Specializing in land and water sports Ojibwa is able to develop levels of camaraderie like no other place. This is accomplished primarily because the Ojibwa staff is over 90% home grown. Boys 7 through 16 have the summer of their lives growing in a beautiful environment, exposed to healthful living and nurtured by a loving, caring and challenging staff.

Camp Ojibwa was founded in 1928 by Al Schwartz. The original site was near Three Lakes Wisconsin on Seven Mile Lake in Nicolet National Forest. Al leased an old resort called the New England resort. Seventeen boys attended camp for eight weeks. Travel was by train from Chicago to Rhinelander which took 14-16 hours.

Not satisfied with the Three Lakes site Al, in 1929, leased a resort property on Little St. Germain Lake and 27 boys attended that summer.

Al wanted to find a camp site that had as much lake frontage as possible, and in 1930 he purchased the current Camp Ojibwa site. Owned by the Niederlander’s of St. Louis, Al purchased camp from the widowed Mrs. Niederlander. The camp was originally a summer home and was sold and financed at a bank in St. Louis where Al finalized his plans with Mrs. Niederlander.

The present Counselor’s Lodge served as the Mess Hall, kitchen, and staff quarters. In addition there was the old garage, an ice house, and a boat house near the big rock. 37 campers attended in 1930. Bathing was in the lake near Eagle Point.

Dynamite was used to clear areas now known as the campus and middle fields. The far field was once a potato farm.

Camp was design by Al with the help of two friends Morrie Bien and George Dubbin, both famous architects. Patterned after another famous ex-camp Camp Strongheart, Camp Ojibwa was now a reality.