The Bike Depot & Cape Cod Rail Trail

The year was 1847. The first system of train tracks spanning the length of Cape Cod was complete. Thanks to the Old Colony Railroad, Cape Cod would be transformed from a collection of backwoods fishing towns into a bustling resort area. Passing scores of cranberry bogs, visitors from Boston, New York and Hartford poured in while barrels of the ruby red fruit, loaded at train stops along the way, were hauled out. At the time, there was a certain romance associated with riding the trail, and for those zipping through Cape Cod, cranberries added a quaint, sentimental touch.

The train tracks along this path have long since been replaced by pavement. But, as I discovered one day while biking the route with my wife, the romance of the rail lives on and cranberries still create a stir. We didn’t choose the Cape Cod Rail Trail for its length- at 24,5 miles, it’s the longest bike path on the Cape, running from Dennis to Wellfleet. Nor did we select it for its smooth, flat, and easy-to-navigate features. The reason we opted to bike along the trail’s southern ten-mil stretch between Dennis and Nickerson State Park in Brewster was to get a glimpse of the hallowed cranberry culture of this area. There were bogs to see, growers to meet, and history to learn, not to mention the benefits of exercise and fresh air along the way.

After Labor Day seemed an ideal time for us to hit the trail- cooler temperatures and perhaps fewer bikers. At home my wife and I prepared for any contingency, stocking our backpacks with water bottles, snacks, bug spray, sun block, a cell phone, a camera and windbreakers just in case it rained. We rented hybrid bicycles with the durability of mountain bikes and the smooth tires of the road variety from the Bike Depot in North Harwich, just past the Dennis-Harwich town line. They also rent kids’ gear- bikes, helmets, and even baby trailers.

A few plaques along the trail identify the Depot’s cedar shake warehouse as the previous site of the Ocean Spray Screen House. Historical black-and-white photographs show women working upstairs in rows next to a conveyer belt with small piles of the fruit in front of them. They sorted the tiny berries one by one. Then they were packed in barrels, lowered to the ground floor on a wooden freight elevator, and loaded onto trains bound for Boston, New York, and beyond.

These days a vintage bike sits atop the proch roof offering a visual clue to the building’s current use. Where a loading dock once stood, there’s a ramp used to roll bikes on and off the porch. Inside, past an old freight elevator, antique two-wheelers are artfully displayed in certain corners in contrast to the few bikes filling a large front room. Storeowner Don Roberts told us that the true start of the trail is, in fact, a mile west in South Dennis, which is also where Captain John Hall started a cranberry craze in 1812. He blanketed his bogs with sand, just as a storm had done the year before, producing record numbers of berries. Transporting them beyond Cape Cod, however, wasn’t easy- that is, until the railroad came to town.

After gearing up at the Bike Depot, our first stop was Georgetown Cranberry Company, housed in an old tin barn in Harwich. Here Craig Williams, a Cape Cod native who’s been growing cranberries for almost a quarter of a century, admits almost apologetically that he’s not an old-timer hand-picker with crimson-stained fingertips. However, he spins a few good yarns and shares a wealth of local knowledge.

Leaving Williams, we hopped back on our bikes and continued peddling northward. We shared the less-than-crowded bike path with a few locals on old bikes, some serious road bikers in skin-tight shirts and shorts, and a couple of walkers. Maneuvering the flat trail was easy. Mostly straight with just a few twists and turns, the trail is ideal for families with small children as long as they heed the stop signs at intersections and walk their bikes across the street.

Soon we were in the heart of cranberry country, going at a good clip along wooded straight-aways and coasting slowly beside open bogs. We passed the Herring River- a man made water flow between Hinkleys Pond and Bell’s Neck originally developed by Ocean Spray founder Marcus Urann to flood the bogs. Cutting through an area of Harwich Conservation Land, we reached Hinkleys Bog and stopped for a closer look.

Whatever the season, there’s always something fascinating going on in the bogs. In the winter when they’re flooded to protect the dormant vines from windburn, frozen sections attract ice skaters. In early spring when tiny buds form, growers are in the fields preparing for the threat of frost. Around the time the forsythia bloom, the buds pop, and by the second week in June the bogs are in full bloom. The shape of the flowers resembles that of a crane, which is how they originally got their name. Over the years, “crane berry” turned into “cranberry.” Bees are imported from Maine for pollination, soon after which berries start to appear. During the summer, they change from green to red, and in October, it’s time to harvest.

Some are dry-harvested using a self-propelled machine with a giant comb attached, but many more are wet-harvested. The bogs are flooded and farmers clad in waders run a machine across the vies to knock off the cranberries. They float to the surface and are then sucked througha giant wet vacuum into the cargo hold of a truck, cleaned, and sent through a seven-bounce sorter.

Pilling up beside a great wide-open trench the size of a few fottball fields, I got off my bike and approached for a better look, but I was still too far away to see the berries. Bogs are often wet by nature and even growers don’t set foot on them once the fruit is on the vine. I returned to my bike, zoomed in for a close-up, caught a glimps of small ruby red pellets, and took my best shot.

Kettle ponds also captured our attention. Like many of the cranberry bogs, these bodies of fresh water came about as the result of a glacier that covered New England thousands of years ago. When the glacier retreated, large blocks of ice melted, forming depressions in the land, which later filled with water, creating kettle ponds or bogs. We passed Hinkleys Pond, Long Pond, and Seymour Pond and did our best to get as far north on the trail while leaving enough time to make it back before dark.

Once we reversed direction, we were distracted by the sun setting over Hinkleys Pond and stopped to admire the view. We got off our bikes and walked to the water’s edge, where I spread my windbreaker on the sand and we sat mesmerized by the crimson sun sinking toward the horizon. Perhaps the romance of what was once the old rail trail had been replaced by romance on the trail- deep in the heart of bog country.

Photos and story by Christopher Percy Collier

This article appeared in Cape Cod Life, August 2003.