Nature Done Wright

The New York-New Jersey Trail Conference recently reached out for information about the Fyke Nature Association’s long history with Bergen County’s Campgaw Mountain Reservation. I looked into it. The following is adapted from an article I wrote for the most recent Fyke newsletter.

A quick clippings search found these two items of note:

This from The Paterson News, March 3, 1953:

“The Fyke Nature Association was organized in January 1952, and has 34 active members, many of whom are experts in various facts of nature. Topics covered so far in monthly meetings, which take place on the fourth Friday, are wild flowers, marshes, binoculars, bird banding, mushrooms, rocks, minerals and astronomy.

“The name of the association was chosen in deference to the locale of activity where the Bergen County Park Commission is acquiring large tracts of land between Route 202, or the Valley Road, and Camp Rd, south of Darlington Ave. The Fyke is a highway that starts on the eastern end of the area and all but peters out in the Ramapo Mountains, but reaches far enough for the purposes of those who take interest in the wonders that lie about them, Membership is open to all nature lovers of the Northern New Jersey area who are interested.

“The Park Commission has given the association permission to label trees and mark trails. Meetings do not take place in the Summer, but picnics and field trips continue throughout the year. Slides of the past season’s activitles were shown at Friday’s meeting.

Fyke did mark the trails there in the mid-fifties:

“RAMSEY — Stiles Thomas, president of the Fyke Nature Association, announced at a meeting of the group on Friday evening in Ramsey that the Nature Trail Committee has completed surveys for two additional nature trails in the Campgaw Mountain Reservation.

“The group is cooperating with the Bergen County Park Commission in marking trails. The two additional trails will be 600 and 800 yards in length. Eventually it planned to label all trees, plants, rocks, etc.

“The park is a tract of some 888 acres acquired by the County Park Commission over the past five years and is one of several which will be affected by the special referendum on the Nov. 8 ballot. The two special questions, if approved, will give the Park Commission necessary funds to develop and maintain county parks.”

A check of Google Maps found that the brook next to Fyke Road in Campgaw is called “Fyke Brook.”

Since  a ‘”fyke” is a type of net to catch fish, perhaps the road was named for the brook, which was named for the net.

I helped catch fish with this type of net for research about the Hackensack River when I worked for the Meadowlands Commission.

Credit: Hugh McCormick Smith, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons