Fish Hatchery

The Fish Hatchery is Birch Rock's original library.

The building is a log cabin, built with a stone fireplace, along the waterfront path. It is in the western corner of camp, along the waterfront path. Pat's cabin is behind the Fish Hatchery. This is a building that has had many names, officially it was the Allen Kearns Library.

Over time, the Fish Hatchery has had many different uses. Aside from it being used as the library, and as a fish hatchery after the new library was built up by the lodge, the Fish Hatchery has been used to house the art program and the nature program. While there are attempts to now call it Birch Rock's Nature Center, it has been called the Fish Hatchery for at least three decades so that name for the building has stuck. Perhaps, as we get more and more new campers at camp, it will slowly become the Nature Center, a much more logical name for a summer camp these days.

In the 1990s, a new door was cut into the wall of the Fish Hatchery, changing the entrance from facing the water to facing the Birch Rock. The old door was replaced with a screened window. The door was moved due to erosion along the waterfront path and Birch Rock's desire to minimize future erosion.