Our story
About us
Twenty summers on
Golden Lake
Bramblewood began in 2006 with twelve campers, two canoes and a borrowed meadow at 120 Pine Circle Road. Founder Mara Ellison, a former schoolteacher, wanted a camp that felt like the best week of childhood on repeat — equal parts wild adventure and quiet kindness.
Today more than four hundred kids spend their summers with us across junior, middle and senior camps. The meadow is ours now, the canoe fleet has grown to thirty, and Mara's rule still runs the place: every child known by name, every day ended with a song.
A campus built for childhood
Thirty-eight acres wrap around a private swim beach on Golden Lake: the pine circle for morning songs, the craft barn, the archery range, the horse paddock, two soccer fields and the big red tent cabins where seniors spend their overnight.
Everything is walkable, everything is fenced from the road, and a registered nurse is on site all day, every day. Parents are welcome to tour any Saturday in June — just call the hotline.
Counselors kids
remember forever
Every Bramblewood counselor is over eighteen, background-checked, first-aid certified and trained for two full weeks before campers arrive. Most are former campers themselves — they grew up in these circles and came back to lead them.
Specialists coach archery, riding, swim and crafts, while group counselors stay with the same circle all week so no child is ever passed around. Ask any camper: the counselors are the reason they come back.
The lakeside webcam
From the first week of June through August, our lakeside camera streams the swim beach and the canoe dock live, sunrise to sunset. Grandparents love it. So do parents on lunch breaks.
Live each June – August
The camera sleeps for winter and wakes when the docks go in. Call (406) 555-0142 for this season's stream link.
Come see it in person
Tour the campus any Saturday in June, or enroll online in under five minutes.