This summer, consider the phone-free, resilience-boosting benefits of wilderness camps for kids | Canada Voices

When parents insist their child needs a phone on one of Jeff Willis’s canoe trips, his response is always the same: “It’s not happening.”

For Willis, who runs youth canoe expeditions on the Yukon River through his company, Fireside Adventures, getting kids back to the land starts with removing conveniences – beginning with phones. “For 120 years of sending your kid to camp, there weren’t phones,” he says, “and it worked.”

While it may feel uncomfortable for parents accustomed to being in constant contact with their kids, being detached from technology is one of the many benefits of summer wilderness camps, experts say. These camps – where kids spend most of their time outside in either rustic settings or on extended canoe, kayak or hiking trips – also foster new skills development and independence.

When Ottawa mom Emilie Taman picked up her eight-year-old daughter after her first summer at a wilderness camp in Ontario’s Algonquin Park, she noticed a change. “She came back seeming like a more fully formed person, having had a chance to explore her identity outside of her family,” Taman recalls. Meanwhile, her son’s 40-day canoe trip to the near Arctic when he was 15, “totally changed his life. He built so much confidence both preparing for and during that trip.”

If you’re considering a wilderness camp for your child this summer, here are some additional benefits they can provide.

Fostering independence

Willis, who is based in Richmond, B.C., says wilderness camps help kids gain confidence in their own abilities.

“We get lots of kids who say, ‘I can’t do that,’ and ‘I won’t do that,’” he says. “The need for independence is so important now.” He prioritizes life skills training, from pitching a tent to cooking to self-care, including reading a book or keeping a journal. Over time, he says, kids become self-propelled. “It alters their view of the world.”

Toronto-based clinical psychologist Alex Russell agrees, noting that rustic living provides kids with an “apprenticeship in reality” − something they’re missing in modern life. “We protect them, and we direct them. We don’t let them figure it out for themselves at all.”

Creating positive spaces

Russell says wilderness camps also offer a reprieve from some of the pressures youth face these days, whether from social media or the wider culture.

“It’s really hard to be a boy right now,” Russell says. “There’s an expectation that you have to be extremely masculine in an overly concretized way: you need a big chin, big muscles.” Canoe trips, he says, allow boys to get away from some of the macho talk and explore other meanings of masculinity.

Taman says the all-boys camp her son attends fosters empathy by focusing on developing sensitive, caring leaders – qualities she also observes in his friendships. “They’re very real and tender and sweet.”

Kaia McMurtry-Moran, 18, has been attending the same all-girls wilderness camp since she was 10. The single-gender environment made her feel less self-conscious, she says, especially when she was younger. Now that she’s a counsellor, McMurtry-Moran enjoys mentoring younger campers. “It’s cool to be in charge and be the one to carry the canoe every portage,” she says, “It’s empowering.”

A return to simplicity

Both parents and kids agree that a big appeal of wilderness camps is the return to simplicity.

Taman notes that her daughter’s off-grid camp, where water is still gathered from a pump, probably hasn’t changed much in the 110 years it’s been around. “I love that the pace is slow and fairly unstructured – with some camps, you might as well be at school.”

Meanwhile, when they’re out on “trip,” campers develop a connection to nature that’s become increasingly rare. “It’s so quiet,” Taman says. “Kids don’t have that sense of quiet any more: they’ve always got something in their ears or on a screen or both. Now it’s just the sound of your paddle.”

McMurtry-Moran says her camp’s no-phone policy makes it “so much more enjoyable. You’re more present. You’re always finding ways to entertain yourself. At night, everyone is in their tents, playing cards or swapping graphic novels.”

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Leaning into discomfort to build resilience

Living in the wilderness can sometimes be gruelling, uncomfortable, even downright miserable. But that’s precisely the point, Willis says, stating that as a society, we have an addiction to convenience, which has altered our understanding of effort. Parents, he suggests, have lost an appreciation for roughing it, an experience that wilderness camps can offer. “You need to be uncomfortable to understand why you’re comfortable.”

It’s a sentiment not lost on McMurtry-Moran. There were times she was certain she couldn’t keep going on challenging canoe trips. “But then it’s, ‘Okay, I have to. I’m not gonna get airlifted in the middle of this portage.’” Being uncomfortable made her appreciate micro joys, such as jumping into the water when she reached her campsite. “Even just lying down feels so amazing after you’ve gone through all this physical discomfort.”

Taman views tripping as a series of small accomplishments that build up kids’ resilience and help them grow, from wet boots to cold nights and big storms. “Those are the stories they tell when they come back,” she says, “and I think that’s because they’re changed by them.”

McMurtry-Moran often applies tripping wisdom to her new life as a university student. “When I have a lot of stress, I just remember, ‘Okay, I’ve felt like this before, and I will get everything done. I will get through this.’ ”