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New May, 2025: The article "Massawepie Mired" in Adirondack Life's "2025 Guide to the Great Outdoors" issue describes a trip through the mire, starting and ending just south of the Scout camp and skirting the edge of the camp. It describes canoeing the Grasse River, over beaver dams and log jams, and taking out on NY Route 3 via Balsam Pond, then bicycling the former Grasse River Railroad bed back to the start. A version of the article is posted online here. |
The Spring 2024 issue of Adirondac (the magazine for Adirondack Mountain Club members) concludes with a profile of Keith Micoli as an "ADK Hero", on page 48. The profile says that Keith had an affinity for the outdoors at a young age, and attended the Massawepie Scout Camps in the early 1980s. Keith is the Chapter Chair of ADK's Northville-Placid Trail Chapter. The Northville-Placid Trail (NPT) is 133 miles long through the Adirondack Forest Preserve, and 2024 is the 100th anniversary of the NPT. (Profile clipping used by permission of the Adirondack Mountain Club.) |
Each fall, St. Lawrence University runs an "Adirondack Semester" with about a dozen students living at Tenderfoot Cove on Massawepie Lake. The November/December, 2023 print edition of the Adirondack Explorer had an article about this program on page 36. Read it here. |
Another article in the November/December, 2023 print edition of the Adirondack Explorer (p.40-41) said that "On every conservationist's wish list for future [land] aquisition [by New York State] ... [are] critical wetlands around Massawepie Mire..." Since the Scout property is already protected by a NYS conservation easement, this presumably refers to the other side of the Mire. |
An article "Lincoln's Sparrow: Sweet Notes from a Secretive Bird" found on page 59 of the September/October 2023 print edition of the Adirondack Explorer tells of a visit to the Massawepie Mire to find this small boreal bird. And the bog boardwalk mentioned in the article is probably the one that Massawepie maintains off the canoe carry from Boottree Pond to Deer & Townline Ponds. |
Adirondack Life's "2023 Guide to the Great Outdoors" (p.62) lists Massawepie Scout Camps as one of their five recommended birding spots in the Adirondacks. |
A 2022 profile of professional photographer and Massawepie staff alumnus Mark Kurtz in the online Adirondack Almanack featured several photos from Massawepie. Mark also had an article "Massawepie Journal" printed in Adirondack Life's "2022 Guide to the Great Outdoors" issue. That article featured photos Mark had taken during frequent walks at Massawepie during the pandemic. Mark is compiling some of these photos into a book. A version of the 2022 Adirondack Life article is posted online here. |
New May, 2025: A 2022 Adirondack Explorer online article discussed a bike ride down the "Carriage Road" through Massawepie. |
Massawepie was featured in a September, 2021 blog post about public recreational opportunities (Sept. 1 - June 14 each year) at Massawepie. The post included some geologic and natural history. For some reason the writer refers to the white trail around Massawepie Lake as the "Mountaineer Trail." By the way, the white trail only goes "around the lake" for Scout campers; the "Base Camp" (Pioneer/Mountaineer) area at the north end of Massawepie Lake is always off limits to the public. |
Also in September, 2021, the Adirondack Explorer had an online article about biking the former bed of the Grasse River Railroad. The article also mentions the boardwalk into the bog within the Massawepie Scout Camps property, which is accessible to the public Sept. 1 - June 14 by parking in the lot near Deer Pond, walking north on the town road, turning left at an old road (now grassy), then right to the boardwalk. |
The Adirondack Explorer's "Outings Guide 2021" mentioned (p.55) St. Lawrence University's Adirondack Semester at Massawepie. |
The Adirondack Explorer in its May/June, 2021 issue listed the Massawepie Mire hike on the old Grasse River Railroad bed south of Massawepie as one of its "Routes Less Traveled." That list may be available online. |
A May 1, 2020 article in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise mentions Massawepie and gives an idea of some of the challenges that summer camps face in 2020 and various options being considered. (Note the photo of the Pioneer climbing tower.) |
Massawepie got a brief mention on p.28 of the Jan./Feb., 2019 issue of Adirondack Explorer. The article about climbing Sawyer Mt. included Ned Hallahan, and mentioned that he spent the fall at Massawepie as a student in St. Lawrence University's Adirondack Semester. |
The 2008 book, Adirondack Birding: 60 Great Places to Find Birds, by John M.C. Peterson and Gary N. Lee, lists the Massawepie Mire as one of those favorite places for birding. |
John Thaxton ended his "Birdwatch" column on page 46 of the March/April 2008 issue of Adirondack Explorer news magazine with, "And I couldn't believe how many palm warblers I saw on the trail through Massaweepie (sic) Mire, a truly spectacular bog, and great all-round birding destination, northwest of Tupper Lake. The mire is closed to the public from June 15 to Sept. 15 (sic), but that gives you plenty of time to see this early-spring bird."Actually, under a NYS conservation easement most of Massawepie is open to the public from September 1 to June 14. But only a portion of the Mire is on Massawepie Scout Camps property; other portions belong to New York State (the old railroad bed through the Mire) and to the Grasse River Club. |
Massawepie was mentioned in an interesting article "Swamp Song" on p.82 of the Annual Guide 2006 issue of Adirondack Life. Cheryl Lyn Dybas, writing about wetlands, says, "One of the largest is Massawepie Mire, in the Grass River Basin of St. Lawrence County - at 2,256 acres it's the largest open-heath bog in the Northeast." |
In a selection from a 1969 Adirondack Life article (excerpted on p. 381 of the 2009 3rd edition of The Adirondack Reader), Paul Jamieson said that there are three great attractions for canoeists in southern St. Lawrence County: the Raquette River, the Cranberry Lake/Oswegatchie River area, and "Massawepie Park, with its kame and kettle topography and its chain of lakes and ponds strung like beads on both sides of the central esker." 71+ years of Scout campers would agree that Massawepie is a great place for canoeing! Note: Massawepie Park was a name sometimes used by pre-BSA owners of the Massawepie property. |
Childwold Park on Massawepie Lake was the setting for a few pages in the novel An Adirondack Romance by Caroline Washburn Rockwood, published in 1897 by New Amsterdam Book Company. The description where a small party visits the hotel and grounds at Massawepie can be found on pages 143-145 (images 181-183 in the digital book from the Library of Congress website). |