New site plan drawn for Little Wolf facility

by Dan McClelland

Town officials this month took a first look at a new site plan for the town’s Little Wolf Beach and Campground they commissioned a landscape architectural and engineering firm to complete. The firm engaged by the town was EDR, and that action followed an extensive search for qualified applicants for the town by the Development Authority of the North Country (DANC).

The town leaders held several meetings at the beach this summer to gain the opinions of the people who call it home every summer in order to furnish those opinions to the consultants as they began their planning.

The improvement work eyed at the town-owned recreational facility on Little Wolf Lake followed the completion of a master plan ordered by a previous town board in 2017.

“The previous board had wanted to look at way to enhance and improve the facility,” which culminated in the 2017 master plan for the town place, Acting Supervisor Mary Fontana explained at the December board meeting.

She said her board selected EDR as one of four firms suggested by DANC this fall to do a site plan, and corresponding engineering study.

She said the project involves more than “modifying the existing facility. We wanted to really capitalize on the asset we have there!”

“The other difficulty with Little Wolf is that you can’t go online and book a reservation because you have to know what site you are reserving and what size of trailer will fit on it,” added Councilman John Gillis.

He said the sites at Little Wolf are all different sizes, after years of adjustments to them to accommodate different sizes of recreational vehicles.

Mr. Gillis figured the overall site lay-out of the place was determined over 50 years ago “when campers were a lot smaller.”

“John and I have been meeting with representatives of EDR- the most recent of which was December 5. They gave us this preliminary site plan, based on a walk we had with them earlier this fall,” Ms. Fontana told the other two board members.

“It looks like a whole lot when you first look at it,” she said of the document pictured above. “It looks very congested and a little bit scary!”

“Very busy,” Mr. Gillis agreed.

The acting supervisor said the changes eyed are simpler than they first appear. “In reality we would be adding about ten recreational vehicle sites.”

She said the tentative plan includes an expansion of the primitive camping sites plus some beachfront sites designed for “car camping,” which is apparently becoming very popular in camping circles.

There are some more picnic tables planned on the beach side of the caretaker’s cabin and concession building.

“The basketball court will stay where it is for now, but we’re talking about eventually moving it to the playground area to put all the recreational facilities in the same place.

John Gillis said some parents have told them they think the swings and such should be closer to the beach itself so it is easier to keep an eye on their kids if they are in two different places.

Councilwoman Tracy Luton noted, however, that the children of the campers are more likely to use the playground and courts versus the beach-going families. She said that was her experience when her children were little and they camped at Little Wolf.

Ms. Luton thought having the playground placed near the existing site of the basketball court would be the most visible place for the campers to watch their children at play.

Mr. Gillis said the current plan as advanced by the EDR group would be to move the beach parking from the giant oval near the beach to a more organized area behind the caretakers’ building, closer to the road.

That would allow for ten more RV sites and more tent sites in one of the best spots in the place, near the water and where the parking has been to date.

For years there has been little activity on the heavily treed northern side of the property where there have been a few primitive camp sites.

That area, Ms. Fontana noted, plus undeveloped town property beyond that, could accommodate some of the expansion planned.

She said too there has been discussion about relocating the boat launch from the center of the beach which is typically congested with bathers and sun worshippers to the northern end, which would be safer for everyone.

Mr. Gillis said one of the problems with the present boat launch on the beach is you have to drive your car, boat and trailer into the campgrounds and onto the beach area to launch the boat.

“It’s sort of a hidden boat launch right now, if you didn’t know it was there!”

He said the aim was to not put more boats on the lake, but to make it safer for swimmers and the people on the beach when a boat is being launched right in the middle of all of them.

“It’s not a very safe arrangement the way it is now,” commented Councilwoman Luton.

It was also noted that when people launch their boats on the beach it sometime turns into a brief tailgate party there.

Mr. Gillis said there might also be a handicapped accessible canoe and kayak launch area near any new boat launch at the north end of the site.

Ms. Fontana thought that area may have originally sported a boat launch.

“Now the boat launch would be at the end. There would be plenty of parking for the primitive camping.”

She said there are plans for a second bathhouse and bathroom building in the place and a smaller bathroom near the beach pavilion which would eliminate the need to position portable toilets there each summer.

Every camping site would be 30 by 60 feet in size in the new plan. That arrangement would make it possible to create more beach-front sites on the south side of the place.

According to the acting supervisor, the new plan is still in the very formational stage. “These are just working documents,” she said of the proposed site plan. Copies are available at the town office on Demars Blvd.

John Gillis called that night’s discussion “a first look for the board.”

Ms. Fontana remembered her shock when the maps were first shown on the video screen by the consultants. “It’s very busy to look at and it seemed like a bit much. But as we went through it piece by piece, it really is going to be a wonderful thing to do down there!”

There is no plan to pave the campground roads, it was stressed that evening.