Campers celebrate 90th anniversary of Harriman State Park's nature museums - 8 August, 2009

The Journal News: LAURA INCALCATERRA
August 8, 2009

HARRIMAN STATE PARK - A celebration yesterday marked the 90th anniversary of the park's four regional nature museums.

Nearly 6,000 campers are served by the museums each year, enjoying an opportunity to see, and sometimes touch, snakes, turtles, fish and other creatures native to the area.

Deja Lowry, 11, of Edison, N.J., attends Camp Michikamau, run by the Greater Bergen County, N.J., YMCA in the park.

She gave the Lake Kanawauke Nature Museum high marks for its exhibits.

"It's kind of cool to learn about animals," Deja said.

Harriman State Park opened to the public in 1913 and immediately became a favorite with New York City hiking clubs, as well as city dwellers eager to escape the summer heat.

Dozens of camps also opened within the park, most operated by a variety of social service organizations and primarily serving inner city youth.

MaryLynne Maloney oversees the four museums, which also include facilities at Lake Stahahe, Lake Tiorati and Twin Lakes.

She said the museums' main purpose is to serve campers, but the general public can visit, too.

Museum workers collect native animals and put them on view in a variety of aquarium-type displays. They often remove some of the animals to allow close-up viewing and occasional touching by campers.

Ed McGowan serves as science and executive director of the Bear Mountain Zoo and Trailside Museums. The four regional museums fall under his oversight, but are run by Maloney.

McGowan said trips to the museum helped benefit campers and counselors alike.

"It's an extension of their camp experience and it's an opportunity for them to learn about natural history and the environment," McGowan said.
Benjamin Talbot Babbitt Hyde, known as "Uncle Bennie," hailed from the American Museum of Natural History.

He traveled to the camp and brought snakes, turtles and other animals to show the boys, said Jack Focht, director of Bear Mountain State Park's Zoo and Trailside Museums from 1988 until 2002.

"He thought the kids needed nature studies," Hyde said. "He set up the mess hall as the nature museum."

Colby Hilt, 10, and his family travel from their Seattle home each summer to stay at the family-oriented Camp K-20. He's also a fan of the nature museum.

"We go here a lot," Colby said. "It's cool because they have a lot of snakes and fish and frogs and turtles."

Daniel Kim, 12, of Wykoff, N.J., also attends Camp Michikamau and said he enjoyed visiting the museum.

"It shows a lot of the regional wildlife," Daniel said. "It's interesting."

For counselors, it's often their first experience teaching natural history to kids, he said.

The regional museums, all of which are housed in small buildings that blend into the park's Palisades architecture, got their start when a naturalist started visiting the large Boy Scout camp once located in the park.

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