When the Pilgrim Fathers on the Mayflower stumbled ashore in 1620, after a 66-day struggle across a wintry Atlantic, Cape Cod offered safe harbour. And hope. The settlement that grew up in their wake, Provincetown, today shines as a beacon that offers safe harbour in an America currently embroiled in stormy waters. And hope.
I make landfall just a few miles from where the pilgrims were saved. A simple plaque marks that spot. The first thing that strikes me is the hulking 77-metre tower erected in their memory. The second would have those immigrants from England turning in their puritanical graves. Half of the New York Store is a cheery traditional ice cream parlour; the other half revels as a cannabis dispensary, a fitting welcome to the most inclusive, progressive and tolerant town in New England, perhaps the US.
You can pick up a free map on the ferry from Boston to “P-Town”, as it’s almost universally abbreviated. I don’t have time to even open it en route as I am too busy spotting humpback and minke whales, who also harbour in the nutrient-rich protected waters. We’ve voyaged a mere 60 miles from Boston, but Provincetown feels an ocean apart from much of Trumpian America. We’re at the very tip of the Cape Cod peninsula, yes, but P-Town very much feels like an island oasis.
That free map is an exuberant “Queer Adventure Guide & Map to LGBT+ Provincetown”, bursting with information about the “Gaybourhood”, including drag shows, tea dances and “Boy Beach”, the last a cruisey playground befitting its moniker. Queer lifestyles are not just tolerated here, they’re reassuringly the norm, making P-Town a blessed relief to anyone who has spent part of their lives trapped in any form of closet.
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The traditional clapboard architecture may coyly evoke the respectability and tradition of Cape Cod-loving John F Kennedy’s America, but beyond those elegant wooden porches, the seriously unpuritanical P-Town is closer to the remarkable president’s alleged more nefarious sides. Anything goes in Commercial Street’s wee stores and independent boutiques: the only chains in P-Town are the ones you’ll find yourself trussed up in, if you so desire.
The tourist office proudly claims on its website that “Provincetown is a place that changes you. Any season. Every time.” It’s easy to agree, with an energy and openness that are impossible to ignore, as I head to ScottCakes, whose slogan of choice is “Legalise Gay Cupcakes, before continuing to my hotel with Pride Rides taxis.
Manager Jaime-Lyn Daley greets me at the ocean-view Harbor Hotel Provincetown with a typically warm P-Town welcome and checks me in, before Uber driver John sweeps me back into town. He’s a “Townie”, born and bred, rather than one of the myriad hues of refugees who have found sanctuary and acceptance here. “You can keep your seafood and your beaches,” he smiles. “For me it’s all about the tolerance of the people. Yes, we’ve had a lot of big money coming in recently, but we remain very tolerant.”
That tolerance is not a new thing. It drifts back in time, shifting through the sweeping sand dunes and the cobalt ocean that frames P-Town on both flanks under big Atlantic skies. In the 19th century, P-Town welcomed Portuguese sailors, mainly from the Azores and Algarve, who felt at home here. It is easy to see why – the coastline reminds me of the sand bars and dunes of the eastern Algarve.
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Robert Costa is third-generation Portuguese, his grandparents fisherfolk from Olhao. His dad was born in Provincetown and set up Art’s Dune Tours in 1946 after returning from fighting in Italy during the Second World War, a time when tourists from all over America were discovering the glorious charms of Cape Cod. Robert (P-Town is a first-name-terms sort of place) and his family have lived through great change, but he remains positive: “At our heart we still have the historic preserved architecture and protected landscape. We’ve also kept a tightly knit sense of real community that has been lost across a lot of America.”
Former city slicker Bill Sulliven sweeps me off for one of the famous dune tours. This is no Dubai-style dune-destroyer, but a nature drive around a set route that minimises damage to the fragile world of grasses, heathers and myriad fauna. As we stop to gaze out, Bill seems to be enjoying himself as much as me. The ocean dances across his eyes as he explains: “I lived in Boston for 35 years, but I’ve really found myself living here. Life here is just so much more relaxing and closer to nature than any big city.”
We’ve got JFK to thank for this preservation. He signed the Cape Cod National Seashore into existence in 1961, preserving a natural joy that has proven a haven for people, too. P-Town is home to America’s oldest continuous art colony, and writers such as Eugene O’Neill, Jack Kerouac and Tennessee Williams have sought inspiration in the wooden shacks set in the dunes. P-Town’s magnetism also captivated Anthony Bourdain, America’s great foodie Hemingway, when he worked here washing dishes.
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Next, I head to Gale Force Bikes. Kate Coman is another typically positive P-Town resident. Her insistence that the best thing about her home is “the people, the people, the people” dances through my heart as I skip off the tarmac and onto the web of wild trails. I’m immediately adrift in a world more Jurassic Park than theme park.
On my last morning, I wake at sunrise, drawn back to this wild world where the pilgrims staggered ashore. The only sounds are the gentle late-spring breeze, the distant rumble of the ocean and the coyote I startle just metres ahead on the trail. With the coyote gone and his accompanying vultures circling far overhead, it’s just me in the dunes. Bar, of course, the ghosts and free spirits of the generations of pilgrims, fishermen, writers and artists who have all found sanctuary in this most beguiling of natural and human harbours. Some locals like to call P-Town the “end of the world”, but it’s more a continuation of American hope, as it has been since 1620.
Getting there
Jet Blue flies from London to Boston, offering both economy seats and Mint business class beds. Flight time is around 7 hours 30 minutes. Boat transfers from Boston’s Logan Airport arrive close to the Provincetown Ferry.
Robin travelled as a guest of Discover New England and JetBlue.
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