Additional Activities

Camp Ojibwa offers much more beyond sports, and some of our most popular and fun events happen when the whole camp is together.

Some of our Additional Activities include:

Outdoor Cooking – Every week, each Cabin participates in a Cookout, where they gather with their cabinmates and counselors to enjoy campfire cooking. Every cabin meets at their designated campfire site to enjoy a “home cooked” meal on the shores of Catfish Lake.
Fire Building – Campers work alongside their counselors to learn one of the oldest life skills, building a fire. We teach them different fire building techniques for different activities, whether you are cooking hamburgers, S’Mores, or building a bonfire to tell stories, our campers learn the art of fire building.
Arts and Crafts – One of the most popular destinations during Rec Period, our Arts and Crafts facility enables our campers to use their imagination and creativity to create true works of art. At Arts and Crafts, campers will paint, draw, design and build their own masterpiece, with guidance and instruction from our qualified and trained Arts and Crafts instructor.
Singing – As part of our late evening program, campers will demonstrate their singing talents during our camper talent show, or Cabin Sing nights.
Photography – Leverage the perfect canvas that is Camp Ojibwa and enable campers to learn the art of photography.

Blizzard Bingo – A favorite Late Evening activity, Blizzard Bingo, rewards campers with a Dairy Queen Blizzard when they hit that coveted B-I-N-G-O.
Movie Night – On many Saturday nights throughout the summer, we provide the camp with movie candy and show two, appropriately rated, feature films for the campers to choose from.
Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament – Each cabin hosts a Rock-Paper-Scissors tournament to find their cabin Champion. The camp gathers in the Rec Hall for the Tournament of Champions to determine the overall Ojibwa Rock-Paper-Scissors Grand Champion.
Jeopardy – Camp Ojibwa Jeopardy tests campers knowledge across a wide variety of topics including OJ History, all the way to Fortnite. Kids and staff participate to win a special prize for their cabin.

Spelling Bee – Cabins nominate a featured speller who participates in testing their spelling prowess. The Master Speller earns a special treat for his cabin!
Town Trips – Every Tuesday, on Activity Day, our oldest cabins and featured Honor Cabins get bussed into town to enjoy a movie, local shopping and dinner.
Overnighters – An activity day favorite trip. A cabin sets off from the dock on a pontoon boat, through the chain of lakes to Scattering Rice lake. Once there, we anchor at a private island to set up camp. Campers learn to build their own tents and settle in for an evening of fire building, outdoor cooking, storytelling, and cabin bonding.
Socials – Throughout the summer, Camp Ojibwa will coordinate Socials with nearby girls camps including, Marimeta, Chippewa, and Agawak. Siblings, cousins, and friends enjoy this reunion and an opportunity to catch up on all of the fun they are having at Camp.

Dear Camp Ojibwa Families

For more than 92 years, Camp Ojibwa’s mission has been to help turn boys into men and to teach them strength and perseverance. We live that mission every single day, and will continue to do so for years to come.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented a significant challenge for Ojibwa. From the very beginning, we believed we could overcome the hurdles that the pandemic would set in our path, and open Ojibwa for our boys this summer. We developed a comprehensive plan with protocols and procedures based on guidance from the American Camping Association and the CDC. Our Plan was thoroughly reviewed and vetted by our internal leadership team of Camp alumni and by medical professionals across multiple disciplines throughout the country. We were, and remain, convinced that we had the expertise, the training, and the ability to execute the plan this summer. As we have said in numerous writings over the past three months, our goal was to make Camp Ojibwa the safest place on Earth in the summer of 2020. Therefore, in the true Ojibwa spirit, we fought “with all our strength and might” for Camp Ojibwa. We believed that we could conquer all obstacles and barriers, and overcome all health-related issues. We stayed in the game as long as possible and refused to give up, including conversations held in the past 48 hours with Government officials

Ultimately, however, we were defeated by the State of Wisconsin and the Vilas County Health Department. As we compiled all of the data, reviewed the current trends of Wisconsin’s cases, and analyzed the local healthcare system, we determined that we could not proceed with our regular camp operation and programming this summer. It was particularly significant that the Vilas County Health Department advised us that it would be unable to provide us with any support this summer, and may shut us down should we have any positive COVID cases. As you know, most of our brother and sister camps are located in counties in Wisconsin other than Vilas. Ojibwa is one of the few of our peer overnight camps located in Vilas County and subject to the stringent regulations issued by that County. Nevertheless, we respect the County’s position, and we will accept and abide by its determination. We therefore have no choice but to cancel the 2020 camp season.

This unthinkable outcome came as a blow to all of us. We are grieving the loss of this summer alongside all of you. The two of us, as Directors and as parents of campers and staff, know personally how significantly this impacts the lives of our campers, staff, and families. We are deeply hurt, but we are not down. We learn at Camp that we must always be resilient, and must never give up. We did everything humanly possible to open Camp. We did it for Ojibwa because, as we sing in our fight song, “we love her truly and for her we’ll always fight.”

During the past three months, we received an outpouring of support and encouragement from our camper families, staff, and the entire Ojibwa community. The letters, emails, texts, calls, and video messages demonstrate your passion and commitment to Ojibwa, and reaffirms what makes Ojibwa so special. We are grateful for all of you, and take great pride in being a part of the lives of our campers and staff. The two of us are here for all of you in any way that you need. Do not hesitate to reach out at any time. We are together, we are PureBWA.

We will send follow-ups to you about tuition refunds, and our great plans for the summer of 2021, as soon as possible. Until then, please click here to watch this video and join us in appreciating the true spirit of Camp Ojibwa. Here’s to Camp Ojibwa,

Joel and Joey