Special Places

An Endless Fascination with the Lake

Spend a little time on Ossipee Lake and you’ll want to spend a lot more.

The state’s sixth largest, Ossipee Lake and its extensive network of bays and rivers comprise one of northern New Hampshire’s most important recreational and economic resources. It is an exceptional place for swimming, boating, fishing and watching the stars at night.

Despite development pressures, sizeable portions of the lake’s shoreline remain undeveloped and many of these open spaces are home to endangered animal species, rare plants and some of the finest remaining examples of habitats that once were common in New England but now are threatened. In 1995 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited the Ossipee Lake area as having one of the state’s highest concentrations of important natural resources.

We have created this section of our website to increase public awareness of the special places that make Ossipee Lake unique, and to underscore the importance of the ad hoc network of state and private interests that protects these properties.

Read on to learn more about Ossipee Lake Natural Area, Heath Pond Bog Natural Area, Ossipee Pine Barrens and the Bearcamp Woodlands. Our thanks to the organizations that own and manage these properties for providing much of the information contained herein.

Ossipee Lake Natural Area

State-owned Ossipee Lake Natural Area, also known as Long Sands, is the rarest and most threatened of the lake’s special places. It faces competing interests from those who favor preservation and those who favor recreation.

Comprised of 400 acres with an extensive undeveloped shoreline on the southern part of the big lake, it is New Hampshire’s finest remaining example of a coastal plain pondshore, nurturing an array of rare plant species including Fine Grass-Leaved Goldenrod, Hairy Hudsonia, and Sand Cherry.

Biologists studying the preserve have found that it harbors natural communities that are not known to exist elsewhere in the world. Additionally, the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources says the Natural Area contains the remains of some of our area’s oldest settlements.

Background of the Property

Ossipee Lake Natural Area was originally part of a much larger tract of land which extended from the “Iron Works Falls” on the border of Freedom and Effingham, through land on Leavitt Bay (including the island), Broad Bay and on to the western side of Pine River and south to the Effingham border.

This land was variously owned by the Pepperell Manufacturing Company, Saco Water Power Company and Central Maine Power Company as protection of the water power source. Even when the land was acquired by property developers White and Sawyer in 1945, Central Maine Power reserved to itself all riparian, water and flowage rights of the waters.

Purchase by the State

The state purchased the preserve for $320,000 in 1969 and it is now managed by the New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development (DRED). The transfer was subject to a deed provision specifying that the property be used for education or recreation.

Recreation has been a traditional use at the site since the lake began to be developed in the 1940s. As the number of powerboats grew, the isolated shoreline of the Natural Area became a popular gathering place for boaters to swim, fish, and sunbathe. In recent years, however, recreation has soared with as many as 3,000 boaters on a single day. DRED biologists and other researchers have documented that recreational use is destroying the fragile habitat and creating public safety issues.

As far as is known, the Natural Area has not been used for the public education purposes specified in the deed. A number of state and private research studies have been conducted at the preserve, as outlined below.

Historical Studies

The unique nature of the Natural Area has been known for many years. Biologist and long-time lake resident Barre Hellquist has studied the preserve since the 1960s, and he included it in his 1971 monograph “Vascular Flora of Ossipee Lake New Hampshire and Its Shoreline.”

The Natural Area is also featured in Daniel Sperduto’s 1984 University of Vermont study “The Vegetation of Seasonally Flooded Sand Plain Wetlands in New Hampshire.” Sperduto further studied the Natural Area for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the 1990s under the joint auspices of DRED’s New Hampshire Natural Heritage Bureau and the Eastern Heritage Task Force of The Nature Conservancy.

As the author of the group’s 1994 report “Coastal Plain Pondshores and Basin Marshes in New Hampshire,” Sperduto wrote that the Natural Area is “N.H.’s most significant sandy pondshore ecosystem, including the largest collection in N.H. of rare plants among pondshores and basin marsh communities.”

The report states Ossipee Lake Natural Area has “the highest species richness of any site sampled in N.H., with a total of 146 species. This is a full 50% of all species documented from pondshores and basin marshes in the State. Other pondshore sites have richness, but Ossipee has numerous unique taxa, covers a larger area, and has a broader diversity of habitats.”

The report further states that “The inland beach strand community is an assemblage of plants which apparently does not occur anywhere else in the world outside Ossipee Lake.”

Sperduto concludes the report by saying that state officials and the New Hampshire Natural Heritage Bureau “are committed to making a more concerted effort to work with local residents and planners to maintain traditional recreational use of Ossipee Lake without sacrificing the unique features of the Natural Area. Support and enthusiasm from local residents is crucial to a successful solution to maintaining this unique site.”

Recent Studies

The plan to balance preservation and recreation that Sperduto and his fellow researchers envisioned in 1994 did not materialize and DRED initiated a follow-up study by the Natural Heritage Bureau in July, 2003. The resulting report designates Ossipee Lake Natural Area as a state “hotspot” - an environmentally significant property that is seriously threatened. The report states:

“Erosion and extensive recreational use of the Ossipee Lake Natural Area have severely degraded the rare coastal sand plain pondshore natural communities and two rare plant populations, and have eliminated populations of two state threatened species and two state watch list species.”

The report goes on to detail damage to rare plants along the shore, human waste found on footpaths that have been beaten into the inland vegetation, and a large padlocked storage box erected by boaters to store lawn chairs and recreation equipment. Further:

“There has… been a significant increase in downed trees and driftwood along the shoreline due in large part to the erosion of the soils that support the trees… Trash and clothing litter the shoreline, signs are gone or vandalized, numerous fire pits are evident, [and there are] small to large structures built from driftwood.”

A Call to Action

Despite the damage, the State’s research team confirmed the overall integrity of the natural communities at the site and the continued presence of rare plants. Among the plants cited in the report are Hairy Hudsonia, Fine Grass-Leaved Goldenrod, and Sand Cherry.

The State report concludes with an urgent call for protection and restoration efforts at the site:

“Management of recreational use is necessary at this site to prevent the loss of the remaining rare species and attempt to restore natural community and rare species habitat conditions… Restoring the pondshore communities and rare species from the site is still possible provided that steps be taken as soon as possible to protect the area.”

In August 2007 DRED closed a majority of the Natural Area’s shoreline to allow it to recover while a management plan for the property can be written. Check our Natural Area blog for the latest information.

Heath Pond Bog Natural Area

In 1977 the federal government designated state-owned Heath Pond Bog Natural Area as a National Natural Landmark - an outstanding example of our country’s natural history.

Located off Route 25 near Pine River, Heath Pond Bog’s abundant flora and unspoiled character make it a special place for people who are unafraid of getting a little wet to enjoy one of the lake’s unique habitats.

The bog is colorful for three seasons of the year and is especially vibrant in the spring. It contains multiple species of rare orchids and carnivorous plants, and the banks of the pond grow over the water to create a “quaking bog” that undulates when stepped upon. An extraordinary place for bird-watching, it is also home to beavers, fishers and porcupines.

Heath Pond Bog is an extremely fragile habitat with rare species for viewing, never picking. Staying on the marked pathways will protect the preserve for future generations and help keep your feet dry.

Ossipee Pine Barrens

Thousands of years ago, melting glaciers left extensive sand deposits between and around Ossipee Lake and Silver Lake, which for many years were combined as one “pro-glacial lake.” Today, New Hampshire’s last viable pitch pine scrub oak barrens is found on these sandy soils. Less than 2,000 acres remain of what was once a 7,000 acre ecosystem.

Pitch pine scrub oak barrens are one of the world’s rarest forest ecosystems and the Ossipee Pine Barrens is one of highest protection priorities of The Nature Conservancy’s New Hampshire Chapter. It is home to numerous rare lepidoptera (moth and butterfly) species and several declining shrubland birds, including the common nighthawk and whip-poor-will, which may have the highest densities in the state in this location.

Pines barrens used to exist in the Manchester, Nashua and Concord areas but have all but disappeared. The Ossipee Pine Barrens continues to be a functional system and owes much of its existence to New Hampshire’s unique colonial and land-use history.

Pine Barrens In History

The first settlers arrived in the Ossipee area in 1750. These settlers were subsistence farmers and loggers who cut wood to build their homes. They tried farming in the area but the well-drained sandy acidic soil was not conducive to good agriculture, so the land was deemed “barren.” The land and soil were superior for growing trees, however, particularly white and pitch pine.

At this time Great Britain, which was emerging as the leading colonial power primarily through the efforts of its navy, reached a crisis: it began to run out of wood to build ships. To meet this growing demand it looked to the colonies, and especially to what is now New Hampshire and Maine. The two states’ extensive pine and oak forests supplied much of the wood for ships built along the coast, especially in the Portsmouth area. Local place names in Carroll County bear this out: “Kingswood” High School, “King Pine” ski area and others are testaments to the colonial history.

The Mast Road

Even our current road system reminds us of our past. New Hampshire’s Route 16 from the Ossipee Pine Barrens south to Portsmouth was known as a “mast” road, and it is essentially unchanged in its path from colonial days. The road was used to haul huge white pine logs - up to 150 feet long - to Portsmouth for masts and spars for shipbuilding.

White pine serves this purpose very well. It grows straight and long but is very strong, relatively light and easy to work with. As a major road, Route 16 is an anomaly for New England road building. The road is very straight and does not run through any towns until it reaches Portsmouth. Both of these design characteristics were necessary to haul huge logs to their market. Accounts of this effort describe the grueling task of felling, de-limbing and hauling trees to market from Tamworth to Portsmouth, which took three weeks and required 24 oxen to travel the 60-mile route.

Pitch Pine

But why is all of this important to the pitch pine? Pitch pine is the opposite of white pine in terms of use. Twisted and brittle, it is difficult to work with and not strong. But pitch pine had important colonial uses too, as pitch and caulking for ships, and for boiling down to use as turpentine (a colonial medicine, not for paint use) as well as torches and fenceposts.

Most of these uses required live trees, and pitch pine was often scored to extract its pitch much like rubber trees. So for the most part pitch pines were not cut down but left growing while its stronger, faster-growing competitor, the white pine, was removed for buildings and ships. That is one of the reasons that the Ossipee Pine Barrens survive today.

For More Information

The Nature Conservancy owns the barrens and other properties on and near the lake which are open to the public. It periodically offers field trips. For information on the preserve, and for maps and parking information, check their website at www.nature.org.

Bearcamp Woodlands

Tucked away in the northwest portion of the main lake is Bearcamp Woodlands, a highly diverse area of 244 acres that includes one of the largest undeveloped sections of lake frontage in the Ossipee Lake system.

History of the Bearcamp Woodlands

The Bearcamp acres were once hayed as open farmland but returned to woodland when the lake was dammed to facilitate recreation. It is now a combination of wetlands and forest.

The wetlands are represented by spruce bogs, beaver ponds, open water, marshes with grasses and forested wetlands that abut the distinctive oxbows of the meandering Bearcamp River. Forest cover includes white pine, pitch pine and scrub oak in the Ossipee sand plains habitat, floodplain habitat with silver maple, and mixed oak-pine and birch forest habitat.

Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell E. Foster donated the preserve to the New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) in 1977 and NEFF continues to manage it.

Find Out More

The Bearcamp Woodlands is a delightful spot to view by foot or from the lake by canoe or kayak. While there are no boat launch facilities on the property, the area has many trails for hiking. Look for black bears, moose, muskrats, deer and otters.

The New England Forestry Foundation’s website at www.newenglandforestry.org offers additional information as well as travel and parking directions.