Displaying items by tag: Wisconsin overnight camp

Discovering the Best Summer Camps in Wisconsin: What Parents Should Know
By Lonnie, Camp Director at Swift Nature Camp

Choosing the right summer camp for your child is both exciting and a little nerve-wracking. As a camp director in Wisconsin for three decades, I’ve spoken with hundreds of parents asking the same big question: What are the best summer camps in Wisconsin, and how do I know which is right for my child?

Whether you're searching for overnight camps in Wisconsin, nature-based summer camps, or traditional sleepaway camps for kids, there are a few universal qualities that the best camps share. Here’s a helpful guide based on what I’ve seen work best for children — including what we aim to provide every summer at Swift Nature Camp. For my husband and I we appreciate when parents call or text their questions to us. Yes, we have much information on our website but this shows the parents that go that extra step to ensure their Childs experience will be the best.

As the sun sets on another unforgettable summer, Swift Nature Camp in Wisconsin has reason to celebrate. The 2023 camp season marked a triumphant return to normalcy, free from the shadows of COVID-19. With a record-breaking turnout, it became the second-largest summer in the camp's history. Swift Nature Camp's dedication to outdoor education and fostering a love for nature shone brightly as campers reveled in the joy of camaraderie, adventure, and learning in the great outdoors.

Back to Normal: A Victory Over COVID-19
The summer of 2023 will forever be remembered as the season that saw Swift Nature Camp rise above the challenges posed by the global pandemic. After two long years of uncertainty and limitations, the camp community, staff, and campers came together to make this summer unforgettable.

Swift Nature Camp took COVID-19 seriously from the outset. Comprehensive safety measures, including vaccination requirements for staff and regular testing, masking, and sanitizing, ensured that the camp was a safe environment for all. The commitment to safety allowed campers and their families to feel confident in returning to camp, knowing that their well-being was the top priority.

A Remarkable Turnout
The 2023 summer season will go down in Swift Nature Camp's history books as the second-largest in its storied past. Campers from all over the country flocked to this haven of adventure and learning, eager to make up for lost time. The camp's ability to provide a safe, nurturing, and exciting environment once again underscored its importance as a hub of childhood growth and development.

Swift Nature Camp prides itself on its diverse range of activities and programs designed to spark curiosity, build confidence, and foster a deep connection to nature. From hiking and kayaking to arts and crafts, every camper had the opportunity to discover new passions and make lasting memories.

Building Friendships and Memories
One of the hallmarks of this overnight summer camp is the sense of community it fosters. Campers and staff alike come together to create an environment where lifelong friendships are forged, and memories are cherished. The 2023 season was no exception, with campers building connections that transcended the camp's picturesque setting.

In an era where screen time often dominates childhood experiences, Swift Nature Camp offers a refreshing alternative. Campers had the chance to unplug, immerse themselves in the beauty of the natural world, and engage in activities that enriched their lives. Whether it was spotting wildlife during a nature hike, conquering a fear of heights on the ropes course, or simply sharing stories around a campfire, campers relished the opportunity to connect with both their peers and the environment.

Looking Ahead
As Swift Nature Camp bids farewell to another incredible summer, the future shines brightly. The resilience displayed in overcoming the challenges of COVID-19 has reaffirmed the camp's commitment to providing exceptional outdoor experiences. Campers and their families can eagerly anticipate many more summers filled with adventure, learning, and growth.

Swift Nature Camp's 2023 season will be remembered as a testament to the enduring spirit of community and the boundless joy of exploring the natural world. It serves as a reminder that even in the face of adversity, the bonds of friendship, the wonders of nature, and the joy of childhood can prevail.

Swift Nature Camp's summer of 2023 was not just a return to normalcy; it was a triumph over adversity. With record-breaking attendance, a commitment to safety, and a diverse range of activities, campers and staff alike reveled in the joy of being together once more. As the sun sets on this remarkable season, Swift Nature Camp looks ahead to a future filled with even more adventure, growth, and unforgettable memories in the summer of 2024. Registration has already begun. Summer Camp Enrolment for 2024.

There are many reasons why children may choose to attend an overnight camp in Wisconsin with animals. Some of the benefits of an animal summer camp experience include:

1. Personal growth and development: Overnight camps provide children with the opportunity to develop important life skills such as independence, teamwork, and problem-solving. Camps with animals can offer even more opportunities for personal growth, as children learn to care for and interact with animals in a responsible and compassionate way.

2. Outdoor adventure and nature exploration: Camps located in Wisconsin's beautiful natural setting provide children with the opportunity to explore the outdoors and experience all that nature has to offer. Camps with animals offer even more opportunities for children to learn about the natural world and to connect with the environment.

3. Fun and friendship: Overnight camps are a great place for children to make new friends and have fun. Children who attend camps with animals may have even more opportunities for socialization, as they work together to care for and interact with the animals.

4. Personal interests and passions: Some children may be particularly interested in animals, and attending an overnight camp with animals can be a great way for them to pursue their passions and interests. Camps with animals often offer activities and programs focused on animal care and conservation, providing children with the opportunity to learn more about their favorite animals.

Overall, attending an overnight camp in Wisconsin with animals, like Swift Nature Camp can be a rewarding and enriching experience for children. It can help them develop important life skills, connect with nature and the environment, make new friends, and pursue their passions and interests.

WITHOUT THE COMFORTS

BY BEVERLY PLUMMER
Reprinted from the 1965 Chicago Tribune, Camp Minocqua  for Boys is featured in the article and is the summer camp that Jeff Lorenz  is an alumni of  from 1966-1972. He went on to found Swift Nature Camp in 1997.

Television, telephones, and mother-love are all great things. In the winter, of course, but next summer, more than 4 million school age youngsters will trade them for tents, rain, poison Ivy and unforgettable times,

IT GETS COLDER and colder. The rain comes down like the sky is broken. The tent leaks all night and breakfast is bread and rain water eaten under the picnic table.

Is this "Ah, Wilderness!" or "Aaarg, Wilderness!"? Only the boy or girl scrunched damply under the table can tell you. But chances are [even tho it had to be said thru chat- tering teeth] he d say it was GREAT! For this wet, cold, shivering youngster is one of 4 million school-age American children who look forward ea- to camp every summer. Why should a child be so anx- ious to go to camp that he s willing to go without six months' allowance to help foot the bill? Or get up at a snowy 5:30 a. m. to deliver the morn- ing papers so he can buy a new snorkel for camp?

It's not the creature comforts he s seeking-that s for sure. For comforts such as television, telephones, and five-course dinners are better provided at home than on a 100-acre tract of trees and bushes.

Actually what this child is seeking, even if he s not con- aware of it, is a sense of adventure. A chance to be a conqueror rather than a spectator. An opportunity to create

his own security in a strange atmosphere. And where, in to- day s chrome-plated world, can a child find such an opportunity except in the wilderness?

As an American, he still has something of the early pioneer in his bones-the pioneer who slew his own dinner, stitched up his britches, and then fought off the enemy before he went to bed.

A note from a city-bred 14- year-old to his parents last year states proudly, "Besides clearing three campsites out of the bush, setting up a compass course, and assisting the surveyor map the boundary lines of camp, we got to help skin a 125-pound bear and cut logs for a new kitchen floor." This glowing letter was written by a lad who lived 10 stories up in a plush apartment where a maid laid out his clothing every morning!

There have been camps of one kind or another almost from the beginning of America -even the first settlers were campers of a sort The first organized camps began to appear on the east coast as early as the 1860s, but it wasn't until the very late iBO0s that camping grabbed a really firm foothold for itself. It was evidently firm enough, for today there are more than 13,500 organized camps scattered thruout the United States.

The first organized camp in the midwest was started by a young doctor. [just graduated from Northwestern university medical school] following the worst typhoid fever epidemic Chicago has ever known. Dr. John Perley Sprague had been raised in the lumbering country of Maine and had never quite got used to the ways of the city. It bothered him that so many children were growing up with no intimate knowledge of nature, so in April, 1903, he set out for upper Wisconsin be- fore the ice was even out of the rivers and lakes to find a spot to set up a camp.

What he finally settled on was a point on Lake Toma- hawk near Minocqua, which still stands today and is still in operation under the direction of his daughter, Helen, and son-in-law, Jack Broomell. Boys who go to Camp Minocqua today board the train at Chicago s North Western station

and arrive at camp about eight. hours later.

The 15 campers who went north with Doctor Sprague in 1903 were not so fortunate; but when this story is told, many a boy declares he'd give his right arm to have been in that first group.

"We took a train from Chicago," Doctor Sprague wrote CAMP For City-Dwellers: A Place in the Open In camp craft classes such as bowl-making, boys can create with their own hands.

in his notes, "and when we woke up in the morning, we had only gone about 200 miles be- cause a bridge had washed out. It seems there was a lot of flooding that year. There was no diner on the train and they took the sleeper off, too. During the afternoon they fixed up the bridge and we went on, only to be stopped again when the tracks disappeared under water at the Wisconsin river. But they decided to try it and we got across and kept right on going to Mosinee, where the tracks were under water again. And we had to stop once more."

At 4 the next morning, Doc- tor Sprague got everybody off the train and they got up a game of baseball in the grass beside the tracks. Hungry to the desperation point, they finally found a boarding house cook who fixed breakfast for them for a hatful of coins that had been collected. The rest of the trip was made partly by box car and partly by hand-car.

"Finally," Doctor Sprague said, "an engine came down from the north and picked us up and on the third day we finally got there."

Camp Minocqua is much the same today in spirit as it was 60 years ago; the ultimate aim of its directors always has been to provide the child with a natural atmosphere in which he can grow in all directions. This is the aim of all good camps today.

"There was no 'baby-sitting' in those days," Helen Broomell says. "It was primarily an opportunity for boys to spend the summer out-of-doors . . . it wasn't even supposed to be a 'character-building' experience except as the good influence of the men rubbed off on. the boys."

Camp Minocquafor Boys would be classified today as an "all-around" camp with a good solid emphasis on individual growth, altho the program includes a liberal choice of everything you might consider important to camping: riding, sailing, crafts, archery, etc.

There are so many camps today which, altho they maintain social orientation as the ultimate goal, are highly specialized . A few examples: folk- singing camps, language-of- your-choice camps, all-sports camps where a child chooses one major and one minor sport and works on proficiency in these areas all summer long. There are pioneer camps, camps for the psychologically disturbed, riding camps, and tours-of-Israel camps.

The rivalry between different types of camps is much like the rivalry between competing high schools. One group of boys came back from a visit to a neighboring camp with these words of disgust: "It's a chicken camp. Everybody wore identical T-shirts, and there were these 'Gung ho' loud speakers that blasted out instructions all day long - just like in the movies. All the one had to do was sit on their duffs while 'big brother' told them what to do over the loud speaker."

CAMP-The Counselor Must Love Children. Nature was like downtown New York. Everything was paved! You couldn't get dirty if you want- ed to."

For some children, being able to get good and dirty with a bunch of other guys is reason enough to go to camp. They come from big cities where they have no close companions, even in their own family group; often they don't even sit down to dinner with their parents, but eat in the kitchen with the maid.

This was a real revelation to one of the foreign-exchange counselors who came to this country thru the efforts of the Committee for Friendly Relations Among Foreign Students. He was surprised at the bad table manners of some of the boys from wealthy families. He referred to the children in his cabin as "small gangsters," but this was a term of real affection for he was completely charmed by their warmth and maturity.

"An American camper is not as well disciplined as the Swedes," the counselor later observed. "He is less bashful and somewhat more matured than his Swedish mate. But you very soon get acquainted with him and after two hours he declares he likes or hates you more than anybody in the world."

He was judging only boys from a small segment of American life, however, because unless a child has a wealthy uncle or well-to-do parents, he can't afford a summer at

a private camp. Rates begin at about $575 and go on up.

Private camps are only a small part of the organized camp picture, tho. Only 3,000 of the nation s 13,500 organized camps are privately owned and run. Most of the rest are agency and day camps. A "season" is more flexible at these camps, running from one day to several weeks and costing as little as $15 per week.

Many find it hard to understand why anyone would choose to work at a summer camp, but the conclusion can only be heartening to any parent considering sending his child.

Because the pay is poor, the hours are bad, and working conditions sometimes unfavorable [such as an "overnight" in a leaky tent], it can only be assumed that counselors take these jobs out of a love for children and nature.

One of the toughest jobs a director has is selecting good counselors. At one time these young people were chosen because they possessed some special skill, but today directors seek well-rounded, emotionally mature persons. In addition to counselors, the director hires cooks, kitchen boys, stable boys, a camp-mother, a doctor and/ or a nurse. Each staff member is selected with infinite care, because it takes a special kind of person to be able to live so intimately with so many children or young adults for such a length of time.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A CAMP

A PARENT interested in finding the best camp for his child should consider the following points:

1. A good ratio is one counselor for every eight campers; an ideal ratio is one to four.

2. A good director will ask for a personal history of your child. Not so he doesn't, forget her, because if he doesn't feel he needs to know such things as the fact that Sally still wets her bed or is afraid of the dark, he isn't very interested in her.

3. A good camp has a rigid code of safety and health, but a flexible and adaptable daily program of recreation.

4. Fees alone do not make a camp bad or good, and in no way indicate what a camp is really like.

End of article

Today, Swift Nature Camp has progressed with the times enhancing a child's personal growth while at camp,   Camp Minocqua is still in the heart of Director Jeff Lorenz and often is being recreated at camp in the camp for the 21st century.