"Under God's sunshine and moonlight" Early Presbyterian camping.

Church camps have provided renewal and inspiration for 90 years

Camping has a long and distinguished history in The Presbyterian Church in Canada. Many camps across the country are preparing to celebrate 50th or even 60th anniversaries. The history of camping in the denomination, however, goes back 90 years to the time immediately before the First World War.

Fresh Air Camps, as they were called, gave mothers and children "relief from the heat of the cities." Focused primarily on inner-city children and families, these camps were an outgrowth of the work of the settlement houses and other inner-city missions operated by the denomination in Canada's largest cities. Along with giving families a break from the summer heat of the city, the camping experience provided "moral as well as physical renewal."

The early family camps were markedly different from the majority of the summer camping experiences enjoyed today by young people at church-operated camps, where children attend camp without their parents. Another underlying assumption of early Presbyterian camping leaders was that the fathers of these families, if a father was in the picture, would be working at jobs in the city while their families were at camp.

Many who went to fresh air camps were able to pay only a small portion of the cost. Generous donors in suburban churches underwrote the balance. A number of the campers were recent arrivals to Canada, and the very idea of camping in the Canadian wilderness was new and strange.

The earliest reference I found to Presbyterian-operated fresh air camps is the summer of 1911. Robertson Memorial Institute in Winnipeg purchased 10 acres of land north of the city on Lake Winnipeg near Gimli. And, in the summer of 1915 (less than a year after the end of the First World War), St. Christopher House in Toronto was operating a camp on the shores of Lake Scugog, northeast of Toronto. The two camps cared for 1,000 mothers and children during that summer. By the summer of 1923, fresh air camps were also connected to the work of the two settlement houses in Montreal (Chalmers and St. Columba) and another to the work of First Church and Community House in Vancouver. In 1923, 2,000 mothers and children took advantage of this camping experience. The camp on the shores of Lake Winnipeg was the busiest that year, hosting more than 800 campers.

There was a general pattern to the camps. At first, camps ran for a week but, in the 1920s, the standard length had become 10 days. The camp staff included both paid personnel from the settlement houses sponsoring the camp and volunteers from Presbyterian congregations in the area. The staff prepared the meals and organized programs and games, planning "for every hour of the day, and every hour was supervised." The mothers had only two responsibilities: to make their beds and to bathe their babies. Camp was to be as much a holiday for them as for their children.

The camp day started at 7 a.m. with the wake-up bell and, almost immediately, the call to breakfast. Family devotions followed with everyone together, and the program for the day was announced. The program included flag-raising and camp chores. The camp at Lake Scugog was a working farm, so campers were involved in actual farming. At Gimli, the program might include taking a walk to the lighthouse, a hike through the woods, a visit with one of the local fishers, picking up the evening supper or a trip to the strawberry patch. Rest time followed lunch. The afternoon was spent on the beach, on a lake or on the riverbank. The fresh air camp at Cushing, Quebec, was on the shores of the Ottawa River, downriver from Hawkesbury, Ontario. After supper, there might be games, an impromptu concert or a bonfire. At 8:30, the day ended with "evening song and prayer."

The program at each camp was affected by physical and personnel resources available. The more established camps had buildings designed to meet their needs. At Gimli, a camp lodge contained the dining-room and a sitting-room with a large fireplace on the main level. A screened-in porch looked out to the lake and, upstairs, were sleeping quarters. Mothers and children at Gimli were housed in cabins. At Cushing, the camp consisted of a large manse and its glebe located on the river. The manse served as the lodge, and campers were housed in the manse and in tents surrounding it. What Cushing had that Gimli did not was a nearby church; therefore, family devotions in the evening were held at the church, and "church-going was a real event." The Vancouver Community House was offered the use of a secularly owned fresh air camp located on the ocean. They had a ready-made camp facility to work with and none of the maintenance and ongoing upkeep concerns to worry about. Being seaside influenced the programs. The St. Chr istopher Camp on Lake Scugog had its own train station on the CPR rail line, making the transportation of campers to and from Toronto easy.

Mothers and children thrived in the camping environment. Children who were constantly hungry at home ate as much as they wanted. In fact, at the last breakfast at the Gimli camp, five boys finished off 19 large helpings of porridge between them, and another boy told the camp director he had let out his belt two notches while at camp. One mother was so moved by the generosity of the people who paid her way to attend camp she insisted on scrubbing the dining-room floor on her last night at camp as her token of thanks. Another mother, at her wit's end about how to discipline her two-year-old, found support and help in talking to the staff and other mothers at camp. Humorous and joyous things at camp stayed in people's minds: the woman who went swimming for the first time in her life, the cow that ate dishcloths right off the clothesline, the amusing things children said. All this was happening "in God's beautiful out-of-doors."

Camp was a place where people heard the gospel message away from the concerns of everyday life. They had opportunities to talk to staff about their lives and ask questions about the Christian faith. Campers saw staff living the Christian faith on a moment-by-moment basis. Through social, educational, emotional and spiritual interaction with the staff, they came to see the life of the Christian in a different light. Being in an explicitly Christian environment reignited the flames of faith in people's lives, flames that had burned low or gone out. Heartily singing old, familiar hymns was one of the most powerful ways to fan the coals of faith. Some who had not darkened the door of a church in years found camp a place to recommit themselves to following the Triune God. At Cushing in 1921, one woman took her first Communion and her four children were baptized. As the camps reached out to recently arrived Canadians, the church sought to live the gospel message through both actions and words. And, in the process, women and boys and girls heard about the good news of Jesus Christ.

Camps were among the most useful and most effective tools of inner-city missions. Away from the hustle and bustle of normal life, campers found "tongues on trees, books in the running brooks, sermons on stones and good in everything." As was said of the 1915 camping year, "Lives are saved -- and souls too."

Peter Bush is minister of Knox Church Mitchell, Ont.

Church Camps -- The Presbyterian Church in Canada

Synod of the Atlantic Provinces 

Keir Presbyterian Centre, Canoe Cove, P.E.I.

Camp MacLeod, Albert Bridge, Cape Breton, N.S.

Camp Geddie, Merigomish, N.S.

Synod of Quebec and Eastern Ontario

Music Camp

Gracefield Camp and Conference Centre, Gracefield, Quebec

Camp d'Action Biblique

Synod of Toronto and Kingston

Music Camp, Muskoka

Glen Mhor Camp, Baysville

Camp Iona, Bala

Synod of Southwestern Ontario

Camp Kintail, Goderich, Ont.

Huron. Feathers Presbyterian Centre, Saubie Beach

Synod of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario

Flora House, Manitoba

Prescawa Camp, Manitoba

Synod of Saskatchewan

Camp Christopher, Christopher Lake

Synod of Alberta

Camp Kannawin, Sylvan Lake

Synod of British Columbia

Camp Douglas

Camp VIP

Contact Brian Doyle at church offices, 1-800-6197301, Ext. 268, for further information on these camps; [e-mail].