Anyone who has been to Camp Nissokone knows it’s a fun, enriching camp experience, whether for summer camp as a child or during a family camp weekend. But what you might not know is that Nissokone keeps welcoming guests all through the wintertime as well. Family, church and scouting groups, among others, can rent out the camp for a weekend and enjoy winter activities amid the natural beauty of northern Michigan. And with the warmer winters of recent years, Nissokone can offer something winter sports enthusiasts might not get everywhere: Snow. “Because we’re up North. Nissokone has a better chance for having snow, and enough ice for ice skating and ice fishing,” says Chad Flanagan, program director for Camp Nissokone.
Groups who rent the camp for a weekend can work with Chad and the rest of the camp staff to customize activities the group would enjoy, like snow tubing, ice fishing, or cross-country skiing . Camp staff provide meals, as well, and at Nissokone shower facilities are right in the cabins, so there’s no toting a lot of stuff on a chilly walk back and forth.
Recently, the Lakeshore Longhouse group visited the camp, one of six weekends they do there throughout the year. Longhouse is a family-based program similar to the YMCA Adventure Guides. They do dad-daughter and dad-son campouts, as well as many community service activities. The idea, according to Pat Carlsen, one of the group leaders, is to allow fathers and children the chance to spend focused, fun time together and take a break from their busy lives. Pat says the full-service nature of their camp weekends go a long way to make the experience enjoyable. “The YMCA Camps, including Nissokone and Ohiyesa, are a big part of the success of our program. Unlike other programs such as the Boy Scouts, our program allows the group to spend all their time enjoying a break from our hectic lives. There is no cooking, cleaning, preparing, planning, etc. as the Y Camps do a great job preparing our meals and planning our activities,” he says.
Although the main focus of the campout weekends is simply for dads and daughters to have fun together, they have a much greater impact on a daughter’s life into adulthood, Pat says. “Spending time and being a good role model helps develop our daughters, and more importantly, a good father helps a daughter identify the qualities and characteristic of a good man so that long-term a young woman will gravitate to young men who have these good Christian values,” he says.