Great Salt Pond

The Great Salt Pond lies immediately behind Philipsburg, and it is the reason the town exists: salt was raked from it from the seventeenth century until the industry ended in the middle of the twentieth, worked in conditions that were brutal for the enslaved and later the paid labourers who did it. Waders and herons use the water now. Parts of the edge have been filled in for building.

The landscape

• The pond - the water body the town was founded to work.
• The salt history - three centuries of raking that built Philipsburg.
• The waterbirds - herons and waders using the shallows.
• The filled edges - the ground taken from the pond for building.

When to go

December to April is the dry high season. Bird numbers vary through the year. Water levels change with the rains.

What to expect

There is no visitor infrastructure: no hide, no path around it, no interpretation on the ground. Water quality has been a long-running problem. Viewing is from the roads that run along its edges.

Nearby

Philipsburg is south, and Fort Willem is above.

Key facts