The Wrack

Nine Portland High students fill a week of summer camp with outdoor discovery at the Wells Reserve.

Join us for hands-on day camps, with seven miles of trails to discover as our outdoor classroom! Summer camps are for ages 6 to 12 and run from 9am-3pm, with both single day and week-long options. Financial aid is available!

The Reserve's summer camps are providing participating children and staff with heaps of fun, educational, and memorable moments while connecting with one another and the wonders of Nature.

Amanda and Cassie are eager for camps to begin!

Now that we are heading into May, the schoolyear's biggest vacations are over. But during February and April breaks, campers headed to the Wells Reserve for plenty of outdoor fun and learning, and this year was a blast! Below are a few fun photos from February's Ocean Explorers and Snow Survivors camps and April's Vernal Pool Party and Marshy Mysteries. Check them out and remember: the biggest vacation is right around the corner -- click here for our full schedule of summer camp offerings beginning in June!

Our quinzee building crew during Snow survivors!

Music, fun, education, & stewardship converged during April school vacation week at the Reserve! Roughly 150 people celebrated Earth Day with us on Tuesday, families learned lots from whale enthusiast Tony Viehmann on Wednesday, and an excited group of day campers explored vernal pools on Thursday.

Lisa Judd came with her kids on Earth Day and had this to say:

The Earth Day function was fantastic! The kids had a great time with all the activities and walked through every tide pool on the beach. They ended the day soaked and smiling! Perfect!

Lots more programming for children, families, and adults is on the horizon for the spring and summer!

Photos (below):

1. Matt Loosigan of Earth Jams sings to the crowd
2. Parachute fun on the lawn
3. Giving the Earth a hug
4. Walking to Laudholm Beach for the beach clean-up
5. Tony Viehmann with narwhal whale tusk tooth
6. Learning whale anatomy with a clam shell toss
7. Searching for stream critters
8. Dressing up like a water critter
9. Making friends with a Spring Azure butterfly

Kids may have gotten a break from school this past week, but with two big snow storms, there was plenty of outdoor fun to keep them busy! Six campers from as far away as New Hampshire braved the snowy afternoons to spend Tuesday and Wednesday at the Reserve participating in our Winter Trekkers and Snow Survivors camps.

Each day was packed with activity, from wildlife tracking walks led by volunteer naturalists and a cottontail rabbit search led by Sue Bickford, to a day full of outdoor snow survival scavenger hunts and shelter building. Despite being on "vacation," campers were eager and excited to learn, and were a fantastic bunch to spend the wintery week with! Check out some of the photos of our adventures below, and head over to our Flickr page for even more.

Children and adults alike learned lots about whales this morning with educator Tony Viehmann during the "Making Friends with Whales & Dolphins" school vacation week offering. On hand were tons of artifacts, too, including whale oil, vertebrae, an ear bone, baleen, teeth, skulls, and more! We listened to whale songs, played whale/squid hide and seek, and explored the lengths of marine mammals outdoors. Below ar…

What are people saying about the camp programs at the Wells Reserve? Here is a sampling of testimonials from the parents and grandparents of past campers.

We had loads of fun with campers this week during school vacation! Both days of Winter Trekkers Camp brought us out on the trails of the Reserve, exploring tracks and scat that wildlife left behind, searching for camouflaged rabbits, looking into tidepools at the beach, and wearing our scientist hats to test the temperature of varied mini-habitats.