DISCOVER your best self
At Farm & Wilderness summer camps, we focus on community, home grown fun and living closely with the natural world. We offer six overnight camps for children ages nine through seventeen, a day camp and a family camp. Four generations of campers have learned a lifelong love of nature and the joy of a simple, participatory life here in the Vermont woods. We invite you to join us.
LIVE on the farm, in the woods, by the lake, in the wilderness
At Farm & Wilderness, campers have the woods, lakes and fields of central Vermont as their playground, classroom and home. Our camps use 4,000 secluded acres.
Four camps encircle Woodward Reservoir, a lake perfect for swimming, canoeing and exploration. One camp is on the shore of beautiful Lake Ninevah and another is in a secluded woodland clearing nearby. In these unique settings, campers spend an unforgettable summer close to nature.
Campers and staff live together in simple, wooden cabins and canvas structures tucked in the woods or on the lakeshore. There is no electricity or running water in the cabins; there are no movies, television, computers, or recorded music at the camps. We make our own entertainment, grow part of our own food, and build our own outhouses. In choosing to live simply, we build a participatory community that works, plays and sings together.
We explore our surroundings through hiking, canoeing and rock climbing trips, sometimes starting right at our back door. We also travel throughout New England, the Adirondacks, and Canada. Even our youngest day campers will experience an overnight trip on the shore of the lake.
Farm & Wilderness runs a working organic farm with state certified milk processing facilities. In summer, each camp has its own small farm, tended by campers.
Living and playing in this beautiful place, campers become grounded in the natural world.
LEARN that you can be who you are and achieve your goals
At Farm & Wilderness, activities grow out of our closeness to the land and each other. Campers delve into the farm and garden, the woods and lake, and are living within a close-knit community. The strength of the F&W program is that we use daily activities and the simple work of daily life as a road to the intangible skills of living respectfully and happily together.
Activity areas vary, depending on the emphasis of each individual camp, and include farm projects, arts & crafts, swimming, outdoor living skills, canoeing, carpentry, rock climbing, cooking, and music. Each camp offers structured activity periods along with free choice. Campers have opportunities to learn basic skills in a variety of activities and gain proficiency in those that interest them.
Trips are an integral part of the F&W experience, including community service trips, rock climbing, and wilderness travel by foot and canoe. On trips, campers build confidence and competence. They return to camp filled with pride at their accomplishments and feeling close to their trip group.
Our commitment to making our homegrown entertainment leads to camps filled with creativity. Singing after breakfast, playing an all-camp game after dinner, cooking marshmallows over the fire with cabin-mates, preparing a skit for talent night, dressing up to serenade the pigs, and dancing at an all-camp square dance are typical F&W activities.
We believe that campers are participants, not spectators, and opportunities to learn skills and increase self-confidence occur not only in activity periods, but also in everyday life. We have fun working together at the tasks that keep the community going. We share in morning chores, harvesting and cooking food from the garden, constructing a cabin or simply doing dishes after a meal. Every day we sit quietly together at Silent Meeting, a time to reflect. Campers love the feeling of having a purpose, working on meaningful projects with friends, and knowing that everyone has something to contribute.
Farm & Wilderness campers end the summer proud of what they’ve learned and happy to have played and worked within a strong, joyful community.
