All-Star Sports is a major for sporty kids who want to up their game, regardless of which sport is their specialty. In addition to playing a wide variety of skill-building sports, all-stars will learn about the importance of nutrition (and how to make some snacks that are both yummy and healthy), how to plan a safe and effective work-out routine, injury prevention, strategies for dealing with competition and poor-sport behaviour, and develop strategies to improve stress management and mental focus.

On-Target Variation: This version focuses on improving your AIM. Any sport that requires hitting a target is on the menu!

Create Your Own Sport Variation: This version will combine campers’ creativity with their sports skills by creating and testing their very own unique and original sport.

That’s just the tip o’ the iceberg! Read about the rest of our majors here.

In Going Green, campers will learn how much fun it can be to live sustainably. They’ll learn about gardening, composting, reducing your carbon footprint, sustainable practices and more – but most exciting, they will also be the first campers to learn about and care for our feathered friends coming to us from Hinchinbrooke Hills Farms.

Campers will explore the basics of horticulture as well as livestock care, and experience first-hand the important role that agriculture plays in our community.

That’s just the tip o’ the iceberg! Read about the rest of our majors here.

We’re all familiar with team sports like soccer and basketball, and individual sports like track or tennis. But what about one’s you’ve never heard of?

This week might start with you scratching your head, but you’ll be thrilled to discover that you are a champion at cheese rolling, egg throwing, or toe wrestling. This week we’ll try out some of the weirdest sports we’ve ever heard of, and even hold the inaugural tournament of our own unique sport.

That’s just the tip o’ the iceberg! Read about the rest of our majors here.

*New for 2017* In this LARP-ish major, campers will develop “knightly virtues” as well as their creativity as they join a “house” of knights and prepare to defend their castle.

• Construct and design your own suit of armour. Work independently or collaborate with your team. Spikes, fins, scales, plates, helmets, gauntlets, shields limited only by your imagination. Add your sword, ax, mace, halberd, spear or other “deadly” accoutrements.
• Develop group identities and team strategies to defend or storm the castle in daily competitions of capture the flag and other games.
• Take a lead role in our all-camp “Fortress” wide game

That’s just the tip o’ the iceberg! Read about the rest of our majors here.

Campers will fully embrace new media in this exciting major! Your child will learn the process for creating both audio broadcasts from start to finish. Campers will work as a team to produce complete podcast episodes, using technology as a tool rather than a time-waster.

Skills learned will include:

• Content writing
• Appropriate care and use of microphones
• Desktop and mobile apps for audio recording
• Basic editing

That’s just the tip o’ the iceberg! Read about the rest of our majors here.

The Trackers & Treehuggers major is designed to help campers spend some quality time with their Mother Earth.

Trackers & Treehuggers majors will…

• Learn to identify different native plants
• identify tracks and scat of different local animals
• create nature-inspired works of art
• plant their own tree and/or other local plant

That’s just the tip o’ the iceberg! Read about the rest of our majors here.

Under the guidance of an experienced staff member, Wood & Ashes majors will use a variety of hand tools (and sometimes get help with power tools) to create a wood-based project, and then learn to use a wood-burning pen to embellish it. One of our most popular majors every summer!

Instructor: Ron Cosens is our own much-loved program director, but in the off-season he is also the owner/artist of Wood & Ashes Woodworking & Pyrography. He specializes in custom orders and replicating photographs as unique burnings.

Majors are special programs for our Heartwood campers (aged 9-12) to choose from each week. Read about the rest of our majors here.

Strap on your goggles and get ready for an odyssey of pure fantasy! Steampunk is a fascinating sub-culture that is heavily influenced by the elements of the Victorian period of history as well as the novels of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. It is a made-up, fantasy period of history (or the future) that imagines what it would be like if the Victorians had used steam power and clockwork to make modern gadgets. It is part science-fiction, part invention, part arts & crafts, and part fashion. Any camper that is creative, likes building/inventing, and has a great imagination will love bringing this concept to life.

Cyberpunk Variation: While Steampunk is set in a fictional past, Cyberpunk is set in a fictional future.

Click here to return to the Heartwood program.

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*NEW for 2017* Puppetry is the focus for this year’s performing arts major. We are thrilled to announce that Adam Zimmerman (aka “Eccentric Adam”) will be visiting as a guest artist to guide campers as they take a puppet character all the way from conception to reality.

The puppetry major program will include:

• character concept sketching
• puppet fabrication using a variety of techniques and materials
• puppet manipulation skills
• preparation of a script
• use of our new puppet theatre for a final presentation

Instructor: Adam Zimmerman has been a featured entertainer at the Puppets Up! festival since it’s inception. With a degree in Theatre from the University of Ottawa as well as Certification in the Art of Clown from Advanced Studies – USA Virginia, he is a talented and versatile performance artist with skills in clowning, circus, balloon sculpting, puppeteering, music, and more. Adam is currently working on a new puppet production featuring giant mechanical dinosaurs.

That’s just the tip o’ the iceberg! Read about the rest of our majors here.