LocationsMassachusetts
Lowell, Massachusetts
Lowell National Historical Park
Nearly six miles of hand-dug canals, locks and gatehouses threaded through a mill city — proof the game works as well on a sidewalk as it does in the woods.
Researched from this park's own sources. Nobody's walked it yet.
Read this bit out
Before there were machines to do it, people dug nearly six miles of canals through this city with shovels, to take the power out of the river and use it to run the mills. Almost all of them still work. The water we see moving today is doing the same job it did two hundred years ago.
One of your three free places, or the Explorer Pass. What that costs
Before you go
- Time there
- Plan on about 2 hours at the park.
- Parking
- No entrance fee, but parking is paid: the closest is the Joseph Downes garage at 75 John Street, a block from the Boott Cotton Mills. The Hamilton Canal garage is the only free option and is a 0.6 mile walk. The lots signed "Resident Parking" at the Boott Mills are not for visitors.
- Underfoot
- City sidewalks and canal walkways the whole way — flat, paved, and the reason this pack exists.
- Stroller
- A stroller is fine here.
25 challenges written for this place
A game deals seven to fifteen of them, so no two visits are alike.
Every game includes this one
Swamp Locks
Make it to Swamp Locks and cross the walkway over the water.
A few of the others
Somebody Worked Here
Find a window somebody once worked behind, and say what you think they could see.
The Most Worn-Out Brick
Find the most worn-out brick in the city, with its corners rubbed round.
Which Way Is It Flowing?
Work out which way the canal water is going, and how you can tell.
The Merrimack
Find the Merrimack River — the river all this waterpower came from.
The Great River Wall
Get to the Great River Wall and look out over the water.
Count The Windows
Pick one of the giant old mills and count how many rows of windows it has.
The rest are a surprise — that's the whole point.
Play this at Lowell National Historical Park
Free. Works with no signal once you're there.