Student Travel Educational Tours Cape Cod Educational Tours

Art’s Dune Tours

For more than 64 years, Art’s Dune Tours has been giving student groups access to the harsh yet extraordinarily beautiful natural environment within the Cape Cod National Seashore Park, which surrounds Provincetown, Massachusetts, at the very end of Cape Cod. This primitive setting also has a human story to tell, of lighthouse keepers, hermits, fishermen, artists and writers like Henry David Thoreau who wrote about Provincetown in 1887 in his book “Cape Cod.”

Thoreau was fascinated by the strange inhabitants of Provincetown who eked out the barest of living from an equally strange desert environment created by early European settlers who deforested the end of Cape Cod for fuel, building materials and ships’ ballast.  Without its forest the ‘Provincelands’ reverted to its aboriginal state as a sand bar extending from the land mass which ends at Truro Massachusetts.  In the wake of this deforestation settlers were fighting a never-ending battle to keep the wind-driven sand dunes from overwhelming their settlement.

“They (the townspeople) told us that on the whole the sand had made no progress for the last ten years the cows being no longer permitted to go at large and every means being taken to stop the sandy tide,” wrote Thoreau in 1887.

Our visitors today range from student tours through senior citizens who have been thrilled riding along the Atlantic Ocean coastline before traversing the mountainous sand dunes throughout the National Seashore Park in Provincetown.

The Cape Cod National Seashore Park was created as a protected coastline in 1961 largely through the efforts of President John F. Kennedy who wanted to preserve and protect his beloved Cape Cod for future generations.  Today it is the largest protected coastline in the United States, extending from Provincetown to Chatham, Massachusetts and the Monomoy Islands.

As with any national park, the Cape Cod National Seashore should be seen by all, especially for educational tours, as it is one of our nation’s unique treasures.

Since 1946, Art’s Dune Tours has been guiding tours using four-wheel drive vehicles with special over-sand permits from the Park Rangers. From a 1936 Ford Woody Station Wagon then to a fleet of six Chevrolet Suburbans today, Art’s can carry up to 42 students at once during the one-hour tour.

The trip is narrated and slowly driven ON the soft sand, making stops for photo opportunities as they arise in the natural world and to observe the remnants of abandoned human settlement.  It’s a perfect outing for school groups—fun and knowledgeable for all ages.

The tour of the area is loaded with history of flora and fauna, geology, and interesting history of the old life-saving methods of the United States Life Saving Service, the predecessor to our modern U.S. Coast Guard.  An original Life Saving Station has been preserved in the dunes by the Park Service.

A highlight of the tour is viewing and learning about the dune shacks nestled in the sand dunes, which provided primitive isolation for many famous artists through the years who were inspired to create great works of art, including Eugene O’Neill, Jack Kerouac, Tennessee Williams, and Jackson Pollock.

Art’s Dune Tours is located in the center of town, close to shops and dining.  Art’s Dune Tours operate during the rain or shine and take hundreds of students and schools out to the dunes, many of whom return annually.

Find out more about these attractions:

Cape Cod Student Tours