Camp Chickagami is the retreat and camp facility owned and operated by the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Michigan. It serves Michigan Episcopalians and other church and community groups as a site for religious camping, education, and recreation programs.
We offer residential summer youth camping programs as well as facilitated adult retreats. Our space is also available at other times for families, churches, and organizations to rent.
Camp Chickagami is a thin space – a place where the distance between heaven and earth is just a bit smaller.
OUR MISSION
Camp Chickagami’s mission is to bring the individual into relationship with God; as a recipient of God’s gifts, as a steward of creation and as a member of a Christian community. Camp Chickagami strives to equip our diocese and beyond to share the good news of Christ. We are rooted in the Episcopal Church and strive to cultivate a community of openness, gratitude, connection and wonder.
LICENSING & ACCREDITATION
Camp Chickagami's program and site are licensed by the State of Michigan with bi-yearly renewal process and yearly visits from our state consultant. We also receive annual visits from the Presque Isle County Health Department for our Environmental Health Inspection and receive biannual Fire Inspections.
We also go the extra mile to receive accreditation from The American Camping Association; a level of excellence that exceeds the requirements and expectations set by the state.
As camp professionals, we understand that your biggest concern is for the safety of your child. We also know you have goals for your child’s development related to the powerful lessons the camp experience provides in community, character-building, skill development, and healthy living.
OUR HISTORY
In 1928, the Fletcher family, late time “lumber barons,” contacted the Diocese of Michigan and offered some land that they said would make a good boys’ camp. The land was given in two parcels. The first camping session (or sessions) was ran using tents in 1929. Camp Chickagami continued as a boys camp offering summer camp sessions for multiple week sessions, family camps and church camps and retreats.
Diocesan youth camping continued at Camp Chickagami from the 1929 through 1980, when the Diocese of Michigan decided to close their boys and girls camps and open a co-ed camp on their campus at Camp Holiday in Ortonville, Michigan - this became Camp Gordonwood. From the 1980s until the early 2000’s families, churches and other groups used Camp Chick for their own programming. In the early 2000’s diocesan youth camping with the Diocese of Eastern Michigan resumed as a co-ed camping program with one week a summer. This one week has grown to our current 8 weeks of programming per summer for youth, families and adults of the diocese and beyond.