A Haunted History of Twin Ponds

Every Halloween, the wind shifts through the pines at Twin Ponds Lodge a little differently. It whistles like it’s carrying secrets, like the land remembers something… something older, something stranger, something with tiny hands and glowing eyes.

Long before men set foot on these grounds, before the first fire pit was dug or the first hammock strung, this place was home to a society unlike any other. Not a tribe. Not a settlement. Not even a family. No, friends—what lived here was a raccoon cult.

The Cult of the Ponds

According to scraps of folklore passed down through confused historians and one extremely drunk amateur cryptozoologist, the raccoon cult was highly organized. They weren’t just scurrying around digging through trash. They had rituals. They had a hierarchy. They had… a calendar system, scrawled in claw marks on birch bark, based on the phases of the moon and the weekly arrival of abandoned picnic baskets.

Some say they wore masks fashioned from… other raccoons. (That’s either really dark, or kinda kinky, but stay with me.) Others insist the cult could hypnotize outsiders with their eerie, synchronized paw-washing, performed in silence under the full moon.

One account describes their midnight chant—hundreds of raccoons circling the ponds in unison, their eyes glowing like embers, muttering what could only be translated as: “chitter, chatter, trash forever.”

That said, little is known about the intent of this community of trash pandas. Archaeologists claim to have found tiny altars made of acorns and soda can tabs. One raccoon was unearthed with a perfectly preserved copy of Out magazine. Local legend says that if you shine a flashlight into the woods at midnight on Halloween, you can still see the faint reflection of thousands of raccoon eyes… blinking in unison.

The Great Disappearance

But then—mystery. When the first humans stumbled onto the grounds that would become Twin Ponds, they found… silence. No paw prints. No glowing eyes. Just thousands of raccoon skeletons, piled in circles as if they’d simply collapsed mid-ritual.

The cult was gone. Every last member.

For decades, theories swirled. Did they starve? Was it disease? Did some larger, darker force intervene? The mystery of the raccoon cult’s extinction haunted every campfire tale throughout New England.

After careful study of found remains, the experts made a shocking discovery. Every skeleton was male. Every last raccoon in the cult… was a dude. And just like that, the story clicked into place. The cult didn’t die out because of famine, plague, or curses. They died out because, well… biology. The raccoon cult of Twin Ponds wasn’t defeated. It simply faded away because even in the animal kingdom, sometimes the guys forget to plan for the long haul.

So this Halloween, as you sit in the lodge bar sipping something strong and dark, remember: the very ground beneath Twin Ponds was consecrated first by the all-male raccoon cult. They washed, they worshipped, they weirded out anyone who crossed their path, and, yes, I imagine they did butt stuff. 

But, in their own bizarre way, they made sure this land would always be a safe space for men. Praise the Great Raccoon Gods and Happy Halloween. 

Yours in Community, 

Ranger Alli

(To be clear, this story is made in good jest - to my knowledge no raccoon cults have yet to call Twin Ponds Lodge home.)