WHAT CAMP OFFERS

Through carefully planned activities and approaches, Camp Laugh A Lot:

• experience carefree days full of learning, fun and adventure in the Black Hills, the ancestral sacred land of the Lakota people (no longer part of the Reservation),
• gain enhanced awareness and compassion for animals,
• learn about nature and indigenous knowledge related to the natural world, thereby enhancing appreciation of nature as well as the capacity to care for the environment,
• build positive relations with others,
• enhance their self-image,
• assume greater personal responsibility,
• become involved in volunteering and participate in self-help initiatives.

Camp Activities

• Nature Study
• Hands on mini-clinic on natural horsemanship (communicating with horses and gentle horse riding)
• Hands on activities about daily care of the sunkas (dogs) who share our lives. Every summer, one or two sunkas join at Camp.
• Presentations about search and rescue dogs, guide dogs, and other service animals. (We invite real working dogs and other service animals and their people teammates to do these presentations.)
• Activities on learning respect for animals and earning respect from them.
• Communicating with animals. (Learning about some of the many languages being “spoken” all around us.)
• Activities on “Think like a caterpillar, think like an eagle”, and “Be a Bee”.

• Learning animal and plant names in Lakota.
• Black Hills ecology.
• Indigenous knowledge about the natural world
• Team building activities (build positive relations with other people and include an animal on your team).
• Hiking in and with nature.
• Lake swimming.
• Aquatic studies.
• Silent canoeing.
• Treasure hunts using nature clues and natural treasures.
• Learning Lakota and other campfire songs and stories.
• What we eat (healthy for the environment, healthy for us).
• Kindness Counts Every Day in Every Way.

By providing these camping opportunities in the Black Hills, Lakota children spend time in an area sacred to their Tribe.