The Girl Scouts purchased the 127 acres of land Lake Clear Camp now sits on from Paul Smith’s College in 1960. It took almost three years for the camp to be built to what it is today.

It takes girls ages 7 to 17 of all backgrounds — they do not need to be Girl Scouts in order to sign up. The camp has seen girls all the way from all over New York state, plus North Carolina, Vermont, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

With 13 staff members, eight counselors and two volunteers, the four-week camp is intended to have campers become close friends. Counselors and counselors-in-training give themselves nicknames such as Baker, Artemis, Twilight, Carl, Footloose and Nessie to ensure the security of their identity. This tradition has grown well with the years and gives the girls a sense of cohesion. At the end of each week, there is a game involving hiding in the dark, where the girls can try to find out counselors’ real names.

“We are a very close-knit camp,” said the camp director, nicknamed Carl. “We’re like the family camp of Girls Scouts, so we don’t have as many girls as other camps. We have 38 this week, so we know most of the girls’ names and they know all of us. You can pretty much see our whole property, so it’s just a fun, loving community.”

Sailing is one of the activities offered at Lake Clear Camp. (Photo provided — Daniella Nordin, Lake Clear Camp)

“I don’t even know how you can put it on the website, but even only being here the first time I think I picked up on it,” said Daniella Nordin, the camp marketing director. “Everyone is really close. The camp is close. They are more family, more than anything.”

“All of my friends come here, and it’s nice to come back and spend the time at camp with them and generally do all the activities here,” said counselor-in-training Autumn.

It’s only a short drive to Saranac Lake and Paul Smith’s College, but nevertheless, the camp is situated in the heart of the Adirondacks. This enables campers to go hiking, biking, paddling, kayaking and canoeing on and off site. Campers can sign up for just camp or for specialty programs such as hiking, biking and paddling. The camp has five sailboats, a bunch of kayaks, eight paddleboards, a rescue motorboat, canoes and a swim area with docks, allowing for a lot of fun on the water.

There is one water event in particular that campers and counselors take pride in — the seahorse swim. Girls have to have passed upper-level swim lessons. Every Thursday morning, the girls can choose to be boated all the way across the lake and swim a mile back to camp. After accomplishing the swim with counselor support, they can write their names on the seahorse board, along with everyone else who has done it.

In a full day’s worth of camp from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 at night, there are about eight activities.

Artemis, left, and Twilight are counselors at Lake Clear camp. Counselors here use nicknames to add group cohesion and to protect personal information on social media. (Enterprise photo — Dana Hatton)

“The majority of our schedule is based on the girls,” camp director Carl said. “So on Sunday night when they come in, they work on what they want to do during the week. We have certain things they should be doing, but then the girls plan what and when they want to be doing it, so it’s a lot of girl-led activities.”

One of the CITs, Simba, said, “I really like a lot of the arts and crafts we do, and this year we are doing a lot of theme dinners, and that’s really fun.”

CIT Autumn added, “Lake camp is such a big part of my summer. This is like my seventh year, so I want to keep going with it.”

“It’s a place where Christmas socks are OK,” CIT Sparkle said.

While the camp is in its last week, there’s a lot to look forward to next summer because, as the CITs said in unison, “There’s never a dull moment.”

Sitting on a couch, from left, are second-year counselors-in-training with nicknames Simba, 14, Sparkle, 15, and Autumn, 14, at Lake Clear Camp. (Enterprise photos — Dana Hatton)