The Experience of a Lifetime
Camp Kanata is a classic summer camp for kids and teens ages 6-16. Our overnight, day and leadership camps provide safe and fun experiences grounded in the natural world. We are an inclusive and welcoming place dedicated to serving families and campers from diverse cultures, races, backgrounds, faiths, gender identities and perspectives from across the country and around the world.
Camp Kanata Updates
Weekend Camp
We still have spaces in our spring weekend camps! Does your camper miss Kanata and just can't wait to be back? Are you an interested parent considering Kanata for your child? Do you want to spend time as a family outdoors and away from technology? Regardless the reason, a weekend at Camp Kanata could be right for your camper or family!
Summer Forms
Forms for ALL 2025 overnight campers opened January 15. Please have all completed forms turned in by Monday, March 17. It is imperative you complete all forms by the due date. Camper forms allow for our staff to prepare and provide the best experience possible for your child.
Cabin Updates
We are still on track with our cabin project. The floors and roofs have been installed and we continue to make great progress. Check out our highlight reel on Instagram for the most up-to-date photos.
Kanatapalooza
Get excited for Kanatapalooza! This event will be something you won't want to miss. We will be offering campus tours, activities and a chance for you to meet other members of the Kanata Community! Details for this to come soon.
Upcoming Dates
Tour- Saturday, Feb. 22
Tour- Tuesday, March 18
Open House- Sunday, April 27
Tour- Thursday, May 8
Ryan's Thought for the Week- 2.10.25
When my parents moved to Raleigh in the early 1980s, the intersection of Strickland Road and Six Forks Road was controlled by 4 stop signs. As a kid, I remember stop lights and trees on each corner without much around. I mainly remember sneezing every time we pulled into the left turn lane from Six Forks to Strickland. The sun would hit me and trigger a sneeze or two. I’ve passed this delightful quirk to my youngest daughter and she sneezes in the exact same spot if the sun is just right.
When I was in elementary school, I remember my dad coming home from work, crying as he came into the kitchen. As he drove home, he saw that a huge old tree had been cut down to make way for a bank or a car wash. I remember thinking “You can be sad about a tree?” Turns out you absolutely can (and maybe should) be sad about trees.
Last week I passed through the same intersection on the way home from picking up the girls from school. As I came through the intersection my heart sank as I looked to the right and saw the last untouched corner churned into mud with logs, branches and stumps in separate piles. What was a green field with old oaks scattered across it was now prepared for “progress,” whatever that might mean.
I knew the day was coming and yet it didn’t prepare me to see it all torn apart. I’m sure they will plant new trees and in 10 years or so they will look like they’ve always been there. And I’m sure that whatever they build will become familiar soon enough after the buildings are up, and the asphalt’s been laid. I’m also quite certain that I’ll remember how it used to look and I’ll feel a pang of loss at the memory.
And I’m sure that’s how some folks will feel when they arrive at Kanata in the coming months. They will see the new rooflines in the cabin area and they will mourn what’s been lost. They will regret the trees that had to come down and scoff at the newly planted ones. We will make space for that while we celebrate the larger space and the bathrooms in the new cabins. We will listen to the laments as well as the congratulations. We can hold them both with respect and care.
Overnight Camp
A week at Camp Kanata overnight camp is like no other week during the summer.
This week is filled with new experiences like learning how to canoe or going down the double water slide for the first time. New friends and new challenges shape campers into confident, independent people.
Day Camp
It’s amazing what you can do in a day – when you find the right place to do it, and the right people to do it with. Enter our world of the great outdoors, great activities, great friends and great fun.
Weekend Camp
Weekend Camps at Camp Kanata are for first-time campers, veteran campers looking to reconnect with summer friends, mothers and their children and adult/ family weekends.
There's more to explore at Camp Kanata!
Activities
Camp is really fun! If you think you might not go, go! You'll have a great time and make tons of new friends.
The best thing about Kanata is all the stuff you get to do. I love the lake! You can swim, go down the slide, jump on the blob and there's this big rope swing that you can swing out and drop off into the water!
