While the old Cape houses we see today seem just as firmly planted as — Cape Cod

"... I felt just so incredibly safe this trip, and everybody that lives here is so kind. And I just learned that, according to a census, that this is the highest per capita of anywhere in the whole United States ..."

"Before the ocean rose to near its current level some six to eight thousand years ago, the Cape and Islands were just relatively nondescript ridges in an immense plain that stretched all the way to . The first pioneer plants were probably various cold-weather berries, along with , , and . and wandered in, followed by the sturdy humans who made a living hunting them. Many of the smaller species of wildlife that now inhabit the various islands arrived by land as well, only to be isolated when the water rose, and ate away at both and . Nantucket and Marthas Vineyard each has its own particular subspecies of short-tailed shrew, both of which differ from the short-tailed shrew of the mainland."

"Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm of Massachusetts: the shoulder is at ; the elbow, or crazy-bone, at ; the wrist at ; and the sandy fist at ,—behind which the State stands on her guard, with her back to the , and her feet planted on the floor of the ocean, like an athlete protecting her Bay,—boxing with north-east storms, and, ever and anon, heaving up her Atlantic adversary from the lap of earth,—ready to thrust forward her other fist, which keeps guard the while upon her breast at ."