Quebec Lodge building on dreams of the future
This will be year two in operation for the Quebec Lodge Outdoor Centre, and the rebooted summer camp is working hard to put down roots and grow. Building off of a successful two week day-program in 2016, the leadership team is back with four weeks’ worth of plans for this coming summer, hoping to offer local children and teens even more opportunities to learn about the wonders of the natural world.
“We started planning on May 1st,” said Programming Director Duncan Plaunt, explaining that the camp will
continue its focus on blending environmental education with the classic camp fun that people expect. “If the kids don’t have fun, we don’t exist,” Plaunt added.
Whereas last summer was split into one week on the theme of water and a second about the role of fire, the programming director said that the summer of 2017 will mix things up a bit. While expanding activities to include the other two classical elements, earth and air, Plaunt said that the weeks will mix and match their themes.
“That way it’s more balanced from one week to the next,” the programming director said, explaining that since each week is a new session with new activities, it seemed unfair to ask children to have to come to all four weeks in order to try activities from each theme.
Three university students have been hired to serve as the Teachers for this outdoor classroom setting, being drawn from both Bishop’s University and the University of Sherbrooke. Between them, the three bring expertise from studies in education, environmental studies, and physical education that Plaunt said has proven invaluable to setting up plans for the summer to come.
A visitor to the centre, which is just up the road from the “old” Quebec Lodge site on the south shore of Lake Massawippi, will note that there is no “lodge” to Quebec Lodge at the moment. That, according to Camp Director Brian Wharry, is something that should change before the end of the year.
“We hope to start work on our main building this fall,” Wharry said, explaining that the building will someday serve as the heart of the camp and put it back on track with the eventual goal of being a residential campsite. In that eventual vision, the camp will have three “villages” of three yurts each, housing up to 100 in a setting that could potentially be open for overnight stays yearround.
“It’s a five year plan, and we are on year two,” The camp director said, sharing that although progress is good, projects do not always follow their timelines to the letter. He pointed out, however, that as a move towards the dream of sleep-away camping, each week this year will feature an overnight activity.
For the moment, the camp consists of the single yurt which is being used as an administrative space, an open playing field, and the fern-lined forest trail down to a beach that long-time friends of Quebec Lodge would recognize in an instant.
“I’ve always said this is the best beach on Lake Massawippi,” Plaunt said, sharing a feeling that the camp has access to a real treasure in having retained the majority of its original waterfront. Weather permitting, he said, the beach is where the sleepover nights will take place. He shared a hope that one day the beach will serve as an access point to the land protected by the Massawippi Conservation Trust for hiking and other nature activities.
In addition to this year’s extended schedule, the camp also has a new organic community garden with three beds of edible plants set up for the campers to engage with. Two of those beds have been built already and filled with plants in the hope that they will be well established by the time camp gets started in Mid-july. The third bed will be reserved specifically for educational projects with the kids themselves.
Outside of the first two official weeks that took place in 2016, Quebec Lodge also welcomed a group of Syrian and Iraqi refugee children through the Syriac Orthodox church of Saint Ephrem in Sherbrooke. Although they did not have the exact details worked out yet, both Plaunt and Wharry said that a similar plan is in the works for this coming summer, with the children to come the week before the official programming begins
“The kids had a blast last year,” Plaunt said. “It was really great.”
For this year, Quebec Lodge has a maximum capacity of 30 campers aged 7 to 15 per week. Programming will run from July 17 to August 11.
More information about Quebec Lodge Outdoor Centre is available at www.quebeclodge.org or by calling 819574-7568.