Imagine your child learning a variety of water sports while engaged in the functional art of learning to communicate in the French language.  A forest camp out with survival training with youth from all over the world, while learning to communicate in English is a specialty here on the islands. Traditional summer camp activities with the Islander touch is nothing like the summer camps of the 20^th century.

Learning to ride horseback, learning to create special items found cast away from the sea in arts and crafts classes and learning to wakeboard, kitesurf, kayak or canoe…, it is all possible at our sleepaway summer camps. Learn to sail, snorkel, scuba dive, swim with seal and play any number of water games.

Camps can be five days, seven days or even two weeks long. OK, you can exhale now. Your child will be in good hands. The features of Magdalen Islands sleepaway summer camps reveal many benefits. Not only do they develop values of independence and self-worth in your child, but also promote trust and relief for anxious parents. Parents who have served their children’s spectrum of needs now have a chance to reconnect with each other while having the peace of mind and confidence that their children’s needs are being met in an inspiring and rewarding environment. Summer campers learn many strategies to working on their own as well as working as a unit. They learn to build friendships and to assess good role models. Many campers experience a transition after experiencing those invaluable weeks of an islands sleepaway summer camp. Not only do they develop a better image of themselves, but miraculously, they develop better insight on you as an individual, not just a parent.

Planning ahead is a necessary action to creating a memorable islands stay for your child because of the sheer number of activities that your child can be involved in. Choosing the right summer camp can be a difficult decision. Assuring your child’s well-being, safety and security can be confusing and very time consuming.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to go for a romantic ride on a warm summers evening, under a full moon on a beach of soft white sand, with the sound of the surf to one side and sea birds to other?

The Magdalen Islands are known to have more than 300 running kilometers of cream sandy beaches. Ride some of the beaches and trails of the islands, canter through water and follow trails that were made for riding on, while taking in breath-taking panoramic scenery.  Old Harry beach is world famous for its 30 some odd miles of endless sand, sand hills and surf and the East Point Wildlife Reserve trails are on its borders.

Explore stunted forests, salt-water marshes, cranberry, crowberry and blueberry moors. Get a look at the islands wildlife up close. Study orchids and learn of herbs that the original settlers used to eat and heal themselves with.

Watch the maritime birds in their natural setting and a multitude of the other 250 or more bird species that frequent the islands.  Learn of the early settlers and the shipwreck society they became.  Bask in the beautiful, sunsets known to man. Swim in warm, quiet lagoon waters, salt water lakes or surf waves on the open beach.

Camp on land so close to the beach that the sound of the surf lulls you to sleep.  Rise to the most wonderful sunrise over the Gulf waters. Experience ghost stories from shipwrecks around a warm campfire and take long leisurely walks over varied flatlands. Pick berries during their season and go fishing mackerel with a rod and reel off the wharves and capes. Search for shells, pebbles and small sea creatures that washed ashore.

There are a million and one things to do either on horseback, foot, kayak or canoe on the Magdalen Islands.

So, if you feel like stepping out of the rat race and dream of cantering along a deserted sandy beach with the taste of sea-spray rousing your senses, or wonder what it would be like to slow it all down, to get in touch with yourself again, to allow your instincts to guide you and to recall how to laugh, and sing, and celebrate life remember that, even in today’s fast moving world, there is still a place where all this is possible…, Iles-de-la-Madeleine and her horses await you….

To meet and get to know the horses of Old Harry beach see All Things Horse blog.

“A horse is the projection of peoples’ dreams about themselves – strong, powerful, beautiful – and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence.” ~ Pam Brown