Carli Berry
reporter@pqbnews.com
Have you ever wanted to visit the land of Narnia? This summer kids have the opportunity to try the next best thing.
Camp Narnia is a children’s camp that runs in three separate intervals from Aug. 2 to 8, 9 to 15, and 16 to 22.
Camp director Sam Clinock said this year’s theme focuses on the first novel of the Chronicles of Narnia series: The Magician’s Nephew.
Every Thursday night a camp play is held where children and councillors act out scenes from the novel.
“Kids really respond well and learn well with story,” Clinock said. “A lot of the values and imagination and magic part of the camp comes from the books and their (the original owners of the camp) design of it.”
Camp Narnia originally started on Salt Spring in 1996, but has been at the Seven Springs Camp and Retreat Centre location since 2011.
The camp is not based on any religious practices or values, but on the magic of the books, he said.
We have 130 kids signed up this summer, he said. The camp is for children ages 6 to 12 and teens from 13 to 15.
“We’re a community based camp, so we keep our numbers low.” Clinock said. “I know every kid’s name.”
Clinock said he has been involved with the camp since he was nine-years-old.
It gives kids a chance to experience things that they wouldn’t in their day to day life. Those are things like chopping their own vegetables and doing team-building exercises.”
Part of the camp has the children learning skills that would be learned in the pioneer days.
“We have an activity called homesteading,” Clinock said.
This is the first year that Camp Narnia has an animal farm where children can learn how to take care of the animals, fire-building without the use of paper, garden growing and gathering, and learning how to cook simple meals, he said.
This is also the first year that the camp has a black room and pin-hole cameras for the children to create their own photographs.
“They’re able to experience what food looks like and what it takes to actually produce the things that we eat.”
The camp includes outdoor activities like archery, kayaking, crafts, puppetry, ice cream making, acting, creating old-school photographs and more that all follows a tight schedule.
Clinock said he hopes to have property for the camp to have a full animal farm and vegetable garden.
The camp costs $525 per week.
Visit their website at campnarnia.com for details.