From the Lookout

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Memories of Peninsula State Park’s Summer Camp for Girls

Kathleen Harris

Tales of summer fun, adventure, and camaraderie on the picturesque shores of Peninsula State Park in Door County.

272 pages, 5.5 x 8.5, 40 b&w photos
Paperback: $22.95 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-938-3
Ebook: $15.99 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-939-0
Publication Date: 5/5/2020

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Front cover of From the Lookout by Kathleen Harris

Description

Every summer from 1916 to 1948, Camp Meenahga, on the shore of Lake Michigan in Door County’s Peninsula State Park, hosted girls and young women from across the United States and Canada. From July to September, campers slept in canvas tents, told stories beside a massive stone fireplace, swam, canoed, sailed, hiked, rode horses, and watched the sunset from the Lookout, a gazebo with a spectacular view of the waters of Green Bay. With big ideas, little money, and no experience, Alice Orr Clark and Frances Louise “Kidy” Mabley founded Meenahga as a place for young women to refine their manners, enjoy outdoor leisure activities, and learn woodcraft. From the Lookout is an account of these experiences as told by the campers, counselors, and others for whom Camp Meenahga was a special place, not to be forgotten.

Kathleen Harris's history of Camp Meenahga is informed by letters home from campers and counselors, notes from Clark and Mabley, and many pages from the camp yearbook and newsletter Pack and Paddle. Brimming with nostalgia, From the Lookout brings to life the sights, sounds, and smells of an idyllic summer retreat, one that long after it closed lived on as a place of respite in the memories of those who knew and loved it best.

Author Bios

Kathleen Harris served as Peninsula State Park’s naturalist from 1998 to 2019. Before that, she worked as an educator at the Ridges Sanctuary in Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin, and as a county naturalist in Iowa. When she’s not ambling the haunts of old Camp Meenahga, she enjoys exploring the wooded brook that tumbles across her own five-acre property in Baileys Harbor.