Knight's Pond Preserve is a nature preserve and public park located in Cumberland and

North Yarmouth North Yarmouth, officially the Town of North Yarmouth, is a town in Cumberland County, Maine. The population was 4,072 at the 2020 United States Census. It is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford Metropolitan Statistical Area ...

Maine Maine () is a U.S. state, state in the New England and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and territories of Canad ...

, United States.

Geography and usage

With a total size of 213 acres, it is the largest undeveloped single property in Cumberland, and is managed by the Town of Cumberland and the Chebeague and Cumberland Land Trust. Since its introduction as a managed public park in 2015, the park has seen increased use including walking, hiking, mountain biking, fishing, hunting, snowshoeing, cross country skiing, and ice skating. The preserve is also home to Blueberry Hill, which hosts an FAA

ASR-11 ASR-11 is a Digital Airport Surveillance Radar (DASR,) an advanced radar system utilized by the United States as the next generation of terminal air traffic control. The ASR-11 is an upgraded, advanced version of the previous ASR-9 radar. This n ...

radar tower used to monitor air traffic in the area surrounding

Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metro ...

History

Knight's Pond was originally created by private landowners in the late 1950s who dammed Mill Brook flooding the surrounding wetland for recreational use. The pond area was privately owned but open to the public until 2015, when it was bought by the towns of Cumberland and North Yarmouth for preservation. The forested area north of the Greely Road Extension parking area contains stone rubble from Portland's Union Station, demolished in 1961. The preserve has hosted the annual Knight's Pond Survival Challenge fundraising event since 1971. Knight's Pond was the site of several alleged UFO sightings throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In February 2023, the Blueberry Hill radar tower was used to assist in locating unidentified flying objects over the northeastern United States. During the post-pandemic housing affordability crisis in 2023 and 2024, Knight's Pond Preserve was identified in Cumberland Town Council documents as a potential future location for construction of subsidized affordable housing projects.

Ecology

The Preserve's combination of a large undeveloped forest, wetland, vernal pools and hilltop environments has allowed a number of rare biomes and species to exist, including flying squirrels, endangered amphibians, the

northern pitcher plant ''Sarracenia purpurea'', the purple pitcher plant, northern pitcher plant, turtle socks, or side-saddle flower, is a carnivorous plant in the family Sarraceniaceae. Description Like other species of '' Sarracenia'', ''S. purpurea'' obtains mo ...

, and rare oak-hickory forest typically found much further south. The pond is a habitat for migratory geese and ducks as well as a steady beaver population.

References

{{authority control Protected areas of Cumberland County, Maine Cumberland, Maine North Yarmouth, Maine Protected areas established in 2015 2015 establishments in Maine