Having realized that June and July have come and gone and I’ve still not left town, I recently decided to round up a few friends and hit the road. Where to, you ask? Miami? Montauk? No, the Nantucket Whaling Museum!
I understand that a repository of cetacean mammals might not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but I’ve been fascinated with belugas, humpbacks, and sperm whales ever since I read Moby Dick in 7th grade. However, I would have never known there was an actual Whaling Museum if I hadn’t come across the following entry in Patricia Schultz 1,000 Places to See Before You Die in the United States & Canada:
A Remote World All Its Own
Nantucket
Massachusetts
The island’s Wampanoag Indian name means “faraway land,” and Nantucket seems just that. It’s only 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, but the 49-square-mile island floats in its own insular world of time and space. Some 10,000 year-round residents accommodate more than five times that many visitors each summer, yet the island retains an unspoiled atmosphere. Here the descendant of the practical Yankee sea captain meets the cultured offspring of New England old money—and increasingly, new money. They bond over their shared affection for the windswept island, with its abundant salt marshes and pristine beaches.
Stringent zoning laws help maintain the traditional New England appearance of the “Little Gray Lady of the Sea”—so named for the color of its cedar-shingled houses muted by exposure to the sea air. Movie-set-perfect Nantucket is one of the country’s finest protected historic districts, with more than 800 Georgian, Federal, and Greek Revival Houses and Quaker sea captains homes, constructed between 1740 and 1840.
Nantucket was once the whaling capital of the world and the small but interesting Whaling Museum preserves Nantucket’s eminence in the “blubber boiling” industry. Displays include a skeleton of 46-foot finback whale, a whaleboat, a collection of 19th century scrimshaw, and artifacts from the Essex, sunk by a sperm whale in 1820, inspiring the story recounted in Moby-Dick.
Where: 70 miles southeast of Boston. Ferries from Hyannis and Harwich Port on Cape Cod. Visitor info: Tel 508-228-1700; www.nantucketchamber.org.
Whaling Museum: Tel 508-228-1894; www.nha.org When: mid-May—mid-Oct.
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Don’t feel sorry for my buddies. I’m sure we’ll get some beach time in between all the scrimshaw and baleen.
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