Indian Brook is a camp for over 100 girls, aged 9-14. Each girl is exposed to activities that will strengthen her body, encourage her creativity, pique her curiosity, and reveal to her many unknown skills and areas of interest. She is encouraged to try new things, challenge herself and take appropriate risks. These might be physical (like swimming in the lake or backpacking in the rain) or social (like singing alone at a Cocoa House, or meeting new people from different places). IB offers girls a chance to explore the way in which they impact people and their environment. It is time away from the forces within the media and greater society that seek to define them. A summer at Indian Brook is an opportunity for girls to use their voices, uncover their own truths, learn skills and be a part of meaningful work for the community. It’s a place where girls can explore the fullness of their identity with the care and guidance of women who are dedicated to providing every camper with safe opportunities for personal growth and success.
Trips: Indian Brook has a robust trips program with hiking, canoeing, rock climbing and even some service trips. Learning the skills for ‘Leave No Trace’ camping, exploring group dynamics and leadership, and learning to cook and live on the trail is a big part of our program.
Barns and Gardens: Milking a cow, weeding carrots, caring for new piglets, collecting eggs for breakfast, making butter, and harvesting green beans for dinner on our spectacular organic farm give girls an in-depth understanding of where their food comes from and teaches them to become stewards of the land on which they live.
Outdoor Living Skills: Outdoor Living Skills (OLS): Campers are challenged to learn hard skills around making fire, shelter and finding water in the wilderness. They learn knots, ax and knife safety, plant and animal identification and other skills, but also get to play and hopefully fall in love with wild places!
Waterfront: Girls can take daily lessons with our instructors, challenge themselves to swim distances, or play and engage in waterfront games. Our waterfront staff is highly qualified, and the lake is our classroom and playground.
Work Projects: For girls, learning how to handle tools can be a great new skill. Campers can be involved in large and small building projects; from bird houses, benches and tables, to new cabins, kybos or decking!
Creative Arts: IB is a vibrant place of creativity and fun—from daily singing and music, to our pottery or fiber arts program, to garden and woods arts, to quiet drawing. Girls engage in and explore a wide variety of creative arts from zany to technical.
Games & Community Building: Campers have many non-competitive sports and traditional camp games we play; from ‘Wild Women in the Woods’ to ‘Spy Night’. But raucous fun is balanced with quiet reflection; we also have Silent Meeting and evening activities where girls have a chance to talk about social pressures, personal identities, and learn to respect and celebrate one another and the power of being a girl and using our voices.
