FACILITY Yarmouth Port is located at Camp Wingate Kirkland in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts. Camp Wingate Kirkland has hosted outdoor education programs for over 30 years. Located on 44 acres, it is the perfect place to explore forests, ponds, fields, and bogs.
ACCOMMODATION Students are housed in rustic and comfortable cabins complete with bunk beds, bathrooms, and showers in each building. With heat in each building, guests are sure to be comfortable at any time of year. Cabin and lodge capacities vary, and we work with each school to provide the best accommodation plan to meet the size of your group. The number of chaperones in each cabin is based on cabin capacity.
LOCATION At this outstanding Cape Cod location, we provide schools with an exciting opportunity for their students to engage in the exploration and discovery of a variety of land, coastal, and marine, natural environments. Located in the heart of Cape Cod, students can explore forest, freshwater, and ocean habitats, while building their own independence and developing a shared community with their peers.
TRAVEL TIME Boston, MA - 1 hour and 30 minutes
Hartford, CT - 3 hours
Providence, RI - 1 hour and 30 minutes
Springfield, MA - 2 hours and 50 minutes
RECREATION Available on the property are three large fields, tennis courts, a volleyball court, and plenty of outside games like tetherball, gaga ball, basketball, and carpet ball, perfect for playing during free time.
EXCURSIONS At the heart of our program, Nature’s Classroom at Yarmouth Port, are the unique off-property excursions. Our Mid-Cape location is perfect for accessing bayside and oceanside beaches, marshes, and whale watches out of Provincetown Harbor.
Chapin Memorial Beach. Our most popular excursion is Chapin Memorial Beach for a tide pooling experience. Students go at low tide to this bayside beach and explore the vast intertidal zone; home to horseshoe crabs, hermit crabs, moon snails, and piping plovers just to name a few. It is highly recommended that students bring rain boots or an extra pair of shoes that they don’t mind getting wet for this excursion.
The Cape Cod National Seashore is just a 30-minute bus ride from our location and has a variety of ecosystems to experience in our all-day excursion. Students begin their day at the Salt Pond Visitor Center, where they can learn all about the geological and the cultural history of Cape Cod. From the Visitor Center, students will hike for approximately two miles along the marsh, through a pine and cedar forest and on to Coast Guard Beach, a beautiful stretch of wild waves, examples of erosion in action, and oftentimes seals swimming just off shore. From Coast Guard Beach, it’s just another 10-minute drive to the Atlantic White Cedar Swamp. A quick one-mile loop, the Cedar Swamp is the perfect end to a day of exploring or a good first stop before a whale watch.
Whale Watch. What better way to give your students a memorable marine experience than with a whale watch? Onboard every Dolphin Fleet Whale Watch is an experienced naturalist to give background information on the species of whales and other marine life we are likely to see on the open ocean. In addition to whales, we often see dolphins, seals, and all kinds of shorebirds. Whale watches typically last three or four hours and include a bagged lunch.