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Just What Is Cape Cod?

From time to time this question is talked about by people who do not live on the Cape. They have a vague notion that the Cape begins at some point on the coast south of Boston and extends to its sea-most tip.

Any Cape Codder will tell you that, beyond all doubt, the Cape extends from the Canal to its tip off Provincetown. South Shore folks know that the South Shore ends, in theory if not to fact, where the Cape Cod Canal divides Bournedale and East Wareham on the South Shore side from Sagamore and Bourne on the Cape side.

The Canal runs between the first two towns and the latter two. It extends from Cape Cod Bay on the northeast to Buzzards Bay on the southwest. It makes the entire Cape Cod area an island. No Cape Codder believes that an inch of the South Shore is part of the Cape.

Some persons, however, will never be content with any sharply defined separation of the two areas. They feel that the matching beauty of the South Shore, its charming coastal homes, and other attractive natural features, especially where Cape Cod and the South Shore touch, explode such a definition.

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