Lake Linnea

Lake Linnea, also known as the upper lake, has 3 small islands - 2 near the soutwest corner and one near the dock.  Fishing is pretty decent according to Barb Starr.  

The upper lake was created by Jim Kirby in the late 1920's.  According to his great niece, Gale Better, the purpose of the lake was so that he could stock it with larger, more deep water fish than the lower lake could handle.  Seems true enough, as he built a still bigger fishing lake when he and his wife moved to their home closer into town.   

When the girl Scouts first acquired the camp property in 1937,  they only held ownership to 1/2 of the upper lake.  But the neighbors did not mind that they dedicated the entire lake to Linnea Friede.  Linnea Friede was the commissioner of the Cleveland Council at the time that the camp was purchased.

The following is a report from Kathleen Bradley about a day camp program at Lake Linnea:

I had the opportunity to help at Pathfinder Day Camp at Camp Crowell-Hilaka on Thursday this week. The Program Assistants (Cadettes and a Senior) and I had about 65 girls, plus unit leaders, come through our nature station during the day. Our program was on water quality and why clean water is important for wildlife (and us). We did a "Freddy, the Fish" story and demonstration for the younger girls. We did easy chemical testing for 3rd grade and above. All the girls got to go down to the upper lake (Linnea?) and dip for pond creatures and muck which we brought up the hill to our plastic ponds where they picked though and separated the pond animals. The little girls were enthusiastic about everything, but a few of the older girls were going to be just too cool- until we got to the water. All of them were up to nearly their elbows in muck and pond water when they found baby catfish, tadpoles, snails, aquatic beetles, scuds, and larvae and nymphs of insects, such as dragonflies and mayflies. We looked at them with our magnifiers and I had identification cards to show them what the tiny animals would look like up close. Some scary looking ones turn into beautiful dragonflies.

With the 7th grade PAs on Tuesday we also scored the water quality which came out to be fair to good. It would have been higher except that the creeks are very low now so it is hard to get enough numbers of individual animals for a higher score- though we found many critters that do not tolerate pollution.

Though our samples were crude we did determine that the water in the upper lake is very clean as are the primary headwater streams which flow into it. This really needs to be protected from future possible impacts. Maybe it looked too clean - I did need to point out to the the girls that even though the water is clear and the tests determined there are not a lot of nitrates, nitrites and phosphorus in the water- that doesn't mean there is not bacteria in it and they should not drink it - since they asked!

Anyhow - I had a blast yesterday. All the volunteers and staff were very enthusiastic despite the heat. They had some glitches earlier in the week when girls who were registered, but never made it to the roster, showed up and required some fast scrambling to find them units. Many came by bus and obviously could not be sent back.

Another activity yesterday was financial literacy. I didn't get to listen in, but they all decorated ceramic piggy banks as part of that- very cute activity. They also had boating and canoes, archery, spa (some sort of organic mud packs? I didn't see that one but it had a lot of sugar in it). And there were always some sort of games, songs or hikes going on. I highly recommend the day camp experience if you have time to volunteer at a later time.

If anyone knows Kali, my 9th grader assistant - I couldn't have done it without her - thank you again! Rachel "Opie" Oppenheimer and I carpooled from Berea - she is an inspiration, too, and may be back for Core Camp.