Camp Birchwood for Girls

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Laporte, MN
Camp Birchwood for Girls

Birchwood provides an opportunity for girls to build self-confidence and resilience through experiential learning. Founded in 1939.

This is achieved through choice with a focus on socioemotional development in a safe and supportive environment.

03/12/2026

We celebrate women and Women’s History Month every day at Birchwood. This celebration embodies our culture.

The campfire is a place of recognition, tradition, and emotion. We sing songs, share stories, laugh, and cry. In coming together around the warmth of the fire’s embers we listen as each story adds a new perspective to our legacy. Each story is a triumph reminding us that courage fuels our community. Camper after camper shares their experience and learning. Sometimes the littlest voices share the most profound thoughts. A camper shared something at campfire that especially sticks with us:

“The evening sky does not discriminate. We all belong here.”

Happy women’s history month!

02/26/2026

Birchwood Run Club!!

This will be our fourth summer offering the BRC. It allows campers to explore more of camp, meet new friends, and challenge themselves in a new way. We’re super excited how many campers enjoy this new tradition at Birchwood. It simply proves that if you provide campers with a novel opportunity they’ll be willing to not only try it, but to excel at it day after day. We’re looking forward to offering this as an activity. We can’t wait for more Run Club runs that will take campers on trips to Itasca State Park, the North Country Trail, and other places along the North Shore. It will be so good to run with you all again this summer!!!

02/23/2026

Just another weekend at Camp!

02/05/2026

We don’t talk about it enough, but Drama and Theater within our Creative Arts Program have been thriving since 1939. We are so proud campers come from all over the country to be here not just for drama, but our theater production that we put on at the end of each session. This has become even more popular in recent years. While we have campers that come from all over the country (and abroad) to hone their acting skills, so many campers get their introduction to drama for the first time at Camp. We love to see campers’ passion initially develop at Camp while on set or acting a scene out during activity period. We love that some of our campers’ careers in acting started at Birchwood.

Swipe through to see some shots from the last couple years on stage and backstage. Our last three plays have been Wicked, Peter Pan, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. We can’t wait to unveil this year’s play!! There’s nothing like the excitement of the play at Camp - it’s a celebrated achievement. And the cast party afterwards is super fun.

🎬

01/15/2026

They may be our littlest community members, but they are also one of the beating hearts of Camp in more ways than one! The unbridled enthusiasm our youngest campers feel for the world around them, and the passion with which they approach the people in their orbit adds to that “Birchwood magic” in a way that is hard to describe. You know it when you see it, but especially when you feel it. Our littlest campers tend to benefit the most from the summer camp experience because they often come back for years and years. The more years they come, the more they experience a “compounding effect” of Camp: making independent choices, doing hard things with success, trying new things, and finding out how incredible it can be to push yourself out of your comfort zone to learn something new about yourself! Their confidence they build is impressive. Our favorite fact about our littlest campers? They can do ALL of the things our oldest campers do! Add to that our incredible staff of counselors who are hired specifically for their skills to inspire, bring joy, and facilitate fun, and making the transition to Camp is easy!

11/13/2025

Working for Birchwood is not only an amazing opportunity to develop professionally and have fun, but to truly seek your potential as a teacher, leader, and mentor. It’s more than a job; it’s a life changing experience where you can find out what your potential is, meet lifelong friends, and most importantly, have a lifelong impact on our campers!

Georgia (Camp’s Director), a previous camper and staff, has provided strong integrity-based leadership for our staff helping to create a super healthy culture that’s permeated through Camp. She leads and facilitates an all-staff training that sets the tone for our summer, creating a cohesive and inclusive environment for staff from all over the world to thrive in. In 2025, we had over 60% of our staff return and this year we have over 40% committed to joining us already, which is amazing. We are super excited for the staff who’ve committed already, including our campers that are now counselors, and look forward to welcoming the remaining hires for 2026.

We are counting down the days to another amazing summer!

11/06/2025

The two most important aspects of camp that campers are taking away at the end of the summer are a deeper sense of community and connection. Extensive psychosocial research supports the notion that people live longer, healthier lives the more socially interconnected they are. Building healthy relationships starts at camp, where you can be your true self - allowing for a more real friendship. The social freedoms and socio-emotional facilitation at Birchwood cultivate this because of the awareness we bring to social connection and the emotionally safe environment we foster to support it. Free from the anxieties social media can compound, campers can focus on what is directly in front of them and the fun that surrounds them.

10/23/2025

We all need summer camp more than ever now and it should be available to everyone. The Birchwood Scholarship Program is now in its third year and going strong, thanks to your commitment to philanthropy and expanding the Birchwood “web of friendship”. So many campers have been able to enjoy Birchwood year after year because of your efforts. Their experiences have been memorable, life-changing, and, for some, once in a lifetime.

As members of the American Camping Association (ACA), we partnered with them to create a program that allows camp to be accessible to more families. Our partnership with the ACA utilizes their status as a 501c3 nonprofit, which means your donations are tax deductible. Plus - Contributions of $500 or more will be awarded a unique piece of Birchwood merchandise. As always, thank you for your support; together we can continue to be a positive force of change for our youth.

We are accepting contributions and camper applications at this time. Please see our website for further details!

10/09/2025

Aside from all the socializing, friendship building, and general camp hype, there’s a more low key vibe in one of our most historical activity buildings at Camp - Mud Hut. Campers get a chance to focus on working with their hands under the mentorship of skilled ceramicists. Yes, they’ll learn techniques from beginner to advanced, but they’ll also be able to explore their own creative direction. In these spaces, campers can just be as they feel at home taking things at their own pace. These long time campers have been honing their skills on these wheels year after year, seeing improvement each time they return to create a mug or bowl. Each summer at Birchwood we celebrate the arts by bringing in some novel activity or resident artist for campers to see in action to be inspired by. Our staff are trained to meet campers where they’re at in order to take them to the next level. This allows them to feel the freedom necessary to learn and grow. It’s important for campers to take as much ownership in creating the culture as we do, that’s how strong communities are not only built, but sustained and developed over time.

09/14/2025

Summer Camp happens once a year, but we think about it all year!

Can’t wait to see who’s riding with us next summer. Enrollment opens at midnight for all families and sessions!!

08/30/2025

At summer camp, kids can just be kids. Away from the everyday worries of rigid school schedules, practice, homework, social media, etc. These blur as campers tuck their phones away for their time at Birchwood, focusing on friendships and fun; free from the feed. “Go play with your friends” is rarely said these days, but it’s the norm at Camp and is what our program and culture are centered around.

Enrollment opens at midnight on September 1 for returning families choosing the traditional or full summer sessions and September 15 for all families and all sessions. Check the website for our early enrollment discounts.

Address

6983 N Steamboat Lake Drive NW
Laporte, MN
56461

Telephone

+18004515270

Website

http://www.campbirchwood.com/

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