A scenic winter walk in Boston: the Jamaica Pond loop

Jamaica Pond winter scenery with dead tree

Jamaica Pond is part of the Emerald Necklace, a chain of waterways and parks through Boston neighborhoods designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903). Jamaica Pond, however, is a fresh-water pond of natural origin, carved out by a glacier of the Labrador ice sheet (see interpretive panel on Pinebank Promontory at pond's northeast side). Once, Jamaica Pond supplied the city with water. And in winter, ice dealers cut and sold portions of the frozen pond, while other parts of the ice surface were used for fashionable ice-skating parties. A drawing by the American painter Winslow Homer (1836-1910), for example, depicts a Jamaica Pond skating scene in the mid-1850s.

Jamaica Pond ice delivery wagon shown in a picture at Pinebank Promontory interpretive panel

 

A Winslow Homer drawing of ice-skaters on Jamaica Pond in the mid-1850s, displayed at the boat house

A brief history of Jamaica Pond and its surroundings is given on a small board at the boat house:

Jamaica Pond is a glacial kettle pond. In Colonial times, the pleasing waters and rural landscape attached well-to-do Bostonians to build country houses here. Later, gentlemen farmers and estate owners settled here. In the 1890s, the city acquired Jamaica Pond for the park system designed by Frederick Law Olmstedt.

The name of the pond is of Indian origin meaning “abundance of beavers” (see my Latintos entry about Jamaica Pond).

Map of Jamaica Pond and its neighborhoods

The length of the paved trail around the pond is about 1.5 miles. In winter, snow is typically shoveled away, but there may be icy, slippery spots. The pictures below provide some more winter impressions of the trail and pond, derived at a sunny day in February 2020.   

Jamaica Pond Boat House, established 1910

Boats “hibernating” at Jamaica Pond Boat House

Cast of the shadow of a tree silhouette on the snow-covered ice surface of Jamaica Pond