Provincetown, Ma

Three miles long
and
two streets wide
P-​town is the very tip, the end of the world. Keep going on Cape Cod until you can’t go any further and this is where you end up. A narrow spit of sand that is packed with history and surrounded by water. A terminal moraine, the area was formed when the glaciers finally decided to call it quits about 18,000 years ago.
P-​town was first «discovered» by the enigmatic Bartholomew Gosnold way back in 1602, although I’m sure the indigenous Nauset tribe that had been living there for centuries and would probably take exception at the word discovered
Gosnold never seemed to stay in one place for very long and just sailed on. In 1620 the English Pilgrims were attempting to sail into the Manhattan area and missed by a few hundreds miles and ended up here. Whoops. The Pilgrims were impressed by the great harbor and abundance of sea life and stayed for a couple of weeks until finally chased away by the Nausets.
Of course once the word got out other Europeans quickly came and P-​town got the reputation as a great fishing and whaling port. Portuguese fishermen settled the area and and a booming town sprang up. It stayed this way until the late 19^th century when P-​town started becoming a haven for artists, writers and eventually tourists.
Today P-​town is a dichotomy. A wild place of sand, wind and sea with several narrow streets packed with shops, fantastic art galleries, restaurants and some very creative and eccentric people. In the summer it gets crowded with tourists and on weekends seems to be one endless party but in the winter changes back to a quiet, introspective and thoughtful place to create and interact with the sea, sand and raging winds.
During the 1970’s P-​town became known as a place where alternative lifestyles could thrive, and openly gay, lesbian, transsexual, and just about anyone else can be seen freely walking the streets mixed in with tourists, artists, fisherman, priests, families and people from all over the world speaking many different languages. An occasional knucklehead still might cause problems but for the most part everyone gets along just fine.
P-​town is a town like no other. A place where you can enjoy wild weather, cool lighthouses, monstrous seas or incredible creativity and diversity among humans. A place where people are free to be whatever they want. One elderly, longtime P-​town friend once succinctly summed up P-​town to me. She said it was a place to be free, do whatever you want and enjoy life to the fullest just as long as you don’t hurt anyone else.
Three miles long
and
two streets wide