Are you looking for a way to introduce your children to adventure in the outdoors in a safe and wholesome way? Are you exploring summer camp options for your kids, or searching for a unique and fun way to get your entire family outside into deep nature in a convenient and educational way? Try this YMCA camp.
YMCA Camp Menogyn is a wilderness adventure camp on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Northern Minnesota just a mile from the Canadian border. The camp, with more than 100 years of history, has been providing youth and adults the opportunity to experience the Great Outdoors through canoeing, backpacking, rock climbing, and winter camping trips throughout Canada and the northern United States. Serving as a base for groups heading out on trail, the camp is beautifully rustic, accessible only by boat, and stands much as it did when established in 1922.
There are summer guided trips for school-aged kids ranging from less than a week to more than a month, as well as a wide range of fall, winter, and spring sessions for individuals, families and groups. The scenery is stunning, the staff is high quality, and the leadership skills conveyed through the raw adventure are second to none. The camp also espouses the wholesome values you would expect from the YMCA. You will find that your child (or you) will mature in some impressive ways with skills hard to learn in our day-to-day lives.
In full disclosure, I am not compensated for this promotion at all. It comes genuinely from my heart. I am a member of the Menogyn Community Board, as were my parents before me. My sisters and I all spent several childhood summers as campers there, gradually progressing up to the 30+ day invitational long trips where I paddled across the better part of Saskatchewan. That was years ago, but the growth, confidence, love of the outdoors, and adventurism gained at Menogyn has lasted me a lifetime. For parents looking for a great way to instill the same in your children, I highly recommend you give it a try.