Photo courtesy of Mrs. Niroupa Shah, P ’25, ’27
By Chelsea Branch ’25, Reporter
A larger-than-life figure is resting cozily under a leafy blanket in Hamden, Connecticut. Take a closer peek and you’ll find that you’re not looking at a monster, but rather 32 miles of sprawling greenery known as the Sleeping Giant State Park. One hundred years ago, state conservation of this beloved landmark began.
Sunday, October 12, 2024, marked a century of slumber for the colossal character, called Hobbomock by the Quinnipiac. In honor of this milestone, the Sleeping Giant Park Association (SGPA) threw the mountain a birthday blowout. The SGPA team is a band of volunteers dedicated to ensuring Sleeping Giant’s conservation. Through both their diligence behind the scenes and their hands-on work in the park, the board members are living out their mission of making Sleeping Giant a haven for hikers, nature lovers, and wildlife alike.
Mr. Aaron Lefland, the Vice President of SGPA, played an integral role in organizing and executing the centennial celebration. “We thought it fitting that we throw the park a 100th birthday party,” Mr. Lefland said. The bash opened with several compelling remarks made by both elected and appointed officials, including some indigenous tribal representatives. In keeping with the day’s spirit of education and awareness, “The festivities included some guided hikes,” Mr. Lefland said. “We led four different hikes, sort of a beginner, intermediate, and advanced, and then a history hike.”
The Connecticut community showed up and showed out for the celebration; hundreds of outdoor enthusiasts populated the mountain that day, affirming Sleeping Giant’s statewide esteem. Counter Weight Brewing Company of Hamden’s neighboring town, Cheshire, Connecticut, even designed and manufactured a limited-release beer for the event. “Counter Weight was incredible to work with,” Mr. Lefland said. “They donated all the beer to us to then sell that day, so we got 100 percent of the proceeds from those sales.” Complementing the drinks were tasty food truck treats for party-goers to enjoy. And what celebration is complete without music? Sleeping Giant was serenaded by a band of Quinnipiac University professors and a student acapella group on its special day.
Though accessible to the greater community for only the past 100 years, Sleeping Giant existed long before that. Mr. Lefland said, “Going way back, Sleeping Giant was a really important, sort of culturally and spiritually important landmark for the Quinnipiac people.” The mountain’s historians have uncovered several Quinnipiac artifacts scattered across the land, serving as evidence of this Native community’s long-standing relationship with the site. Mr. Lefland continued, “As European colonization happened, the Quinnipiac, one way or another, were effectively forced out, and there were also some inter-tribal wars happening. And so over time, the ownership transferred to private landowners.” Gradually, settlers morphed Sleeping Giant into a residential and commercial space rather than a sacred one. One landowner even sold his portion of the land to be quarried. It was this act of exploitation that Mr. Lefland said, “spurred [the community] into action to protect the mountain.”
For many, the value of Sleeping Giant State Park extends far. “[The park] just means so much to so many different people, and the park has such a wide range of offerings … there’s the picnic area, there’s fishing, there’s obviously hiking, and bird watching,” Mr. Lefland said. “I grew up in North Haven, just down the road, so early memories of hiking up the really steep trail, going up the Giant’s head, looking out from the tower — I did my Eagle Scout project there back in the day.” For Mr. Lefland and many others, Sleeping Giant is a vault of memories. To celebrate the park’s centennial is to honor all of the stories intertwined with it.
Sleeping Giant’s 100th birthday celebration represented the power of community. From the collaboration between SGPA and other organizations that made this event possible to the enthusiasm of the Connecticut community in joining the festivities, this event is a reflection of nature’s ability to bring us together, in Mr. Lefland’s eyes. “I think it’s really important to underscore that the Sleeping Giant, he’s lost part of his head, but that would have continued, were it not for a small at the beginning and then larger and larger group of community members who voiced their concern and got together and took collective action,” Mr. Lefland said. It has taken a village to preserve Sleeping Giant for the past 100 years, and it will take a village in order for the mountain to achieve 100 more.
