Leadership & Friendship
Pathfinder tradition includes a powerful bond between campers and counselors.
Our experienced and friendly staff is the pride of Pathfinder people everywhere. A big part of the recipe for success is the home grown approach. Staff tend to be selected from the camper ranks at Pathfinder, having learned the "Pathfinder Way" from years as campers, CITs and junior counselors.
Our unique 1:2 staff-to-camper ratio ensures personal attention for every boy. It builds up wonderful relationships, helping campers grow independence and drive for both personal goals and positive social literacy with peers and adults.
TRAINED & QUALIFIED STAFF
Pathfinder Staff live with campers in their lodges and tents, sit with them at family style meals, and supervise the informal living areas as well as the structured activities and canoe trips.
They have deep background with our culture, they model empathy as role models because they have been campers themselves, and they possess expertise, with the highest levels of training for their many roles.
Pathfinder Staff are First Responders, Bronze, NLS and WWS lifeguards, and canoe tripping leaders with ORCKA MW1-2 qualifications.
An intensive CIT Leaders Program prepares junior counselors for a staff career, and each year more 'graduating' campers join the historic ranks of the Pathfinder Staff.
HOMEGROWN STAFF
1:2 Staff to Camper Ratio
Pathfinder is a place where boys can make wonderful friendships with each other and their counselors. The Pathfinder experience is about sharing adventures in camp and on the trail. Our counselors give the guys a lot of individual attention and encouragement. They share the excitement and skills from their own camper years, since the majority of our staff were Pathfinder boys themselves.
Pathfinder's Senior Staff is made up of men who themselves were campers, counselors and head guides at Pathfinder over the years. They average over 15 years' Pathfinder experience. Our trip guides and area supervisors in camp have been through a 3-year apprenticeship and many camper years. Our counselor staff, ages 17-24, carry specialized certifications as lifeguards, wilderness first aid providers, and swimming, ropes or paddling instructors.
A tradition since its founding in 1914, counselors come up through the ranks at Camp Pathfinder, inspired in their camper years, then trained from junior high school age. Counselor candidates from other camp backgrounds are sometimes accepted for one of the coveted positions based on equivalent experience and qualifications acquired at their camps.
The position of Camp Pathfinder counselor is that of a caretaker, leader and instructor of children attending the camp. Camp Pathfinder counselors provide guidance and continuity of tradition as they instill Pathfinder values of teamwork, service, fraternity, heritage, respect for the natural world, and personal goal-setting, achievement, and reflection.
An important tradition at Pathfinder is the steady presence of counselors with the campers. A staff man lives with 3 campers in their tent lodges. Younger boys live in lodges of 6-8 boys and 2-3 staff. Camp activity periods find the staff giving positive instruction, and rewarding every success a Camper experiences, creating that all-important 'thrill of achievement.
The counselor staff conducts trips, camp activities, sports and programs. They supervise and live with campers in their cabin and tent groups, guide their wilderness canoe trips, and provide personal and community role modeling of the many traditions of Camp Pathfinder. These include meal-time manors, journaling and letter-writing, stewardship of the camp’s island ecology, service to the community, to the island, and to the fragile ecosystem of Algonquin Provincial Park.
Counselors are responsible for role modeling and camper instruction in Pathfinder’s traditional values of empathy, compassion, and service; to respect for family and community, tolerance of all peoples, commitment to care and choices in life, protection of the natural environment, and simple living of minimal impact and absent of excessive material possession and acquisition.
Pathfinder counselors possess experience in wilderness canoe trips and outdoor sport with an emphasis on paddle sports and aquatics. Counselors are required to undergo training and certification in lifesaving, wilderness first aid and emergency care, and canoeing safety.
Counselors have and acquire additional experience in youth leadership and child development, as well as Pathfinder mission/values/leadership training in service to the community and campers