Camp Krislund

I had to be at the dining hall by 8am for breakfast. They have campers here from 3rd grade through high school and they all eat together and then break up for their various activities. I started my morning at MAPS (Mini Adventure Course) where the 3rd & 4th graders do a variety of scaled-down initiative activities including a climbing wall, zip line and other team building activities. Then I moved on to the arts & crafts and the pool and anything in between. It was so much fun!!



I was taking pictures of the service project where they were writing letters to kids through Compassion International and one girl asked “How do you spell eleven?” Another girl answered “1-1.” It took about 3 seconds and the whole table – including me - burst out laughing. It was so cute!

At lunch I met my new best friend – Nate. He is the camp cook and I went in to talk to him about what I should eat for lunch and he helped me check the sodium on different items. For dinner he said we were having tilapia and would I like for him to make me one without seasoning. How awesome!

I spent the afternoon taking more pictures and even got to go on a hayride with the 5th & 6th grade girls. It was awesome! This camp has 1900 acres and it goes on forever. The main area of the camp is in the bottom of a bowl surrounded by mountains so anywhere you go from here is up! I am totally impressed by these campers – and staff. The kids come Sunday and leave on Saturday and they spend the week with no electricity!

They even built their own privy’s (outhouse) by digging a hole and filling it with about 1000 red wiggler worms that will eat everything including toilet paper. It’s the most disgusting and ingenious thing I have ever heard! The staff prefer them to the port-a-pottys!

The campers shower at the bathhouse after they swim. One night each week they go up the mountain to one of five “primitive” sights (even though most people would call their regular sites primitive) which vary from a platform with a tarp over it to a 2-3’ frame of logs with a tarp over it and they have to crawl in and sleep on the ground. They see about 800 campers each summer. The male non-counseling staff also spend the summer in tents or hogan type structures. It is very rustic but the kids love it!

When I went to dinner, I stopped in to get my tilapia from Nate and he had also made me a baked potato – hence why he is my new best friend!! After dinner, Steve gave me and my co-photographer, Linda, (who I first met when she and her husband, Barry, were volunteers in mission at our presbytery camp last fall) a tour of the camp. He drove us way up into the mountains to the end of the property.

We even saw a deer and her fawn. It was fabulous! Steve and Robin sometimes load up their backpacks and hike the three and a half miles up to the tree house for their own campout. They have been married 31 years and still love spending time together. This is a perfect place for them and they are perfect for Camp Krislund!