CANAAN – On the Wednesday before the Fourth of July, while Maine was sweltering under 90-degree temperatures, Lake George Regional Park broke its one-day attendance record. More than 1,000 people cooled off in the wooded areas and the crystal clear waters of the park, which forms the border between Canaan and Skowhegan.

“By June,” said Park Ranger Robert Hubbard on Saturday, “we had surpassed our attendance record, set in 1999. We have also sold a record number of family passes.”

But admission to the 275-acre park is only $2 for adults and children under 5 are free, fees that Hubbard said “certainly are not enough to pay the bills.”

Hubbard stresses that the park’s mission is to provide affordable recreation and therefore the fees are deliberately kept low, putting pressure on the park’s board of directors to seek outside funding and grants. “For every $2 we take in at the gate,” Hubbard said, “another $4 has to be raised in donations.”

Lake George Regional Park is unique in its administrative makeup. The property is owned by the state and leased to the towns of Canaan and Skowhegan. It is managed by the Lake George Corp., a nonprofit 10-member board of directors.

A former children’s camp, the property was opened as a public park in 1993. “If the state hadn’t bought it, we would have lost it to development,” said Hubbard.

Park Manager Nancy Warren said the park is undergoing a capital campaign, attempting to raise $500,000. She said the four-tier campaign would try to capture $100,000 to purchase 43 additional acres on the east side of the lake. Already, $75,000 has been pledged, mostly by Somerset Woods trustees, the John Sage Foundation and the Norcross Foundation.

Another $200,000 would build the park’s endowment fund “which is critical to our future,” said Warren. The social hall on the west side of the park is earmarked for $150,000 worth of capital improvements, while $50,000 would be used to upgrade current equipment. “The park’s office is in my home. The office machines have all been donated,” she said. “We need to address these issues.”

Warren explained that the fund raising has been placed on hold for the summer but will be reactivated in the fall. “So far, we have raised $185,000,” she said. She also said the park would reapply to the Unity Foundation for an endowment.

Hubbard, who has managed the park for all of its eight years, likely knows every inch of its area, having helped create the trails, rebuild the beaches and construct the buildings.

“Look, right in the grass there,” he tells a visitor, “a loon has two eggs. She’s right out there in the water, fishing.” Walk another few feet and Hubbard points out a new trail, and then he greets a family holding a birthday party.

He boasts of the popular summer camps held at the park for Canaan and Skowhegan children and brags about the work being done by a group of six teen-agers, part of a federally funded summer youth employment program.

This year Hubbard has five Unity College students working at the park. Four are interns. “It is an invaluable resource to us, to get students that motivated,” he said. “They only get a stipend but they work like it’s $12 an hour.”

The students say the experience is invaluable. Working and living in the park have provided them with an immersion in park management they never could have obtained the classroom. “I like the idea of education being outside,” said Carrie Poston, a Unity College senior from Chester, Vt. “That’s why I like this park. Early in the season, there were a lot of school groups here and I got to work with them. It is so important to use the park that way, to educate.”

Poston said that so many people come to the park in the summer “just for swimming, and they walk by all this, the birds singing, the trails, the nature. This experience is exactly what I needed to complete my education.”

Darcy Barnard, a Unity College intern from Mechanic Falls, said Hubbard has augmented the students’ experience. “He has gone above and beyond,” she said. “He has taught us how to identify the trees, to listen to the birds’ calls, knot tying, how to use a compass. I’ve learned a lot from working here, in these surroundings, but Bob is a wonderful resource as well.”