A gift for shoppers: Rockport

From art to crafts to food with a view

By Julie Hatfield, Globe Correspondent, 12/2/2001

OCKPORT - Santa Claus blew into town yesterday on a lobster boat, although that doesn't make him a ''blow-in,'' the Rockport term for those who weren't lucky enough to be born here.

The giant Christmas wreath is attached to the wall of Motif No. 1, the town's trademark weathered red fishing shack. And the giant Rockport Christmas tree, the largest and most illuminated tree on the North Shore, was lighted yesterday as well, and stands in the center of town at Dock Square, a ready beacon for holiday visitors.

Visitors do flock to this picturesque point at the tip of Cape Ann during the Christmas season - in weather not as felicitous as in July or August - for the town's unique shops and traditions.

Although Rockport was first a fishing village, it later became an art colony because of the spectacular light on its rocky harbor and the vistas of the Atlantic Ocean from spots all over town. Of its year-round population of 7,700, perhaps 5 percent are artists, and the shops at Christmastime reflect their talents. While the visitor can certainly find plenty of seascapes in the wide variety of galleries along the main streets, they are by no means the only subject matter for paintings, which abound.

The variety of artists also includes artisans who work with silver and ceramics in their studio/

shops and create one-of-a-kind pieces for special holiday gifts. There is a shop dealing only in duck decoys and several offering handmade sweaters. Tuck's, the 72-year-old family-run candy factory, will give free demonstrations of its famous chocolate-centered hard-candy-making technique right in its kitchen in back of the store, and on the second weekend in December, some of the sculptors here will invite children to join them in carving an ice sculpture in Dock Square.

To add color to Rockport's own Christmas ambience, the town's large Scandinavian population, here for generations since they first came in the 1800s to work the granite quarries, presents a Christmas Jul Fest with a St. Lucia pageant, Finnish singers, and a Christmas fair with Scandinavian crafts, food, and music. Scandinavians have always had a strong tradition of Christmas decorations unique to their culture, and it is reflected in Rockport's shops, which carry little moving brass angel candelabra from Sweden, and other table and tree ornaments special to that part of the world.

Bearskin Neck, the peninsula straight off Dock Square, provides the most shops with the least walking. Formerly the commercial center of the town, where the fishermen and lobstermen stored their gear in shacks, the area has been preserved from development into anything ever resembling a high-rise or mall-type setting. The one- and two-story shacks are still here, not necessarily all painted and glassed a la the Roche Co. but left au naturel, weather-beaten and charming, with wonderful goods to buy, as well as plenty of coffeehouses and chowder and fish restaurants.

Like in Camden, Maine, in between the little shops are stunningly beautiful vistas of the rocky coastline and the ocean beyond.

The Greenery, a restaurant that overlooks the Neck, has a window just a few feet from the water - the fishing boats are moored a few feet farther - and in addition to serving meals all day long, holds a jazz brunch on Sundays. Remember to BYOB if you wish, for this is a dry town, thanks to Rockporter Hannah Jumper and her ''Hatchet Gang'' of angry women. In the summer of 1856, tired of their sailor men imbibing on demon rum, they raided all the shops and some private homes, chopping open the casks and pouring the booze out of the bottles in a temperance battle that they won. The historic Hannah Jumper house is in the center of town.

Since most of the shops in this town are in former private homes, if you scratch a shopkeeper, you'll uncover a story. The Galleree on Main Street, for example, was the scene of a love-triangle murder in the 1930s when it was a private home. The murderer was never found, although townspeople will enthusiastically share their opinions on who did the bloody deed.

The oldest holiday tradition in town, on the weekend before Christmas, is the annual Nativity pageant, with a torchlit procession of Mary on a donkey and Joseph walking beside her, which moves from Dock Square to the Old Sloop Congregational Church lawn, where the procession joins shepherds and more animals in a creche, while a choir sings. Never is Mary played by a ''blow-in.''

Rockport center is easily maneuvered on foot, and even some of the wonderful public footpaths can be walked from town. (The Headlands provides one of the most glorious views.) But there is much more to see of Rockport by car. While the MBTA runs a train every hour from Boston, in a car you can see much more of the spectacular 8 miles of coastline and some of the ocean vistas to the north and south of the center.

Do not be put off by the ''welcome'' signs at the entrance to the town stating that ''all parking meters are in effect 24 hours.'' It's not true. During the Christmas season, you can park at those meters for nothing, day or night. More signs posted around the Rockport coastline show where the public footpaths are, and here you can park and walk in for a private picnic or just another sighting of the inspiring seacoast.

Just a few miles north of town is the 54-acre Halibut Point State Park, considered among the most beautiful spots in Massachusetts, with trails and tide pools and views of the sea everywhere, including, on clear days, sights of Crane Beach in Ipswich, Isles of Shoals in New Hampshire, and even Mount Agamenticus Beach in Maine. The point's name has nothing to do with fish but with sailing; ships would tack or ''haul about'' off here to round Cape Ann.

Pawtucket Indians first used the park to harvest wild fruits, fish, and game. Its 440-million-year-old granite was quarried here and a self-guided walking tour of the Babson Farm Quarry within the park includes stops marked by numbers painted on granite blocks along the trail. In winter there are bird, wildflower, and tidal pool guided walks courtesy of the park's co-administrators, the state Department of Environmental Management and The Trustees of Reservations.

Julie Hatfield is a freelance writer who lives in Duxbury.

This story ran on page M4 of the Boston Globe on 12/2/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.