I have the 1940 brochure for the boys camp located on the western shore of Lake Tarleton, in the same space as today’s Kingswood.  Only it was not called Kingswood in those days, but was Camp Naidni.

As the brochure notes, some serious educators ran  Naidni, which is the word “Indian” spelled backwards.  I have to confess, however, that I think this is a poor choice for a summer camp name — both then and now.

That said, I think you will nonetheless enjoy this black and white, grainy photo report that verifies that beyond naming things, the same values on camping held then still persist to this day.

Part I explores the camp site along the lake itself, which has some prominent effect on today’s times.  Read on, please.

That’s a view of Lake Tarleton, all right, but one photographed ninety some years ago.  Just to the left of the smaller evergreen tree that obscures some of the shoreline is the location of Naidni then and Kingswood later on.  This might be one of the oldest photos of Mother T that exists anywhere.

No, the photo is not taken from Webster Cliff, where many of you have traipsed to the overlook towards Tarleton,  but is from Aloha Hill — to the north and west of Webster.  Yes, this is a site that Kingswood wants to bring back as one of our overnight excursions…

Notice the spelling of the dominant mountain in our viewpoint along the sandy beach at camp.  Two “e’s”

Anyway, I started digging into my large drawer of camp history stuff when Rob informed me that the White Mountain National Forest is launching a project designed to study both future forest management and use of this treasure of a land holding.

Kingswood families should know that a person cannot see a single light bulb at night across the lake from us and we want it to stay that way forever.  We already have and will continue to tell the WMNF people of this yearning.

What is absolutely amazing is how little has changed since the 1930’s at camp.  Yes, the tower and slide were one raft instead of two and the docks were not fully enclosed like they are today.

But, look off to the distance and Mt. Mist. Not an ounce of development then and not an ounce of it today.  This outcome is worth fighting for and we have sent photos like this one off to the WMNF to make our case.

OH BOY!

That’s most correct.  One almost forgets to look off to the distance, where, once again, nothing is different then from the way it is today.  But, this old tower is twice as tall and the slide a lot longer.  Next time, we will resume the Naidni story right here where we leave off for today.