Manitoba church camp declares season a washout

Counsellors should have reported to duty this week at Wellman Lake United Church Camp, and prepared to receive their youngest campers this weekend. Parents should have dropped off excited kids in the coming weeks and looked forward to their own summer break. But no one’s coming. Every road to the camp is washed out and, as announced on July 7, the entire season is cancelled.

Instead of taking their kids to Wellman Lake, parents are pulling waterlogged belongings from their flooded homes. Parts of western Manitoba have been swamped by torrential rain and swollen rivers in two historic rain events. The first in early June saw nearly 150 mm of rainfall in 24 hours (up to 200-250 mm in localized amounts). The second at the end of June dropped another 100 mm or more on an already soaked region. Highways and bridges are washed out, cattle are stranded, crops are submerged and homes are unlivable. Damage cost estimates are in the tens of millions. Fortunately, no lives have been lost, but recovery from the destruction will take all summer — or longer.

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“There have been two massive floods in the last three weeks in our region here,” explains Breana How, vice chair of the camp. “There are hundreds and hundreds of road washouts all around our community. Many people have lost their homes, lost all their belongings. Our town of Swan River is under a state of emergency.” Nearly 200 homes were evacuated in Swan River due to floodwater.

Less than an hour from Swan River is Wellman Lake, nestled within Duck Mountain Provincial Park. The most recent flooding trapped campers at the park. Those willing to leave their trailers and boats behind were escorted out; those who chose to stay were told to shelter in place for at least a week. Because her staff can’t enter the park, How says there is no way to know the condition of the camp property.

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“I have fingers crossed and high hopes that our camp is still standing strong, but of course we won’t fully know until we get there,” she says.

While closing the camp was the right decision for everyone’s safety, it wasn’t an easy one. The camp has been struggling to rebound since its last closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Pre-2020, about 150-160 campers came every summer. The camp was heading into this season with its strongest numbers since: 70 children aged four to 14 were enrolled, and camp leaders hoped registration would grow to 80 or even 90.

Adding to the heartbreak is that this was supposed to be a celebratory season as WLUCC turns 70.

Construction at the edge of Regatta Bay, a tranquil section of Wellman Lake, began in 1956. The current muti-purpose fellowship hall (dining, laundry, activity room, offices) was built in 2010, but the cabins are the original buildings from the 1950s. Generations of area children have literally left their mark here.

“When you go inside the cabins, there are names all over the walls from way, way, way back when,” says How. “Parents will bring their kids up, and they’ll go around, and they end up finding their names on the walls, and then you have kids signing their names by their parents’ names, or grandparents’ names, even.”

How says they still hope that their 70th anniversary event — dinner, campfire songs and morning church service — will go ahead at Wellman Lake in August. If not, they’ll mark it with a special service at St. Andrew’s United in Swan River.

She adds, “It’s a wonderful, wonderful place, and it absolutely breaks our hearts to not have camp this year.”

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Janice Young is Broadview’s United Church in Focus editor, covering a parental leave position.

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