Take a Peek Inside One of Provincetown's Famous Dune Shacks

Dune Shack Kitchen, Provincetown

My cheeks are beginning to cramp up a bit, because I haven't stopped grinning since the day I discovered this splendid bit of Provincetown nostalgia. I wish I knew who to credit for this photo, which speaks volumes about the history of the dunes without uttering a single word. I found it on the Provincetown Photography Page on Facebook, posted by a man who had found it online, with no information on its provenance.
I was a tour guide on Art's Dune Tours for a few years, and I certainly miss being out there every day, amongst those enormous, sandy hillsides, the wildlife, splendid vegetation, endless vistas of the Atlantic, and most of all, the rambling dune shacks dotting the hills and flats. I would occasionally be asked to drive a shack-dweller into the dunes to spend the week in one of these crude huts, an assignment that I relished. I sometimes got to see inside one shack or another as I helped my passengers carry in things they'd need in a remote little shelter without electricity or even the simplest amenities.

C-scape Dune Shack, photo by Jamia Kelly, shows Pilgrim Monument on the
distant horizon in this lovely view over the dunes toward Provincetown Harbor.
Click to enlarge this photo for a closer look at this venerable shack.

Driving these folks back from their respite, I was regaled with tales of glorious sunrises, the smells of beach roses and wildflowers bursting open, and tastes of blueberries and beach plums found on a hike. Stories of wildlife abound, from the scurrying field mice who share most of these primitive shelters, to foraging deer in the forested spots, or gray seals swimming down the beach every night as the sun sizzles into the ocean and twilight takes over.
The moment I saw this charming photo I knew I was looking through the window of one of the famous dune shacks where the likes of Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, Norman Mailer, Lillian Hellman and countless other writers had visited, stayed and worked. In the quiet solitude if the dunes, they were inspired by the sights, smells and sensations of this unique refuge. Nearly every important American writer of the early 1900s sought a bit of solitude in these dunes, and artists flocked there as well. Probably the most universally known artist to have taken inspiration here was abstract painter Jackson Pollock.
Click on the dune tour link above to watch a five-minute video showing you a bit of that adventure led by Rob Costa, whose father, Art, started these trips through the dunes in 1939. You can also reserve a tour of the sand dunes for yourself on this site.
Click this link Dune Shacks: taste of Cape Cods' floating & well-aged homes for a 27-minute video, hosted by a man with current dwelling rights. He'll take you out walking the dunes and beach, learning some of the history of these remarkable shacks, and looking inside the dwelling that his family has been preserving for the better part of the last century. I highly recommend this video.
If you're hardy enough you can walk out into the dunes to spot some of these enchanting shacks yourself. Please try to stay on the trails and avoid trampling the grasses and plant life, and be sure not to disturb folks who might be staying in any one of these primitive shanties. You can also take the dune tour to get out there. It will take you very close to a number of these wonderful shacks.

This Photo Captures Provincetown's Amazing Sand Dunes at Their Finest

At Dune Shacks Trail, by Mark Anthony Lynett, Provincetown Photography Page, Facebook.

This stunning photo is among the most remarkable images of Provincetown's spectacular dunes that I have ever seen. It was taken by Mark Anthony Lynett as he was hiking over a windswept hill, the first to make the trek since the blowing sands had last erased the evidence of any other beings who had walked this way.
He was kind enough to share it on Facebook, on the Provincetown Photography Page, where amazing photos of the harbor beaches, wildlife in the forests, the sun rising and setting, or a thousand other splendid, poignant images routinely appear, reminding us of the many reasons we live here, or visit when we can.
The Provincetown Photography Page is a public group with more than 12,000 members who range from amateurs to hobbyists to professional photographers who, together, have posted more than 106,000 photos of this place we all love. It is well worth looking up.
Warning - bring a cup of coffee or drinking water with you when you visit this page, and you may even want to pack a lunch, because you'll be here much longer than you can imagine, unable to stop looking at "just one more..."

Wildlife Abounds in PTown

Wildlife of all kinds treks over the hills of Provincetown. Click on this photo.

The tracks of all kinds of wildlife can be found on the sandy hillsides and dunes around Provincetown. The forest, wetlands and the dunes are home to deer, fox, raccoon, coyote, rabbit, skunk, turtle, opossum, squirrel, chipmunk, meadow vole and hundreds of migrating birds, along with many others. At any time these little hillsides can show us the tracks of all of these, and many more, including the humans walking over the hills and out to the beaches. We should try to disturb as little of this delicate habitat as possible while enjoying our own recreation.
If you go walking out this way, please make sure you are not contributing to the erosion of the dunes by treading on the plant life, which can be very fragile even though it's resilient enough to grow in nothing but sand. And if you can't resist the urge to climb up on top of some of these hills, please be careful about how much sand you dislodge and send rolling down the slope behind you. Please do your part to preserve the fragile environment that surrounds this bit of paradise we call Provincetown. These lovely hummocks get a little smaller with each one of us who clambers up to conquer the hill.

Brilliant Autumn Leaves Surround PTown

Autumn colors are found in every corner of Provincetown.

Scrub oaks in the dunes are turning rusty shades of red and gold, sugar maples on side streets are rosy shades of vermillion, and Virginia creeper takes on deep scarlet hues all around Provincetown. Take a stroll on the Beech Forest branch of the bike trail and see dozens of yellow and ochre shades among the green.
A walk nearly anywhere in Provincetown this autumn shows us especially bright colors this year, partly because we've had rather sparse rainfall over the last many weeks. The drier the weather at this time of the year, the more brilliant the changing colors of the foliage all around us appear. The leaves are gradually beginning to drop from the trees, so get out for a walk and enjoy this show of splendid fall colors before they disappear.

Provincetown's Beach Grass Can be Artistic as Well as Functional

"Compass grass" traces circles around its stem in continuous gusts of wind.

Beginning back in the 1960s the National Park Service started a program that would help to control the erosion of beaches and dunes in the Provincetown area by planting rows of beach grasses in spots exposed to strong winds or to waves along the shoreline. These grasses were planted to help to stabilize the dunes against the force of the wind, and to keep the beaches from eroding under the constant pressure of waves and tides rolling in along the shore. These grasses also help to defend the beaches from serious storms that can carry away acres of sand from the shoreline overnight.

The grasses on the dunes and sandy hillsides surrounding Provincetown are ammophila breviligulata, or cape American beach grass. This grass can grow quite well even in arid locations, clinging tenaciously to sandy hillsides in even the worst of conditions served up by Mother Nature. It's been planted all along the fore dune (the "front" dune, on the edge of the beach) at Race Point and Herring Cove beaches as well, to help the shoreline resist the wind and the waves that would carry away tons of sand from these areas every year if it weren't for the erosion control provided by these hardy grasses.

The beach grass proliferates on its own by sending out a tremendous root system well below the surface, starting new shoots from rhizomes growing among these roots. A rhizome is a kind of chunky root that sends "fingers" growing in different directions, the way ginger grows. The nodes of the rhizome can each start a new clump of grass growing by sending out a runner under the sand, and blades of grass can spring up several feet from the original culm (stem) and will sometimes show up as a straight line of new grasses fighting their way up to the surface from a root stretching out far below the sandy, windswept hillsides.

After some time these single blades of very tall grass produce a few more stems, forming a little clump of grass as seen in the photo above. These grasses bend in a strong wind, and the tips of the grass often brush against the sand. When the wind blows in steady gusts, the tips of the grasses move with these gusts, often tracing a circle in the sand around these sturdy stems.

Nature makes its own art with the circles drawn by the compass grass and the
long, slender shadows cast by single stems of grass at just the right time of day.

We'll sometimes see hillsides covered with graceful circles surrounding small bunches of beach grass, creating a lovely bit of natural art in the sand. These circles remind us of lines traced by a compass, with one point fixed in the center while the other point rotates around it. With each gust of wind, a tall blade of grass will trace a bit of a circle. As the wind shifts, another part of the circle will be etched. Winds gusting steadily through the day can eventually carve deep circles in the sand. And that is how these individual clusters of "compass grass" got their nickname.

Art's Dune Tours - The Best Way to Experience the Dunes of Provincetown

 

In the 1940s Art Costa returned home to Provincetown, having been a soldier stationed abroad in World War II, wondering what profession he should take up in order to make a living. He was trying to think of something he could stand to do all day for the rest of his life. For a while before the war, he had been a driver for Mitch's Beach Taxi, driving folks out to the back beach, as the locals called what would become known as Race Point Beach when the Cape Cod National Seashore was established years later, in 1961. He had really enjoyed that job, driving out through the little forested patches and the amazing sandy hillsides that make up the dunes, and traveling along a couple of miles of the pristine shoreline of the Outer Cape.
In 1946, driving a 1936 Ford "woody," Art started a beach taxi business of his own, not only driving people out to the beach, but along the way he began telling them stories about the history of the dunes, the wildlife in the area, and the writers, artists and many others who had spent time in the now-famous dune shacks over the years. That's how the business evolved into Art's Dune Tours, taking people on guided tours through the dunes for some 66 years now. Over the years there have been thirteen companies offering rides through the dunes. The others have all come and gone, while Art's remains, happily touring the dunes on several trips each day from the spring into the autumn season every year.
Rob Costa, Art's son, took over the day-to-day operation of the company several years ago when Art's health began to interfere with driving several loads of passengers out through the dunes every day. Rob carries his dad's scrapbook of photos and mementos of the early days in his Chevy Suburban, the model that now makes up the fleet of 7 four-wheel drive vehicles that you'll often see going out caravan style through the dunes, and he tells some of the same stories that his dad had told to countless passengers over the years. Many times Rob had heard his dad say that if you really enjoyed what you were doing, it wasn't work. That seems to be the secret of the longevity of this company. They love what they do, and it shows.
Daily 1-hour tours, 1 1/2-hour lighthouse tours on Sundays, 2-hour sunset tours, and weddings or other special events can be arranged by calling Art's at 508 487-1950, or toll free at 800 894-1951, reserving your trip with a credit card. Or you can drop by their office at 4 Standish Street and arrange your trip through PTown's incredible sand dunes. Tour rates currently start at $27 for adults, $18 for kids, with children age 5 and under riding in your lap for free. Save $2 on your tour by booking online. You can also add a clambake to your sunset tour and enjoy a traditional New England lobster dinner served on the beach by your tour guide, picnic style. Barbecued chicken or vegetarian dinners are available as well.
As the days grow cooler and shorter, tours begin to wind down for the season. Be sure and get out into the dunes in the next few weeks before they give their last tour for the year. It is a remarkable experience and the beauty of the dunes is unparalleled.