Activities

You can rent our 36 6 inch dodgeballs for use in our gym if you’d like to have a good old fashioned game of dodgeball.

Consider coming to do a traditional camp in the woods at our overnighter sites complete with a fire pit, water source and space to pitch a tent or set up a tarp shelter. Squeah has some equipment that can be rented for these type of excursions (e.g.: backpacks, pots & pans, water bottles, stoves).

Camp Squeah’s brand new Frisbee Golf course is out and ready to use. You’re welcome to bring your own frisbees or you can rent ours (2 sets [6 discs]) for $5.

Squeah staff can lead this activity in all weather as our firing area is covered. This is a great activity to improve upon a skill that requires discipline and gives quick rewards!

Disclaimer: This activity is temporarily unavailable due to a recent change in ownership of the lake where we run our canoeing program. Unfortunately, at time, our canoeing program is not permitted to run there. For open to other options, another local camp may be willing to rent their canoes in the town of Hope. Camp Squeah can bus a group of students to do this if they have availability. Please contact Tim Larson for details.

Best done between May and October in the year, students may have opportunities to try a hand in planting, harvesting, composting, transplanting, weeding and eating food they harvest! The canning portion gives students a taste of what preserving food looks like and they actively help to make themselves a jar of freezer jam to take home.

Learn the fundamentals of utilizing a geographical positioning system or hand held GPS. Understand it’s basic functions like waypoints and coordinates, store orienteering information and use it to find your way. Compare and contrast the effectiveness of map and compass and a GPS system.

Our climbing wall is located inside our gymnasium. We also have a bouldering room for an unharnessed adventure in a padded and supervised room. Try different levels of difficulty on our artificial wall system. This activity requires Camp Squeah trained staff to operate and is a great personal challenge.

If your students are 12 years and older, this might be a great fit for them. Wood Carving utilizes a few tools (saws, sheers, carving knives) to turn mountain Ash branches into their very own whistle! Given the specific design instructions required and the focused teaching needed to use the tools safely, Squeah provides 2 instructors to assist a group of students to work diligently and safely to try and get a working whistle made. Basic carving skills are taught and students get a chance to take home a (hopefully) working whistle.

In this historical and fascinating activity, students are shown the basics of how to take care of and use a gold pan and to pan for gold in our own sluice box. We pull Fraser River sand and lace the box with this (which continues to bring gold down the Fraser) and some lucky campers may find themselves face to face with real river gold! We also add some fun and shiny semi-precious stones for the students to discover and they can all take a vial home with them if they want.

These games can be facilitated either indoors or outdoors and concentrate on focusing a group’s energy into working and communicating together more effectively, efficiently and positively. This activity is a natural opener before we introduce our Low Ropes Course.

Set in our nature trail, our low ropes course provides a series of challenging activities that help groups understand their own relational dynamics, their ability to communicate when tackling an obstacle together and their encouraging power to help each other in uplifting teamwork. Consider this activity for your school class, office, work group, club or association to help you foster healthier group dynamics. Some of the 8 low ropes elements include: the Spider’s Web, Cable Traverse, the Zig Zag & the King’s Finger.

Our high ropes course is available for specialized group/team goals & initiatives and requires working through team building initiatives and the low ropes course. The challenges offered in this unique activity are facilitated by certified staff for an excellent, character forming experience. Some of the 5 high ropes elements include: the Boatswain’s Steps, Dangle Duo & our Adjustable Aerial Leap.

Come prepared to learn how to build a campfire with resources from the forest around you, race against other teammates to boil water or try nettle tea or bannock, learn how best to survive when in poor weather outdoors or build a lean-to for you and your team.

Camp Squeah’s backyard are mountains and trails and rivers and temperate rain forest. Within this ecosystem we’ve built a number of small locations where a group of students and leaders could hike to, cook meals over a fire or stove, enjoy the beauty of the wilderness and sleep under the stars (or in a tent or under a tarp). Consider sending your students for a night in the woods for a true camping experience. Our kitchen can prepare meals suited for the outdoor experience and Squeah’s staff can guide or help facilitate the experience if needed.

Choose either molding clay into desired creations in pottery with the possibility of instruction by a professional potter (contracted facilitator), making unique  creations carving soapstone, creating personal gifts and designs on wood with our woodburning tools or carving whistles out of locally harvested mountain ash branches. Alternatively, schools may wish to utilize our craft room to run most any craft activity they wish to bring with them. Because of the level of difficulty and higher risk of injury, wood carving and woodburning are offered to groups who are grade 7 or older ideally.

Smartopotamus brain building games are a unique set of equipment designed to get students interacting with words and literacy whilst playing outside or in a large room. Basically, PE and literacy all mixed together! Camp Squeah staff can run these great game building activities to enhance your classes experience with spelling or you can rent the material to use yourself. Check out the smartopotamus website to see what they use and the games they’ve created.

And of course, Camp Squeah staff have a host of great field games and team initiatives we can use for your whole group to get active and participating together.

The myriad of trails from Camp Squeah will take you to a variety of exciting places, depending on your preference and skill level. Hikes range in duration, from a few minutes to several hours. You can go for a short easy walk or on long hikes with considerable elevation gain. Several trails lead to beautiful spots along Emory Creek, including one trail with 200 steps and two trails that lead to waterfalls. If you prefer to hike without our guide, a trails map is available.

Consider taking a guided tour of the flora and fauna of the Pacific Northwest temperate rain forest. Be prepared to learn all the interesting and important facts about the trees and plants in our area. Taste the Licorice fern or Squeah made Maple syrup, watch the industrious Douglas squirrel, smash open a geode, guess at the feel of some of BC’s animals by fur pelt & smell the aromatic Vanilla leaf!

Choose from a simple and fun map orientation game or a more in depth compass activity that teaches students declination, compass bearing & degrees and pacing. Games can be done with either map or map and compass to help understand how to locate yourself and other important skills in the outdoors.

Our pool is usually open typically from mid-May to the end of September each year and is available with a certified (NLS) lifeguard, either that your group provides or that we provide for you.

A local Forestry department is supplying seedlings for school groups to plant for outdoor education! Consider signing up early in the year to be a part of this opportunity to give back to nature trees that grow naturally in coastal British Columbia. Squeah will guide your group or activity rotation to a select spot in the forest to plant a stand from your group. Utilize this opportunity to share with your students the interplay between environmental concerns and resource management and the value of BC’s bio diverse ecosystems.

You Grow Foods is an organization close to the camp that excels at teaching groups of children the art of growing food sustainably. You Grow Foods was so successful over the last 5 years (their testing phase) that they are shutting down and growing their footprint and ability to offer more wonderful sustainable food and facilitation in the future. When they’re back up and running we’ll offer this contracted option again.

This activity is brought to you by a professional Falconer who is incredibly passionate about raptors – Falcons and Hawks. Joanne Bentley (a.k.a. The Falcon Lady) shares her knowledge and teaches the history and skills in lovingly and correctly handling birds of prey, just like the kings of old who would go hawking! Learn the Falconer’s knot and have a Red Tailed Hawk or speedy falcon resting on your arm! Daily rates are included in our rate sheet. Minimum age 10 years old to participate. Because this activity is by contractor, please request this as early as possible; availability is limited to contractors schedule.

The town of Hope is full of First Nations peoples who have a heart for students and a love for their own culture. Take in a session on traditional First Nations plant use, learn how to build a drum, weave a bracelet with Cedar the traditional way, learn about the mysterious Spirit Bear, watch salmon smoked by First Nation’s people and have a taste! Learn the important cultural heritage associated within our own province. First Nations sessions are contracted out so please give us a call to discuss your goals in receiving this as an activity for your students. Because this activity is by contractors, please request this as early as possible; availability is limited to contractor’s schedule.

Facilitated by a world class expert and professional gold panner, ‘Yukon Dan’ or Dan Moore. The following is an excerpt from his website: “… Dan [Moore], better known as “Yukon Dan”, is a professional gold panner who brings his hands-on presentation to schools.

Dan will follow the Prescribed Learning Outcomes that teachers focus on with their students. This workshop takes place in your own classroom or at Camp Squeah where the students rotate to three different stations; they will pan for real gold, separate minerals with a magnet of fool’s gold and then do a word search about mining terminology. Dan is more than happy to work within the teacher’s curriculum to tailor his extremely interesting workshop. The historical knowledge the students receive is overwhelming, the atmosphere in the presentation room will be buzzing with Gold Fever. Whether you are teaching about our Canadian History, Social Studies, Rocks & Minerals, Gold Rushes or Earth & Science, give Yukon Dan a call.

Dan also has an extensive collection of gold related items such as nuggets, flakes, rare coins, and minerals (silver, quartz, copper, platinum, and fools gold). Yukon Dan is more than happy to teach the art of panning for gold to any eager audience.”

Consider booking a certified wilderness guide to take your class or a small group of students on an extended wilderness adventure into the beauty of BC’s back country! Consider some of these exciting options:

–Stein Valley

Nlaka’pamux Heritage Park: This is a wilderness park containing spectacular scenery and outstanding historical, cultural and spiritual values. It protects the entire Stein River watershed. This is a user-maintained area, with 150 km of hiking trails and routes, four cable crossings, a suspension bridge and several wilderness campsites. The park offers limited opportunities for easy day hikes (primarily in the lower valley) and extensive opportunities for multi-night backpacking trips over moderate to difficult terrain. The Stein is essentially a living museum of natural and cultural history. The park contains some of the most significant first nations pictograph sites in Canada.

–Hudsons Bay Trail:

Originally a First Nations route for hunting and trade, the HBC Trial played a key role in British Columbia’s early development. Completed in 1849, the HBC Trail was builst by the Hudson’s Bay Company with the help of local First Nations. They built the trail to link the Fraser River at Fort Hope with Fort Kamloops and other important fur forts farther north to Stuart Lake. For more than a decade, the HBC’s fur empire in Western North America depended on this trail. The HBC Trail was a product of international politics. In 1846, when Britain and the U.S. agreed on the 49th parallel as the new international boundary, British fur traders were blocked from using their existing forts on the Columbia River. A new fur trail was desperately needed to bring HBC furs to world markets.

–Manning Park trips: Hikes in Manning park can include multi day trips to stunning scenery from Cathedral Park, the Skyline Trail, summitting Mt. Frosty or the Four Brothers trail. All are spectacular hikes with great scenery and are opportunities to learn about BC’s alpine, sub-alpine flora and fauna and BC’s varied geology.

–Tikwalus Heritage Trail: The Nlaka’pamux (Thompson) First Nations has traveled this trail through the Fraser Canyon for thousands of years. It was used for hunting, trapping, plant gathering and as a safe travel route that bypassed the sheer canyon walls at Hell’s Gate. Dramatic evidence of First Nations’ traditional use can still be seen along the trail today. Today, a 10 km portion of the original trail is being restored, giving hikers and overnight backpackers spectacular views of the historic Fraser Canyon. The trail climbs steeply from Hwy 1 to the summit of Lake Mountain, where you can camp overnight. Elevation gain: 760 metres. Round-trip distance: 13 km.

Hope Mountain Centre for Outdoor Learning guided and facilitated activities:

Pond Ecology: Key concepts such as “food chain” and “food web” are explored, and kids get to dipnet in a local wetland to catch insects, fish and amphibians. Up-close inspection reveals the physical adaptations of these creatures for life in fresh water.

Watershed Science: The banks of the Fraser River provide an outdoor classroom for this exploration of rivers and watersheds. Students learn how watersheds capture, store, and release water through the seasons, and how humans and wildlife benefit from these natural forces. A hands-on stream table demonstrates the power of rivers in moving vast amounts of sediment, creating deltas, gravel bars, and salmon habitat.

Forest Ecology: Students learn key concepts such as “photosynthesis,” “ecosystem,” and “symbiosis” and they are shown some of the secret connections that enable plants, fungi and animals to thrive together in a forest community.   Elaborate props and interactive games make this program fun, and the indoor session can be followed by a walk in the woods.