here. If you are interested there’s another class coming up later in the year.

He wrapped up the class by telling us we were all his collegues and that we can get published even without journalism degrees and experience. We have to be open to the editors suggestions as they are bound to take our story and shred it, returning the bare bones to be reworked whether we agree with it or not. But David said leave the ego at the door and develop a good working relationship with the editors and making good money on each trip is not out of the question.

Wow! What a positive experience! Could there possibly be a Dusty Roads by-line in my future? A big Thank You to my friend Diane of the Mexican travels for suggesting  this class to me. I’m really glad I took the class!