The paths wind through the woods along the shore of Big Squam Lake, and for three hours on one Saturday afternoon in October they are lined with the improbable. Giant sculptures assembled from sticks. Art floating on the water. Rocks dressed in hand-knit sweaters. A bluegrass band somewhere off through the trees, a string trio playing classical music, actors performing Shakespeare, a field set aside for yoga. Then, by five o'clock, all of it is gone.
This is MOO — the Museum of the Outdoors — which returns on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026, from noon to 3 p.m. at Camp Hale in Center Sandwich, New Hampshire. It is free, open to anyone who shows up, and deliberately temporary. Creators install their work that morning, the public wanders through from noon to 3, and everything is broken down and carried away by 5 p.m. The rain date is Oct. 4.
The event's own organizers describe it as "a one-afternoon, leave-no-trace, cultural, community event." Last year, according to the event's website, hundreds attended. This year the organizers hope to feature more than 30 artists, more music, and light refreshments by the lake.
What makes MOO unusual is not just the setting but the economics of it — or rather, the absence of economics. "MOO is free. Free to the creators and free to the admirers," the organizers write. "In a world where everyone is selling and fundraising, MOO is simply about celebrating creativity, community and the outdoors."
Victoria West of Sandwich has been one of the event's organizers and its publicist since its inception, and she has a title to match the event's playful name: she calls herself a "MOOver." In a 2025 interview with InDepthNH.org, West described MOO as "an afternoon where folks can simply enjoy each other's company, the installations of 40 different creators, and the beautiful scenery of Squam Lake." She credited Camp Hale's generosity for the fact that there are no entrance fees at all. "It's incredibly low key and fun," she said.
The creators, West has said, are a cross-section of the region: artists young and old, musicians, actors, and people who may not think of themselves as artists at all. Some installations hang from trees. Some are one-offs made for a single afternoon. The 2025 edition included glass mushroom sculptures and mushroom prints by Eric Milligan of the NH Mushroom Company, dyed fabrics by Shani McLane, paintings layered with fabric to build texture, a series of two-story birdhouses, and an exhibit called "cows in the corn." There were also quieter, more contemplative pieces — one mindfulness installation invited visitors to close their eyes and imagine someone who wasn't there standing beside them.
That blend of the whimsical and the genuinely moving is what visitors tend to remember. A visitor who wrote about the 2025 event described wandering the trail and finding "spots along the trail that encourage mindfulness," the forest making the sound of the crowd seem distant. "It was almost like being in a park, but the forest made the jovial people noise seem distant," they wrote.
The venue is a story in itself. Camp Hale sits at 92 Millbridge Road in Sandwich, on the shores of Squam Lake, and it is not a typical arts venue. It is a summer camp that has served Boston youth for well over a century. Today the camp is run by United South End Settlements, a Boston organization founded in 1892, and it serves children largely from the South End and lower Roxbury.
Generations of Boston families have passed through Camp Hale. Aaron Dushku, vice president of the Camp Hale Alumni Association, told a writer in 2020 that the camp "has been a lifesaver for a lot of people and taught them about love, community, diversity and how to deal with it." He described the way eight kids who arrive as strangers in a cabin end up forming lifelong bonds because they come back year after year. The camp was long a boys' camp — Dushku's sister, the actress Eliza Dushku, grew up watching her three older brothers go off to camp each summer without her.
Camp Hale's grounds are what give MOO its particular character: open fields, woods, and shoreline, with terrain that is steep and rugged in places. The organizers are upfront that the event is not handicap accessible because of that terrain. It is also, by design, a place where art is encountered while walking — around a bend in a trail, at the water's edge, in a clearing — rather than viewed on a wall.
That the whole thing exists for only three hours is not a limitation so much as the concept. There is no admission booth, no merchandise tent, no fundraising pitch. There is cider and there are donuts. There is a field for yoga and a band playing somewhere you have to find. And then, at 3 p.m., the museum closes, and by 5 p.m. the forest is a forest again.
For anyone planning to go: MOO runs Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026, from noon to 3 p.m. at Camp Hale, 92 Millbridge Road, Center Sandwich, New Hampshire. It is free. The rain date is Oct. 4. Because of the rugged terrain, it is not handicap accessible. More information is available through the event's website, museumoftheoutdoors.net, or by contacting Vicky West at 978-729-9390.