AWARDS at LAKETRAILS

Laketrails offers campers the opportunity for four awards.  These awards are not awards of competition but of achievement.  Awards began the first year of the camp, with Cy Kaiser and Ed Minarik earning the first Laketrails "Pilots Awards."  It has been a tradition for awards to be given at the closing campfire of each session with a patch symbolizing the award. The first two awards are:

WILDERNESS AWARD:

   This award is given to a camper who expresses real skill, ability and helpfulness on a canoe trip.  Some  of the skills needed include canoeing, tenting, cooking, fire building, care of equipment, and some knowledge of the natural world of the wilderness such as trees, wildlife and rocks.  Often it is said, the individual earning this award is "the kind of person I would like to have with me if I were lost in the wilderness."

Wilderness Award paddles hanging in the lodge.

PILOT AWARD:
   The pilot award/license is the Laketrails first and fundamental award in boating, including canoeing, sailing and power boating.  In this we follow the U.S. Coast Guard and State of Minnesota requirements for boat operation and water safety.  Beyond these requirements, we have developed our own system of boating education.  Included in this program is: boat care, motor care, knots, gasoline handling, terminology, boat types, paddle process, docking, mooring, rough water, navigation and water safety.

Larry Schmitz awarding Devin Alsleben his Pilot Award in June 2011.

Laketrails is a land of HOPE

Another part of of the Laketrails Idea:
  "LAKETRAILS IS A LAND OF HOPE"
    Our world is often so filled with pain, sorrow, sickness, disappointment, depression, injustice, and violence that we are in danger of feeling hopeless in the face of the problems.  This is especially when we need some of the experiences that the Laketrails adventure can offer----

beauty

love

success

fun

friendship

faith

and a better vision for life.

Enjoy a Wilderness Adventure

  In 1951, before Laketrails had it's first campers, the Laketrails Idea began to take form.  The Laketrails Idea: A Vision Quest and a Way of Life, is the foundational document of the camp.  There are 12 different parts to this document, today's focus is "Enjoy a Wilderness Adventure."

 Adventure is the best single word that describes the Laketrails program of activities, especially the canoe trip.  A canoe trip is an adventure in exploring, navigating, learning to tame a canoe, becoming aware of wild animals and fascinating birds, learning to fish, build a fire, cook a meal on the shore, and to open one's vision to the beauty and wonder of the world.  Adventure means learning new things, making new friends, seeing new country, and building a new vision for the future.  A big part of the adventure is learning to discover oneself better and to enjoy the success of accepting and succeeding in a new and real challenge, a challenge in new skills new knowledge, new relationships, and possibly new freedom to be oneself.  The adventure may be a new hope for living and a deeper faith in the goodness and beauty of life itself.