Camp Chickagami is located in Presque Isle, Michigan, on the shores of Lake Esau and Lake Huron — one of the Great Lakes, the largest system of freshwater on earth. It is a place of particular beauty: old-growth forests, clear water, wide sky.
It is also land with a history that stretches far beyond our nearly one hundred years here.
This is the ancestral homeland and kin of the Anishinaabe peoples. We acknowledge that we gather, play, pray, and rest on land that Indigenous communities have known, tended, and loved for generations. We do not take that lightly.
our commitment
As an Episcopal camp rooted in the values of the Gospel, we believe that honoring the truth of a place is part of how we love it. We are in an active, ongoing relationship with Indigenous neighbors and partners as we learn what right relationship to this land — and to one another — actually requires of us.
That learning is not finished. We are in the middle of it.
We are asking questions about how we name this place, how we tell its story, and what it looks like to be genuinely accountable to the communities whose home this has always been. We are doing that work in relationship, not alone, and we are committed to letting it take the time it needs.
an invitation
If you come to camp — as a camper, a retreatant, a family, or a rental group — we invite you to pay attention to where you are. Walk slowly. Notice the water. Ask what this land has held.
We believe that kind of attentiveness is itself a spiritual practice, and that it belongs at the heart of what we do here.
