Drone Photos of Camp Miniwanca: Shelby, Michigan
Hey, here’s something out of the ordinary.....an article that features a photo gallery about something that’s NOT abandoned.
It’s Camp Miniwanca in Shelby, near the coast of Lake Michigan in Oceana County. But before we get to the gallery, featuring drone photos of the camp, a brief backstory.
After the founders of the American Youth Foundation established the AYF in November of 1924, they began looking for suitable grounds for campsites.....the more remote, the better.
The founders set out to find ideal campsites which would be designed and built in remote areas. They wanted camps that were different from others with their own development program. According to the website, Miniwanca’s programs are “designed to encourage all to stretch beyond what is comfortable to see what is possible, to allow participants to discover more about their unique capacities.”
When winter was through, construction on the camp began and was finished in time to open by the summer of 1925. Nestled among Lake Michigan’s sand dunes, Camp Miniwanca had a generous amount of help from local farmers and carpenters who handled the making of roads, tent floors, dining halls and other buildings, finishing in time before campers started arriving.
The camp is still going strong and has managed to keep that ‘remote’ feeling, even though progress has surrounded them over the past 100 years.
Take a look at the drone images below!