For those who send kids to summer camps....

[atepointer]

I've thought about putting a link up to this camp a few times, but am now just getting to it. It's a camp where kids get to see and experience the woods and our amazing outdoors and I realize not everyone lives in an area where that can easily happen. I grew up in corn fields in the midwest and this camp blew my mind. The base camp is located in International Falls, MN and I still look back on it fondly. During an 8 week session there is a culmination 20 day canoe trip to the Hudson Bay. Your kid is gonna lose contact with this messed up world and get immersed in wilderness, push himself and make some great friends as well. Just amazing. Canoes, portages....an experience. And as the video ends you will hear what I think the most valuable aspect: maturation, working through problems and learning how to get 'the impossible' done with a team of people focused on overcoming the adversity in front of them.

Camp Kooch-i-ching

www.koochiching.org

 

[Maggot]

Nice.

I went to one as a kid as well and had a great time.

 

[atepointer]

Nice.

I went to one as a kid as well and had a great time.

My mind says let's go again! But my body says yea um. No.

 

[hlee]

Coochy King? Really? Where is VJJ punisher?

 

[Pbgt]

As a wippersnapper our jr hs had a program, you could get rid of your kid for 2 weeks midsummer at the isabella learning center (northern MN)...My parents thought they won the "lets get rid of this asshole for a couple weeks lottery" and all for 65.00 bucks!! Spent the week in the BWCA with a science teacher and 7 other city punk kids that I'd never met before...there were some wrinkles that worked themselves out and the experience was absolutely fantastic. Us kids learned to work as a team, learned that everybody had strengths and weaknesses ect...had a blast fishing and swimming, sharing with the others our daily catch...came back to Esebella lc and spent the week with young college kids doing mentoring, showing us why a beaver builds it dam the way it does, what bugs and plants you can eat ect... again amazing experience. I developed a passion for another experience...life was busy and I was young. Fast forward almost 20 years later, my son and I as well as others I have invited, retraced our very footsteps and almost 30 trips later, still love to get up there! One day almost 3 decades from my first trip, an old man, still in good shape, comes into my business...this was the science teacher, who made this trip for our group possible, I reintroduced myself, my story, and couldn't thank him enough. That is what "camp" is all about.

 

[whatsupdoc]

Many moons ago as I was dropping my boys off for their first summer camp my youngest
says to me as we walked into the bunkhouse.

"What the hell dad, this looks like where Jason from Friday the 13 movie was filmed."

Me and the wife laughed all the way home.

 

[atepointer]

As a wippersnapper our jr hs had a program, you could get rid of your kid for 2 weeks midsummer at the isabella learning center (northern MN)...My parents thought they won the "lets get rid of this asshole for a couple weeks lottery" and all for 65.00 bucks!! Spent the week in the BWCA with a science teacher and 7 other city punk kids that I'd never met before...there were some wrinkles that worked themselves out and the experience was absolutely fantastic. Us kids learned to work as a team, learned that everybody had strengths and weaknesses ect...had a blast fishing and swimming, sharing with the others our daily catch...came back to Esebella lc and spent the week with young college kids doing mentoring, showing us why a beaver builds it dam the way it does, what bugs and plants you can eat ect... again amazing experience. I developed a passion for another experience...life was busy and I was young. Fast forward almost 20 years later, my son and I as well as others I have invited, retraced our very footsteps and almost 30 trips later, still love to get up there! One day almost 3 decades from my first trip, an old man, still in good shape, comes into my business...this was the science teacher, who made this trip for our group possible, I reintroduced myself, my story, and couldn't thank him enough. That is what "camp" is all about.

The camp was an amazing experience I think of it often. I'll likely never see animals and pristine wilderness like that again. Canoeing to the Hudson Bay was at that time something I couldn't even comprehend.

 

[BullGear]

Have your kids join the Civil Air Patrol if one is available in your area. Cool stuff all year long. Including Winter Survival Camping.

 

[Maggot]

The camp was an amazing experience I think of it often. I'll likely never see animals and pristine wilderness like that again. Canoeing to the Hudson Bay was at that time something I couldn't even comprehend.

It wasnt a camp experience but hiking the Grand Canyon was one of those for me.

 

[Maser]

Both of my sons have gone and live streamed the fireworks show back to my wife and I at home while we set our own off with them. Wife has been camping a few times with her parents, but they did it on easy mode and didn't rough it. As far as myself goes I have never been camping or at least what I consider camping. I don't consider passing out drunk while fishing to be camping. I would like to do the real thing sometime you know with a tent and starting a fire with flint and steel and fish for food, etc. Fresh caught pan fried crappie over a campfire in a cast iron pan sounds really nice now.