The STEM-based project saw students construct a skin-on frame canoe as part of their daily classwork, which Hohlefelder was able to tie into traditional areas of study such as math and science, as well as social studies and language arts.

Owakonze and Adventure Crew have been partnering to provide city teens with unforgettable canoe trips every summer. Read more about it from the perspective Cillian, an Adventure Crew student.

Check out our latest promotional videos created for both camps.

Volunteer opportunities are available at both camps this upcoming summer!

Friends and family within the Camping & Education Foundation community gathered to learn more about the recent accomplishment of the Kazan 360 Arctic Expedition.

When students learn to build a canoe by hand, they’re also learning to set goals, stay committed to a long-term project, and execute complex tasks using STEM concepts. When students learn how to pack, paddle, and camp beside a canoe, they’re learning to work together, make good decisions, and manage risk.

“Guided by the best-available science, input from local communities, Tribal consultations, and the Dept. of Interior’s mandate to steward public lands and waters on behalf of all Americans, today I took action to protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and a spectacular network of rivers, lakes and forests in northeastern Minnesota,” Haaland said in a statement on January 26, 2023. “Protecting this special place is key to supporting clean water, a healthy landscape and its surrounding wildlife, upholding our Tribal trust and treaty responsibilities, and boosting the local outdoor recreation economy.”

As we begin a new year, we are getting ready to launch our 99th summer at Camp Kooch-i-ching and our 19th summer at Ogichi Daa Kwe. Many camps are struggling, still feeling the impact of having to close a few summers ago. We have many advantages, but most of all, we are lucky to have incredible support from our alumni, parents and friends. For this we are eternally grateful.

Unbridled Media came to Cincinnati last fall to capture a canoe build and field trip with Aiken High School students. We can’t wait for Camp Kooch-i-ching alum Mike Walsh and crew to make it north next summer to capture Camp Kooch-i-ching, Ogichi Daa Kwe and Owakonze in action.

As many of you know, we have been working on a book called The Oral History Project. An outside company helped us gather over 300 alumni stories and create a book that will be published this spring. The love of camp and the outdoors, and lifelong friendships are constant themes.

Have you ever wondered what it is about Kooch-i-ching and Ogichi Daa Kwe that gives us our elemental values, our good humor, our sense of community, our serenity of mind, and, most importantly, our humility? Have you ever thought, on a portage, if you took two steps off the trail, you would be the first human ever to walk in that spot?

The Foundation’s Urban Wilderness Program was launched 10 years ago with the expressed purpose of bringing the magic of what we do in the Northwoods to an urban environment. The experiment was straightforward: do kids have to travel all the way to the Canadian wilderness to have an impactful experience?

As quickly as the waters of Rainy Lake rose and fell, summer fades and we are all in full-on fall mode.

The summer of 2022 will definitely go down in history as a summer to remember, one where our camp community overcame all odds to fulfill our mission to deliver unforgettable wilderness experiences to campers and staff alike..

The leases would have allowed a Chilean mining conglomerate to dig for copper and nickel near the Boundary Waters wilderness in Minnesota.

In many ways, camp mirrors society. We uphold a set of core principles that put a premium on character, compassion, leadership and grit. Yet in the end, camp is thankfully just camp. It is a place where kids can have tons of fun, discover themselves without judgment, and seek the joy of being alive.

Terry Jones, an alumnus of Owakonze—the former boys camp acquired by the Camping & Education Foundation in 2017—is an author, speaker and venture capitalist best known as the founder of Travelocity and founding chairman of Kayak.

The sun was out, masks were (mostly) on, and the pond at Burnet Woods was buzzing with boat traffic. This Saturday, our Urban Wilderness Program staff hosted a free canoeing session as part of the Great Outdoor Week, a series of nearly 100 outdoor events across Cincinnati.

On January 6, 1999, then-Ohio Congressman Rob Portman stood before his colleagues in the US House of Representatives to pay tribute to one of Cincinnati’s “finest citizens.” He was speaking about longtime Kooch-i-ching Director John Holden, who had recently succumbed to cancer at the age of 75.

In the summer, you’re likely to find him leading a postprandial paddling session, poring over maps in the Map Room, fixing zippers in the Trip Center, or ripping across Rainy Lake in his Boston Whaler.