The Character-Building Power of Summer Camp

By Alex Kvanli
February 01, 2025 (comments)

What is character and how can it be “built?” Most people have an intuitive sense of character but find it difficult to define. Great thinkers have pondered this subject for centuries. Aristotle defined good character as “the life of right conduct—right conduct in relation to other persons and in relation to oneself.” Thomas Lickona described it as “operative values, values in action—knowing the good, desiring the good, and doing the good.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us that “intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” The American Camp Association defines it simply as “intentions and actions that...

One Big Reason Why Summer Camps Work

By Alex Kvanli
December 31, 2019 (comments)

He drew a circle that shut me out- Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him in! Edwin Markham

11 Proven Ways Wilderness Adventure Camps Can Transform Your Kid’s Life

By Alex Kvanli
December 01, 2019 (comments)

Experiential education programs like wilderness adventure camps have ways of inspiring kids in ways that are not possible at home, school, or through traditional sports. Canoeing, hiking, and kayaking with a group through wilderness environments like the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) of Northern Minnesota is much more than just fun. It can be a profound experience with lifelong lessons. By banning electronics, detaching participants from their normal patterns and behaviors, and connecting them with nature in a supportive group setting, wilderness adventure camps are designed to cause participants to confront their self-concept and motivate them to explore and...

Experiencing More Than Just the Wilderness

By Tom Brandt
July 26, 2019 (comments)

Camp Voyageur is more than an in-and-out wilderness tripping camp. At CV, campers indulge in an active outdoor experience which lays the foundation for a strengthened character and active lifestyle through challenge, friendly competition and responsibility. Many attribute camp’s character building and rigorous activity to the trail (wilderness trips), although that’s true, a lot of credit can be rightly given to Camp Voyageur’s in-camp program. There are three activity periods a day, followed by swimming, more activity and three balanced meals from camp’s talented kitchen staff. Needless to say, there’s no shortage of exercise while on the CV-peninsula. It’s not...

Camper Insights: How Grand Portage Changes You

By Alex Kvanli
May 15, 2019 (comments)

We all experience defining moments in our lives, when we realize our journey has begun a new chapter. For adults it may be marriage, or a child being born. For many kids it could be going from elementary to middle school, getting their driver’s license, or making a certain sports team. But for campers at Camp Voyageur, a defining moment is without a doubt completing the Grand Portage. There are many benefits of wilderness adventure camps, and one is that is quickens emotional maturation. It is no exaggeration to say that the Grand Portage turns boys into men.

How Wilderness Adventures Foster Lifelong Success

By Alex Kvanli
March 18, 2019 (comments)

How can we teach children that failure is not the end of the road? Our mindset, or attitude, governs nearly everything in our lives. It determines the way we live, experience the world, and make decisions. Our mindset shapes the way we view ourselves and subsequently what we can accomplish. According to Stanford University psychologists Carol Dweck, there are two types of mindsets: In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and...

The 2nd Annual Youth Woodsmen Competition Begins

By Alex Kvanli
June 14, 2018 (comments)

The 2nd Annual Youth Woodsmen Competition kicked off today and hearts were racin’, muscles were pumpin’, and legs were stretchin’. The Woodsmen is a competition that dates back to the early 1950’s, when President John F. Kennedy said that “physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.” President Kennedy’s famous words resonated with the whole nation, and as a result many of today’s mainstay fitness competitions emerged from this Golden Era of physical fitness. The Youth Woodsmen is a fitness competition between the...

"7 Ways to Maximize Misery" (WARNING: Sarcasm)

By Peter Grunawalt
January 02, 2018 (comments)

Uhhh, so what is this about? I’ll stop with the click-baiting. The purpose of this post is to share a video which I feel speaks to some tendencies in not just teens, but in many of my own peers, that can become reinforced as habits that ultimately undermine our own happiness. It follows closely the work of psychologist Randy J. Paterson, who wrote the book “How to be miserable: 40 strategies you already use”. By necessity, summer camps intervene Many of the points addressed in the video are simply impossible at camp. You live and eat with your peers everyday,...