Why we're here.
MYO Camp started as a simple idea: get Muslim kids out of the city for a week, into the woods, with people who'll teach them how to start a fire and pray on time. Forty-some years later that's still the brief.
The photos below are not stock. They are Thursday arrival, Friday assembly, canoe lines, and the fire pit after maghrib — the week as families and alumni already know it.
Volunteers who come back every August.
Camp is run by counsellors, lifeguards, cooks, drivers, medics, and the long list of parents who say yes when we ask. There is no professional camp company and no hired-out kitchen.
Every meal, every fire, every cabin check is done by people who love this — many of them former campers who aged out and came back as staff.
Camp Smitty knows our rhythm.
We rent Camp Smitty in Eganville for the week. They have hosted us for decades, know our prayer times, and keep our lifejacket inventory labeled in their own handwriting.
The site is a working camp the rest of the year — cabins, kitchen, lake, woods, and trails. For our session we take the whole place and make it ours.
Hard skills, taught for real life.
We pick activities that build something — knots, fire-craft, navigation, archery, lashings — because at fourteen, learning that you can do hard things on your own is the actual lesson.
Faith is the spine of the week, but it is not the schedule. It is how the schedule is run: salah on time, modest dress on the water, kindness in the cabin.
“I did not know I could tie that knot, swim that far, or pray in the open like that until camp showed me.”
That line shows up in emails every year. It is why we keep the week short on screens and long on skills, salah, and time around the fire.
Moments you'll recognize by Tuesday.
Not a brochure list — the places and rituals campers talk about all year: the swim test, the tree house, the rec hall, the court behind the cabins.
What you'll see by Tuesday.
The week has structure. These are the non-negotiables counsellors repeat until they are habit.
Five times a day, in the open. Visiting non-Muslim staff often join the dhuhr line by mid-week.
Real knots, real fire-starting, real maps. We don't pad the curriculum with crafts you forget by Sunday.
Mess hall duty, cabin cleanup, gear back where it belongs. Everyone serves, including the leaders.
Every night ends at the fire pit. Stories, prayer, snacks, laughter. No phones to distract from each other.
Optional sunrise walk for anyone who wants it. The most-requested thing in the alumni emails.
Read the story. Then plan the week.
Registration, packing, and drop-off logistics live on the other camp pages — start there once you know this is the week your kid wants.