Campfire tales | Winona Camps celebrates 100 years on Moose Pond
In 1968, Alan and Michelle Ordway purchased 400 acres of lush forests and mountainous views in Bridgton with one stipulation: For one year, they would operate it as the summer camp it had been for 61 years. Now, 39 years later, what was once a real estate investment continues to be Winona Camps for boys. It is one of the longest operating summer camps in America. "I wasn't pressured to make a quick buck, plus it was my own beliefs to preserve a place like this to have a place for boys to come," Alan Ordway says.
Every summer, 400 campers aged seven to 17 travel from more than 30 states and 25 countries to the shores of Moose Pond for a summer of good old-fashioned, boys-only fun. Cell phones, iPods and laptops are replaced with baseball gloves, canoes and capture the flag.
This month, Winona celebrates its 100th anniversary, with more than 750 campers, alumni and former staff members from all over the world converging on the camp in mid-August for a weekend of festivities.
Ordway, or Uncle Al, as he's known at the camp, credits the camp's longevity — and its roughly $2 million in annual revenue — to its staff, which is largely made up of Winona veterans. In fact, 65 members of the camp's 140-person staff have been there for more than 10 years. It's an anomaly in the camp world, but Ordway says Winona keeps staff coming back with its purposeful regimen of training and mentoring. He also says giving staffers "some latitude and responsibility" helps build a loyal staff. "We grow most of our own," Ordway says.
Those misty-eyed from days gone by will feel right at home at the camp, where campers still spend the summer bunking in canvas tents on rustic platforms.
Still, the camp hasn't skimped on improvements in other areas: Ordway says an estimated $3 million has been spent to renovate main buildings such as the dining hall, health center and unit headquarters. In addition, many of those buildings are winterized to accommodate off-season groups, a strategy camps often employ to offset the high operating costs that come with running a seasonal facility.
Meanwhile, programming has undergone some shifts over the years, with sports like soccer, lacrosse and rock climbing replacing activities like boxing and fencing. And these days, campers frequently explore the world outside Winona Camps, on kayaking and canoe trips, and mountain biking or climbing adventures around the northeast.
It hasn't all been easy living for Winona Camps, however. Among Ordway's biggest challenges in the 80s and 90s was keeping pace with regulations that demanded costly upgrades to the camp's drinking water and sewer facilities. An ongoing concern for Ordway is a legislative effort this winter that proposed charging sales tax on camp tuitions — which at Winona run $4,650 for the three-and-a-half-week program and $7,250 for seven weeks. The bill failed, but Ordway expects a revision to be proposed later this year. "The state of Maine is the birth place of the summer camp industry," says Ordway. "Once again, a misguided attempt to make a group of Maine's businesses less competitive with the other states."
Despite the regulatory hurdles and the changing face of the camping industry, Ordway says he doesn't regret keeping Winona open to campers for the last three-plus decades. Indeed, though his initial investment has grown considerably since the 1960s, he doesn't plan on cashing out. "The reward is different than what you read in a financial statement," he says.
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