Charting the Past

CHATHAM – When local shellfishermen wanted help setting up a meeting with officials from the state division of marine fisheries to discuss changes in regulations governing quahog size, they turned to an unlikely source: The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance.

Commercial fishing transformed Provincetown generations ago, close to 700 boats filling the port, salted cod covering flat surfaces all along the waterfront.

Lobsterman Rob Martin was out with a crewman years ago when the fellow tried to gaff a sea gull that landed on the boat.

Peggi Joseph, long dark hair tied in a ponytail, blue sweatshirt and matching rubber gloves peeking out of orange Grundens, makes quick work of packing thousands of pounds of haddock.

“Black mayonnaise” is an evocative phrase used around harbors to describe a muck that builds in shallow waters, a thick carpet of ooze that smothers life and creates dead bottom where we’d all rather see sand, eel grass, and creatures with shells and little fins.

An old fisherman stands by the trap dock in Stage Harbor, looking to the heavens, hat in one hand, mooring chain in the other.

On February 9, 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the law that created the Fish Commission. It was the nation’s first federal conservation and environmental research agency and began in a shed in Woods Hole.

Paupmunnock, a Native leader at the time of the Europeans’ arrival, had his home on Prince’s Cove in what is now Marstons Mills, Barnstable, a favorite Wampanoag site for 10,000 years according to archaeological records.

Fred Bennett remembers the moment well and although he doesn’t regret it, he does say he alienated some people. And he destroyed a flower pot.