PROVINCETOWN — The Public Pier Corp., which operates MacMillan Pier, is proposing fee hikes for this year of around 50 percent to commercial fishermen and recreational businesses like whale watch […]
Top Stories
COLD WAVE
6 Questions Sane People Ask Winter Surfers
It might be crazy, but ‘it makes us smile’
Being a surfer on Cape Cod in the winter invites a lot of questions. Willingly jumping into the ocean when the temperature dips below freezing and the waves are big […]
ORGANIC ART
Drew Carnelli’s Sculptures Grow From the National Seashore
His anonymous creations are inspired by a love for the Cape’s dunes
Drew Carnelli sets off down the beach, a stick to ward off coyotes in one hand, a bait bag for collecting trash in the other. He wanders the Outer Cape […]
ENVIRONMENT
Wellfleet Harbor’s ‘Black Custard’
It’s all-natural, but you wouldn’t want to eat it
WELLFLEET — Agnes Mittermayr, a marine ecologist at the Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) in Provincetown, has coined a new term to describe the dark, sludgy material that fills Wellfleet […]
HERSTORIES
Coloring In the White Space
Four women of color recall growing up on Cape Cod
PROVINCETOWN — Michael Cestaro’s short film White Space will screen on Sunday, Jan. 17 at 3 p.m. on Zoom. In it, four women of color — Mozelle Andrulot, Alejandra Cuadra, […]
RECYCLING, PART 2: GLASS
With Recycling and Re-Use Rare, Glass Gets Downcycled
Crushed into PGA, glass becomes construction material
Garbage. It’s a story ripe with complexity. The Independent is dumpster diving into the subject to better understand where the Outer Cape’s garbage goes. In this second installment, we look […]
What’s Past Is Prologue
A special art & photography edition for the New Year
We are grateful to the artists and photographers included here who have helped us create a New Year’s greeting card to the Independent’s readers.
ECONOMY
For Wellfleet Shellfishermen, Farmers Market Is ‘Pure Good News’
On the town pier: oysters to go
WELLFLEET — For local shellfishermen, good news this fall was in short supply. Covid’s shuttering of restaurants across the country had wreaked havoc on the wholesale distribution chain, usually a […]
FARMING
No Permit Needed for Six Geese a-Laying
Eastham health board relents on some proposed farm animal rules
EASTHAM — The board of health wanted to tighten the town’s regulations on the keeping of noncommercial farm animals. But blowback from the public has made the board think again. […]
ROUND FOOD FOR EVERY MOOD
At Salty Market, Bagels Are a Family Affair
‘The best I’ve ever had outside New York’
TRURO — “The ranking goes: New York bagels,” said Claire Adams, chef and owner of North Truro’s Salty Market, “and then Montreal bagels. And then….” Here, Ellery Althaus, Salty’s manager […]
CLIMATE CRISIS
West End Salt Marsh Dieback Accelerates
After the purple crabs graze, millennia of peat washes away
PROVINCETOWN — On a Sunday morning in November, the low tide and lure of fresh foraged food drew many recreational shellfishermen to this season’s designated clamming area, the west side […]
WILDLIFE
Outer Cape Gets Season’s First Wave of Strandings
They’re mostly young turtles, but one loggerhead weighed in at 350 pounds
Thanksgiving week is a busy time for the sea turtle team at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary and some 200 volunteers who work to rescue cold-stunned turtles on the Outer […]
WATERFRONT
Rock Harbor Panel Mulls Change of Plan
Committee rejects idea of repurposing antique house as office
EASTHAM — The Rock Harbor Improvements Committee will not recommend moving an antique half Cape from 60 Dyer Prince Road and turning it into the harbormaster’s new office. Instead, the […]
MAYFLOWER HISTORY, PART 1
For Indigenous People, a Different Kind of Mayflower Story
‘You can’t create a colony without creating people who are colonized’
PROVINCETOWN — On Nov. 11, 1620, 130-odd sea-weary Brits stepped off the Mayflower and onto Provincetown’s sandy shores — into a new world, barely inhabited and ripe with possibility. Then […]
DEMOCRACY 2020
It’s an Outer Cape Biden Landslide
The Democratic ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris swept the Outer Cape in Tuesday’s presidential election, defeating Donald Trump and Mike Pence by margins ranging from 42 percent in […]
