Eagles, whiskey jacks, pine martins, oh my! If you go into the woods on Mount Seymour you don't need to wear a disguise, but you may be in for a big surprise.
Lots of wildlife awaits campers this summer at Mount Seymour's Eco-Adventure camps, and that is one of the biggest draws of the camps, explains outdoor education manager Janey Chang.
"It's pretty amazing to spend a whole week of the summer on the top of a mountain where it's usually a ski resort," she says, calling the program a "true nature immersion" camp.
Last year, a group of campers was walking on a trail that is used for snowshoeing in the winter when they came across two eagles in the trees who were calling out to each other.
Chang says this is a total nature setting where kids engage in active attention rather than the passive attention many of them are used to with video games and computer screens.
"The kids are here to learn and to absorb and to experience," she says, noting that the program helps kids connect with nature on a deeper level than just looking at it from the side of a road.
Eco-Adventure camps run in July and August for oneweek sessions (Monday to Friday), and are open to kids ages five to 12.
Campers learn about wilderness awareness, hazards, nature appreciation and various skills, such as tracking, plant identification, and building shelters.
There is also a youth leadership camp for kids 12-14, in which campers learn the same skills as in the Eco-Adventure camp but they also learn more about group dynamics, group safety, and decision-making processes.
"The youth leadership program really takes it to the next level and gets them to think about being leaders themselves," explains Chang. "A lot of the things that they'll learn teach self-reliance and confidence and so they're learning a lot of soft skills that way."
The youth leadership program ends with an overnight camp-out for which the kids help plan meals, cook and set up the camp.
"They take all of their skills and they get to practise their camp craft on the Thursday
night," says Chang.
Campers in the Eco-Adventure program also learn about area wildlife and the relationship between the various inhabitants of the eco-system on the mountain.
Although there is an indoor home base available, Chang says the group spends as much time outdoors as possible.
Last year, they hiked the entire mountain from the base of the mountain to the top over two days.
"That gave them a real sense of accomplishment," notes Chang.
Each year, these camps host a variety of kids with different interests and experience, and Chang says that's part of what makes the camps a success.
She says the kids "get together and influence each other in positive ways."
This story originally appeared in the North Shore News special section called Summer Camps, which features profiles of local summer camp programs.
