Camper Family Guide

CampMinder (AKA Family Login) is an online system to keep track of all your camper’s important information (registration, fees, forms, and documents). A link to CampMinder is on the top left of each page of our website. You will see references to CampMinder in the Parent Handbook. It is also the place where you will find pictures of your camper after camp!

Check out our Tips for First Time Campers from the American Camp Association as well as other Summer Camp Prep Tips from experts like Dr. Chris Thurber, noted clinical psychologist and camp expert.

Campers fill out a Preference Form found in CampMinder before coming to camp, and our Program Director develops a personalized schedule. We also have “free activities” several times each week when campers choose from among additional activities. Extended horseback riding and extended water skiing available for an extra charge (these extended activities programs fill quickly and often have waitlists). See our Activities section to read about our activities.

Clearwater’s cabins are intentionally rustic, providing girls with a wonderful sense of living simply in nature. Our small cabin groups are unique; four to six campers live in each cabin with a counselor. Our youngest campers live on the mainland in the Harbor unit, slightly older girls live on the lower end of the island in the Cape unit, and our oldest campers live on the upper end of the island in the Point unit. You can view our MAP to see all our cabins!

We organize our campers by grade completed and below you can find a handy guide to our units:

Harbor (completed grades 2^nd-4^th)

Cape (completed grades 5^th and 6^th)

Point (Completed grades 7^th -10^th)

One of our goals at Clearwater is to create a community where our campers meet and get to know as many of the other campers as possible. We find that assigning friends from home to different cabins helps them learn how to make new friends. Unlike other camps, Clearwater does not have campers do every activity, nor eat meals solely with their own cabin. However, they have plenty of opportunities to hang out with their friends from home during other activities.

We grow our own staff! The majority of counselors were campers themselves, and often were Leaderships (counselors-in-training). All of our counselors have completed at least one year of college and hail from alma maters ranging from the University of Illinois to Harvard University. In addition, we have a good number of counselors who come from other countries and bring a great fresh perspective. See our Staff section to read more.

Camp is a place to connect with people in real and meaningful ways and to enjoy nature’s beauty and unique sounds. We do not allow cell phones, computers, iPods or other electronic devices. Campers may bring electronics for travel to and from camp. All electronics are collected upon arrival and returned to the camper at the end of camp.

We believe in correspondence the old-fashioned way – with letters and cards! Camp is a wonderful opportunity to begin written correspondence with your daughter. Campers love to receive mail at camp. You are welcome to send one care package per session, but please do not send food items. On Sunday evenings, campers present the Director with a letter home as their “ticket” into the meal. We want to make sure parents know about all the fun campers are having at Clearwater! If your camper is from another country, email their letters to you so that you receive these before camp ends and we will print off your return emails to give to them.

The short answer is “No”. Clearwater encourages our campers to tell their own stories to their families via their letters home and their conversations with their family after camp. As an electronics-free camp, we practice this by providing minimal updates on our social media, especially when camp is in session. In addition, just by the fact that we are located in a rustic setting, our Internet is not reliable! You can read more about our policies about photography in the Parent Handbook.

Yes, but these must be handed over to the camp nurse for distribution. Please review the Healthcare Policies in the Parent Handbook.

Yes. If your daughter has specific allergy needs, our professional kitchen staff does a great job of providing alternate menu items. Please make sure that you indicate any special dietary restrictions on your camper’s health forms.

Maybe. Depending upon availability of space, we may be able to accomodate your two-week camper for the whole three 1/2 weeks. You may want to discuss this with your camper before they leave home so that they know it is possibility to stay longer if they like. We will contact you before the end of the 2-week session if we have room and your camper has let us know they want to stay longer to discuss if this is possible and to make arrangements.

Clearwater is a nondenominational camp and we welcome campers from all religious affiliations. Each Sunday, campers present a quiet, reflective program at Sunday Service, held on a beautiful wooded hillside overlooking Tomahawk Lake.

After reviewing all the information on this 2022 Camper Family Guide, please feel free to contact us at info@clearwatercamp.org or if you are a new family, you can sign up below to connect with a current family who would be happy to help you out.