The Estevan Wildlife Federation has wrapped up its summer season with its 25th annual Youth Camp being held over the warmer months.
Vice President Craig Bird says the camp is always a great event and a hit with the kids.
"Our big highlight for the summer is always our youth camp that we hold at the beginning of August and as usual, we had a full camp with kids through the four days that we had the camp, and all of the kids, when I spoke to them anyway, had a really good time."
The federation holds a variety of activities with Bird saying they all center around giving kids a better understanding of nature and hunting.
"We bring in a lot of guest speakers over the course of the four days that they run the camp that teach some various things, mainly about wildlife conservation. We have the conservation officers come in and talk about wildlife management. They take the kids out to the Boundary Dam to go fishing. They have bird identification and wildlife identification. They do all kinds of other little activities."
"That kind of culminates with our big kind of range day that we have on the Saturday with the kids that go out to the shotgun range and shoot, as well as the rifle, pistol, and muzzleloader ranges to shoot various types of rifles, a bunch of different types of handguns, and different types of muzzleloaders and it's all done under supervision. They also do some archery and paintball in there as well. So we get a little bit of exposure for a lot of different things."
The camp has been going on for a quarter of a century and Bird feels that it's a great way to teach kids about the outdoors.
"You do a lot of things to involve the kids and teach them about the wildlife in the area. A lot of the kids come from backgrounds where their families don't hunt so, giving a lot of these kids the opportunity to learn about some of this stuff that they don't normally have the ability to do on their own because some of their families of course don't hunt or fish, so it gives them a little bit of a different avenue. They get to learn like I say, about Wildlife Conservation and then try a bunch of different things."
The camp hasn't changed much over the years with Bird saying he sees some kids coming back the next year.
"We've kind of kept the similar format over the years. I haven't been involved with it since the beginning, unfortunately, but have looked after the firearms under this for the past number of years. So, we kind of kept it the same. I've had different volunteers with different firearms come out over the last few years to do that activity."
"The kids get a good exposure. You know, a lot of the kids are repeat, so they come over several years to enjoy the camp and they get a good opportunity for them."