The Summer of 2024 !

North Star’s 80th Summer is officially underway! For 80 years, North Star has taken great pride in being the camp for nice boys from nice families and we are so thrilled to have such an incredible group of campers and staff for this special year. The buses had a perfectly timed arrival with Chicago and Minneapolis travelers arriving just minutes apart, and the campers arrived to a very excited and familiar staff, with as many returning staff as we can ever remember. We gathered around the flagpole, did some brief introductions and announced the cabins. The boys have gone to their cabins to get unpacked and move in, and our amazing staff have started to get to know their campers as they help them settle in.

Before we start our regular programming, the boys will finish packing and our new campers will receive a tour of camp. By the time they go to sleep tonight, they’ll have played games with their cabins and met some of the other guys in their age group as well. 

Dinner this evening will be burgers, fries and jello, plus the ever present salad bar and Sun Butter and jelly. There will be vegetarian burgers available for those that prefer, and Gluten free options for those that need it. And brownies for dessert! Immediately following dinner, the campers will choose their first week’s activities.

Over the course of the next few days, we’ll continue to orient our campers to our routines and expectations, as well as to the people and place itself. The boys will learn or relearn about our North Star culture and values: our expectations about how we treat each other, our philosophy on competition, and the importance of doing the right thing for the right reasons. Teaching these values feels more important than ever. Our kids need to be outside and not online. Just today, the US Surgeon General asked that Social Media at least be labeled as dangerous. And if you’re looking for summer reading, we strongly recommend the Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. Our boys need to be outside and offline. Our boys need unstructured free play and near peer role models. And they need to be pushed outside their comfort zone. Camp does all that, and does so in an environment that supports them every step of the way.  

Tonight’s evening activities will be followed by the candlelight ceremonies, where each cabin will have a meeting led by their counselors. They will share their goals and expectations for the summer, while continuing to get to know one another. This will be the first of many cabin discussions that are an important part of the team-building goals that we have for each cabin group, and helps develop the strong sense of community that we strive for at camp. Our expectation is that every boy goes to bed tonight knowing that they have at least one counselor that they are already comfortable enough with to wake him up if they need something in the middle of the night and that they have made one new friend that they can play with in the morning. 

Tomorrow the kids will have a busy day as our amazing medical team checks in the boys. The campers will take a swim test, and we’ll find time to play several games of dodgeball. Evening program tomorrow will be our first game of All-Camp Capture the Flag. Then each cabin will work together to create a Cabin Charter, which is a set of expectations and values to live by. Our wilderness camping trips will begin on Wednesday, when our oldest boys head to Canada this year where they will spend 10 days in the Ontario wilderness in Quetico Provincial Park. Wednesday evening will be the staff show, where our very talented group will be on display.

FOLLOW CAMP ONLINE

Download Campanion! If you haven’t yet, make sure to download the Campanion App to receive updates from camp, photos directly to your phone, and facial recognition. You can also use Campanion to write to your son and so much more!

You can also follow along with the summer of 2023 on our website at www.NorthStarCamp.com/blog. We will also be posting updates on Facebook at www.facebook.com/northstarcampforboys, on Twitter at www.twitter.com/northstarcamp , and on Instagram @northstarcamp.

We post pictures online on a regular basis, and you can access those directly from your Campanion App or your CampInTouch page. To access your CampInTouch page, go to www.northstarcamp.com and click “login” in the upper right hand corner. From there you can click on “Photos” to see those smiling faces. If you’d like to set up guest accounts for friends or family you can do that from your landing page by clicking on “Guest Accounts.”

While we’ll try to capture the kids’ smiling faces, no news is good news. We work hard to ensure that every camper has all of the support that they need to succeed at camp. While not every moment at camp is perfect, camp on the whole will be an incredible growth experience for each boy and a lot of fun at the same time. 

Thank you for trusting us with your boys!

Thanks,

-Andy