Camp Lone Cloud in Fall River cancels summer program

A popular Nova Scotian summer camp run by Scouts Canada has announced it will not be offering any programs this year, just weeks after hiring new staff.

A message on the camp's website states: "Unfortunately due to low registration numbers, Camp Lone Cloud has decided to withdraw the Residential Program for the Summer of 2015."

Camp Lone Cloud is located on a seven-acre island in Miller Lake, accessible only by boat. It's been in operation for over 50 years.

Multiple reasons

Jon Petitti, executive director of marketing for Scouts Canada, has said the camp is closing this summer for a number of reasons.

Only "48 youth had been registered for the program", he wrote in an email to CBC News. This is down from 168 this time last year. He also said the camp must register at least 250 youths to break even.

In addition, Petitti said the facilities are in need of considerable renovations "to ensure that when Camp Lone Cloud returns next summer, it will be able to deliver the type of summer camp experience that our youth and their parents expect."

But, Daphne Finlay, a newly-hired councillor and former camp attendee, said the property had already undergone upgrades.

"They've already built new cabins," she said. "They built new docks that we put in this year. And they just built a new canteen So, I'm not sure what they're going to be upgrading the facilities with."

New hires

Daphne Finlay said she and others had already been hired to work at the camp as councillors.

Finlay explains she was interviewed for the job on May 14, and then hired on May 22. Seven days later, she was told about the camp's closure.

"We're all a little upset over it," Finlay said. "We've been going for a long time, most of us, and you know it's been kind of been the only camp we've ever gone to."

Petittiupdated CBC News on Wednesday morning and wrote that the camp's director had made verbal offers to some new staff, but those offers have since been retracted.

Repercussions

Finlay suggests the long winter may have given a reason for parents to leave their decision to register until it was too late.

But, for those parents who have registered their kids, learning of the camp's closure hasn't been easy.

"It closing, I think, is going to break a lot of hearts and a lot of kids that, you know, have built stories and friendships," said Finlay's mother, Dawn Roseby.

"These kids are so passionate about going to the camp, you know, a lot of them are university students that actually didn't take other jobs to take this job that does not pay a whole lot of money when you think about what they're doing, but you know, this is their world."

In response, Roseby has launched an online petition in hopes to motivate other parents to register their kids. On the petition's page, Roseby writes the camp is willing to consider options.