Camp Kiwanis Conservation Land

Camp Kiwanis was a day camp for girls grades one through eight, operating from the 1950s through at least 1993. It may well have run beyond this date, that was just the most recent newspaper article I was able to find that referenced it. The camp was spread over 80 acres of woods along Long Pond in Tyngsborough Massachusetts and had the capacity to accommodate 200 girls. Eventually the camp shut down and fell into ruins, and what remains of it today has been deemed dangerous to the public and slated for removal.

Our first exploration here ended with us seeing less than half of this former camp and walking an even smaller fraction of its trails. We learned that if you visit this place in the summertime there are two things you can expect to find a whole lot of - spiders and pollen. My wife is a girl who runs away from daddy long-legs, and I'm a guy whose hiking kit includes Claritin and a spare inhaler, so between us we decided to save this adventure for another day.

That another day turned out to be nearly two years later, when on a whim my daughter and I came here during a Saturday afternoon drive. Almost immediately I noticed something was different. Where before there were ruins of the camp's structures, those ruins still existed but now each of them was marked by a numbered flag.

We like treasure hunts as much as anyone, so the two of us walked over a mile of trails searching for more of the remnants. The highest numbered flag we found was 32, telling us that somewhere in these woods were 31 other structures or artifacts of the camp. We found at most a dozen of them, so one more trip back out here went onto my to-do list.

Our third time hiking this conservation area we red-lined every trail while at the same time keeping a list of all the flags we found, and although I'm convinced we did not overlook anything, in the end there were a half dozen of them that we still didn't locate.

Our 2-State Hike

Not everything was to be found trailside however, and I believe some things were still hidden in the woods. One such remnant was this structure with fire damage, which after further research we learned was a nurses station that burned to the ground in 1987. Water from Long Pond was used to extinguish the blaze - something that was investigated as arson - and although the cabin was a total loss, fortunately there were no injuries.

Years later Camp Kiwanis was sold to a private developer, but nothing was developed and in 2003 the Town of Tyngsborough purchased the land using $1.2 million in grant money. The property sat untouched until 2018, when an additional grant of $85 thousand was received for restoration of the area. Collapsed structures will be removed, trails will be made ADA compliant, and an official parking area will be created.

With the identification and flagging of all camp remains, that restoration project has now begun. Once complete, Tyngsborough residents will have a beautiful - and safe - conservation area with over 48 acres of woods, 1,000 feet of waterline, and several swimming areas to enjoy. Many wonderful memories have been made here in years past, but that many memories and more will be made here in years to come, by children both young and old.

Links:
https://www.tyngsboroughma.gov/project/long-pond-shores/