Clearview Christian Camp

Phase 2 is a continuation of what we had done from 2000 to 2008.  More details about that project can be found under our "Projects" menu. But as a quick summary, in order to be able to continue to operate, we had to replace all of our camper cabins.  In addition to that, we also added in the athletic/basketball pad, built a larger multipurpose classroom/craft room, installed Tin on the main hall roof, cleaned up the camp, painted everything, reorganized the kitchen and did a general makeover of the rest of our facilities. 

After that project we took a break to let things settle.  

Over the last several years, while we planned and prepared for Phase 2, we spent some time expanding and improving our camp events to make sure we truely had a camp for everyone.  We have seen significant growth over the past 4 years and now we feel like we are in a better spot to focus on improving our facilities and getting the camp set up for where we see things going in the future. 

We are excited about what is coming and we hope you will look through the items included in this revitalization phase and get excited about the direction the camp is going as well. 

For a good overview of the entire project, please watch our YouTube video.

Phase 2 encompasses a lot of individual projects in order to finish our revitalization of the camp.  Below you will find a list of the projects and the rationale behind why the work needs to be done. 

1. Replace The Main Hall

By far, the largest part of our Phase 2 is to replace our existing mess hall with a new, compliant building.  In deciding to replace the Main Hall, we took into consideration the following realities;

The Roof of the Main Hall is rotting and sagging.

The current main hall was built in 1963 with repurposed trusses from a building in Weyburn.  This means that parts of the building were old before we even started.  Due to years of leaking through the old cedar shingles, the roof structure of the main hall is sagging significantly.  When we covered the roof with tin back in 2007, we had to shim up portions of the rough by more than 6 inches to make it level.  This tells us the roof is in need of replacement.  The tin on the roof is a stop gap until we can replace the building.

The main hall does not meet current code. 

A lot of changes have occurred in standards over the many years since the building was first erected.  It would require a lot of time and expense to try and bring the building up to code.

The Main Hall cannot support the growing infrastructure of our camp.

We have added a number of new facilities over the years and we are looking at adding more in the future.  The electrical infrastructure of the old main hall has been maxed out and is currently underservicing our existing buildings and trailer parking.  In order to bring it up to code and upgrade it enough to handle the electrical load  would require significant time and money. Does it make sense to invest in the building or look at doing something different.

The placement of the building is not ideal.

While having a centrally located building looks really smart on the surface, the building lies in the middle of the natural water flow from the athletic pad to the lake.  As a result, during rainy times, water tends to pool in front of the building where our main door is located.  In addition, we used to have a large field to use for activities at the bottom of our hill by the lake.  But since the park decided to raise the water level of Kenosee Lake a couple of years ago, we no longer have access to that field.  This has cut our active playing areas in half.  So, if we are looking at replacing the Main Hall with a new building, it would also make sense for us to move the placement of the building to be farther up the hill to both allow the water to flow freely through and have a larger athletic field to use during our camping events. 

A growing camp needs larger indoor spaces.

We have seen a steady increase in the number of campers that come to Clearview each year.  In addition, we plan to continue to expand the camps we offer in order to maximize the potential use of the camp.  When increasing camp sizes, we have to ensure we have enough indoor space to accomodate the different activities the week may want to do.  While the old main hall had a large indoor area, it has become cramped during some of our larger weeks.  Plus, we are limited in the activities we can do in that space.  The new building has a much larger indoor multipurose area so the number and types of activities we can accomdate has also increased.  This just provides us greater flexibility in what our weeks can offer which in turn helps us make sure our campers have a fun time. 

Our cooks need more space and a more comfortable working environment.

We are run by volunteers and one of the hardest volunteer positions is that of our cooks.  We have done a good job of reworking the kitchen to make it easier for cooks to work during the different weeks but there are some things we cannot fix. One of our primary concerns is having the dishwashing area in the same space as the kitchen preparation and cooking area. This is both unhygenic for preparing food, but it also chaotic for the cooks while our large dish crews work and move around the kitchen.  In addition, using up almost half of our kitchen space with dish washing sinks severely reduces the amount of working space our cooks have.  A kitchen needs separate working stations to prepare different foods in order to minimize cross contaminations.  The larger the weeks, the more cooks you need, the harder it is for the cooks to work effectively.  A more deliberate working setup is required and we don't have the space to make those changes in the building we have. 

After assessing all these factors, we determined the best course of action is for us to replace the main hall with a new, larger building. This new building would be intentionally designed to alleviate a lot of these pain points as well as position us to accomodate larger groups in the future.  Details of this new building can be found by clicking on the link Revitalization Project - Phase 2.

2. Replace the Staff Cabins with Larger Family Sized Cabins

As our numbers grow, so does the need for staff to work the event.  In addition, we have a strong focus on providing family friendly camps and ensuring we have enough cabins to accomodate a number of families and staff is essential. 

The camp currently has 3, one room staff cabins that are repurposed from our old kids cabins, 1 insulated/heated one room cabin on the edge of our hill overlooking the lake, and one single room director's cabin.  This doesn't give us a lot of options for housing staff and families for larger weeks of camp.  In addition, the 3 staff cabins that were originally our kids cabins are also uninsulated and in need of repair.  

So, do we continue to repair the cabins or have or do we look at replacing them with something different?  If we look at replacing the cabins, we can now look at introducing a cabin design that would better meet our needs. 

If we think long term, these are our goals

1. Have enough cabins to house the staff needed if we were to have full capacity with campers. 

2. Have enough family friendly cabins that families can stay together comfortably. 

3. Have comfortable asthetically pleasing cabins for our volunteer staff to stay in

To meet these goals, we have come up with the following plan. 

Leave the director's cabin and our heated cabin that overlooks the lake alone. 

These cabins function well but we need to replace some of the furnishing inside the cabin by the lake to make it more comfortable.

Replace the 3 old repurposed kids cabins with 6 - 8 new cabins.

These new cabins will be large enough to house a family of 6-8 people.

We plan to do 6 new cabins for sure but we have the room to expand this to 8 if we need to.

Stagger the staff cabins to create additional space between the cabins for greater privacy. 

Staff and Families need some down time during their time at camp in order to help them maintain their energy levels.  By doing what we can to make them comfortable and private, we hope that families and staff will come away from their time at camp refreshed.  

The plan at this point is to buy some pre-fabricated cabins that meet this criteria.  If we cannot find something that meets our needs, then we will design and build them ourselves.   

3. Create a Sports Shack/Canteen/Covered area

This building meets 3 important needs that our camp has right now. 

An organized and spacious sports shack.

Sports equipment should be stored in an organized way so we know what we have and in what condition it is in.  In addition, all our sporting equipment should be stored in the same place.  We currently have sports equipment in one building with bikes in another. We have a real need for a single building that can house all of our sporting equipment as well as pass through areas that allow us to control what equipment is going out and what is coming back.

A canteen that can safely store canteen items and camp merchandise as well as accomodate serving multiple campers at the same time.

As camp numbers go up, our current canteen facilities become a larger bottleneck.  We need a secure building that can help us serve more campers faster as well as make sure we store our canteen supplies and camp merchandise safely.  

A large covered seating area. 

Who wants to go to camp and spend all their time inside?  One thing our camp is severely lacking is covered areas where people can be still be outside when it is raining but still out of the rain. We currently have no area that satisfyies this need and the camp could really benefit from such an area.  

4. Rewire the Camp to Meet Our Needs and Upgrade Service to 400 Amps

When we built our new buildings, we wired them to be able to handle a larger electrical service so if we ever decided to move to a 3 season type facility, they could handle the load of running heaters.  But our current 200 Amp electical service is currently maxed out and the wiring running to the buildings is not able to handle that much draw.  So in times when we are running heaters or a couple of dehumidifiers, we tend to trigger a breaker.  In addition, if we were to ever add another building, we would need to either add on to an existing line that is already not able to handle the draw, or trench a new line back to the main building. 

What we have already done is to upgrade the service for the camp to 400 amps. Now we need need to retrench the power to all our buildings to put in larger lines to support the draw that running 3 season camp would need. 

5. Create an Outside Stone Classroom

While this part of the project may seem like it is unneccessary, it fills a need the camp has and fits our long term strategy for the camp.  Why go to the camp just to have all your classes indoors.  Why not make the best use of the space we have.  We have couple of areas that would be perfect locations to have a stone floor type classroom surrounded by trees.  This classroom could also have a covering if we decide, but the idea would be to have a space where campers can sit, where classes and talks can be had, surrounded by trees and away from the main areas of the camp.  This is still being designed and ideas are still being generated.  But we want to use all of our outdoor space to the best of our ability. 

6. Create 2 Dedicated RV Parking Spots

We have a lot of people that have their own campers who want to use them.  Park rules allow us to have 2 campers on our property during a given week.  We want to be intentional about our space and creating a spot for a couple of campers to park would allow us to better control the flow and feel of the camp.  We want people to come and be comfortable and if staying in their own camper would give them that comfort, we want to accomodate. 

Camper spots would have electrical service but no sewer service.  They would be set away from the main field area of the camp both for their own privacy as well as keeping as large an athletic area as we can. 

By far, the largest project of this phase is the replacement of our Main Hall.  Below you will see some proposed images.  There are some tweaks to the design already to make sure it meets our camp needs but below is a very good representation for what we are proposing to build. 

So what happens next.

Our timelines depend on receiving donations so we can't put dates on when we will get things done.  We are committed to being fiscally responsible and as such, we will not even start building a new building until all the money is in place.  Saskatchewan Parks dictates we must have 120% of the money acquired before we can begin to make sure the building gets built.  

We have set an initial fundraising goal of $1,200,000 in order to get started.  When we reach that amount, the following actions steps will be taken.

We need your help to make this revitalization a reality.  If you are able, please consider donating by clicking the link below.