History
Camp Manito-wish YMCA was established in 1919 by the Wisconsin State YMCA Board as a small wilderness tripping camp for boys. The area was chosen for its wilderness setting and prime location in the center of Northern Wisconsin waterways, ideal for exploring by canoe. Walter “Daddy” Wones, and two other men travelled to the Northwoods in search of an ideal spot to have a summer camp. Looking at a map of the area, Wones counted over 290 lakes within a ten-mile (16 km) radius around camp. Wones decided that this was the place, a setting for a wilderness experience for young men.
The original twenty-five acres of land purchased by the Wisconsin YMCA had previously been known as the Rabbits Foot Resort, owned by Bill Paquette. A dining hall, six cabins and a few other facilities were all that stood here at the time of the purchase. Lakeview cabin is the only building from Rabbits Foot Resort that is still standing today.
Located on Boulder Lake, in the middle of the Manitowish chain of lakes, it was only obvious to name the camp after the waters of the area. The word Manitowish is Ojibwa and is believed to translate to “playful spirit.” Camp hyphenated the word using the Ojibwa beginning, with the English word “wish” as an ending, to convey a desire “for all to achieve what is best for themselves.”
Daddy Wones was appointed Camp Director and in July of that year the first session of camp began. Early camper life was disciplined, including mandatory pre-breakfast morning swims, bible studies and calisthenics.
Today, over 85 years later Manito-wish has grown from a small wilderness tripping camp to one of the most established and respected youth camps in the world. The camp's programs have expanded from a few weeks during the summer, to year round programs offered to people of all ages.
Read more about this topic: Camp Manito-wish YMCA
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. And now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds.”
—Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)