YMCA Camp Wanakita

YMCA Wanakita is a camp located on Koshlong Lake near Haliburton in central Ontario, Canada. It is run by the YMCA of Hamilton, Burlington and Brantford and attracts campers from throughout Ontario and sometimes internationally. "Wanakita" is an Ojibwa word meaning "let's work together". Wanakita is most active as a residential summer camp, however it also offers day camping, winter camping and family camping. As of 2012, the camp estimates that it has been home to over 200,000 individuals since it was founded in 1953.HistoryCamp Wanakita was designed as a replacement for Erie Heights on Lake Erie which was itself a replacement for Camp Tekahoinwake on the Grand River. Both of these locations were considered too developed so George Jones and co-workers from the YMCA chose Koshlong Lake as the site for Wanakita in 1953. The name "Wanakita" was chosen by Keith Smith. Wanakita began as an all-boys camp and during its early years, the nurse was the only woman who was regularly on the camp grounds. In 1969, the camp started offering the same opportunities to girls. Since 1991, Wanakita has partnered with Hemophilia Ontario and offered instruction on the proper use of clotting agents.Wanakita originally owned 30 acres of land but has grown to a size of over 1,000 acres. Its largest expansion came from a private donation by a landowner who felt that the camp was a positive presence on Koshlong Lake. For its 50th anniversary in 2003, the camp spent $3 million on landscaping and building additional cabins. This construction provided washrooms to many of the cabin areas that were previously only serviced by kybos. This restructuring allowed Wanakita to run its family camp program all summer long which had previously only been run for one week every summer. Instead of dividing summer campers between the West and East sides, the directors started assigning all summer campers to cabins in the expanded West side, leaving the East side available for families. This decision was controversial among the core audience of residential campers.