Campers > Activities

Swimming Pool

In 2002, thanks to an enthusiastic outpouring of donations, we opened our new, larger swimming pool complete with underwater lighting for evening swimming activities. Camp Haiastan boasts the largest vinyl lined in-ground swimming pool in New England. You’ll experience a wide varied of aquatic activities including swimming lessons, beginning canoe, kayak and sunfish sailing instruction, lots of competitive pool games, and of course, all-camp staff/camper free swim every afternoon.

Click here to read about our new pool in Aquatics International magazine July/August 2002.

Waterfront

At Camp Haiastan’s 25-acre Uncas Pond, you’ll enjoy a variety of boating activities. Learn to paddle with a friend in a canoe, or navigate your own course in a kayak, or harness the power of the wind as you glide across the pond in one of our fun, easy to sail Sunfish sailboats. Some campers like to just take time out to fish from our dock, shoreline or boat. Catching and releasing turtles has been a favorite free-time pond activity for generations.

Outdoor Adventures

Climb to new heights as you test your physical skills on our ROPES Challenge Course. The climbing wall, zip line, fidget ladder, trust fall and balance platform are just a few of the challenging elements on the course that you’ll enjoy with your counselor and cabinmates. ROPES Course is the ultimate “team building” activity at Camp Haiastan.

Outdoor Living Skills is a core program at Camp Haiastan that includes Charles River day canoe trips for the Teen Session and overnight camp outs for the middle and older age groups. All campers enjoy hiking, orienteering and pioneering, nature education and discovery. OLS gives you the opportunity to discover the outdoor world in and around Camp Haiastan with your cabin mates as you learn about pitching your own tent, campfire building and cooking, orienteering compass games, and contributing as a team member in a minimum-impact on the environment program.

Have a “Hye Time” at Camp Haiastan!

As you can tell we’re high on “Hye” at Camp Haiastan! Hye Time is what we call our daily instructional program of Armenian info-classes that focus on Hai Tahd, Armenian history, culture, language arts, current events, political activism, music, dance and customs. Our informal approach to Armenian cultural education takes advantage of unique resources such as Internet capable computers, audio-visual aids, hands on projects, fun and clever word and action games and lively discussions led by our experienced staff and invited guest experts. Hye Time is all about being Armenian, learning about your Armenian heritage, discovering things you never knew about our ancestral land from long ago and right up to today, feeling a new-found pride in knowing that your connection to being Armenian (no matter how) puts you in a very elite ethnic group in today’s world. These are all ways that Hye Time will ignite your Hye Spirit during your stay with us. The most profound Armenian experience you will feel at camp is being welcomed into your “new family” because everyone, campers and staff alike, consider Camp Haiastan their second home. Just being in a cabin living group with other Armenian kids just like you with a leader that more often than not was a former camper is why we say Hye Time is all the time at Camp Haiastan. It’s easy to imagine how quickly you will be part of your new Hye family here.

Sports, Games and Athletics

Our campers love to participate and compete in a variety of challenging outdoor sports, games and activities. Competition and challenge abound on our athletic fields, courts, pool, waterfront, ROPES Challenge Course, archery range and recreation hall. Whether you win or lose, it’s all for fun and Armenian fellowship! We have lighted basketball and sand volleyball courts, a turf athletic field over an acre large for softball, soccer and flag football, and our huge covered Hye Hope Pavilion can accomodate two floor hockey games at once. Every one gets a “shot” at archery during their session. The archery range is well equipped for all ages and certified instructors teach campers to shoot safely for accuracy as well as for the fun of competing in target games. Of course we have our own favorite games and tournaments that have been around Camp Haiastan for years like broomball, stickball, basket-baseball, kickball, boxball and wiffleball to name several. Rain or nightfall means that we shift into our well-equipped indoor recreation facility. Our campers enjoy every manner of table and floor, and arcade game. The oldest running tournament at Camp Haiastan features the entire camp divided into teams for the session ending Olympic Games! For two full days, nearly every activity and skill from Armenian culture to canoeing to archery to tent pitching to volleyball is recreated into a competitive carnival culminating with the teams parading in review before judges behind their own uniquely decorated hand-made team flags until a victor emerges.

Multimedia Tech Program

Technology at camp?? Absolutely!! Staff and campers work together in our Multimedia Tech Program featuring:

• Digital Photography and computer photo editing
• Computer production and editing of each of our Session Memory CDs
• Use computers to produce programming for our own camp radio station WHYE
• Campers publish and edit of our camp newspaper “HaiLites” each session
• Design and post your own cabin’s web page on www.camphaiastan.org
• Communicate each session with “e-pals” from schools, camps, and youth programs in Armenia who are eager to swap experiences with their American-Armenian counterparts at Camp Haiastan - it’s a truly small world!

Creative Arts

Our Arts & Crafts program at Camp Haiastan is designed to work hand in hand with Hye Time, our Armenian culture education program. Our Creative Arts instructors and Hye Time instructors work together to offer campers the opportunity to create truly memorable and culturally meaningful hands-on craft projects that often reflect a particular historical event or Armenian village custom.

Special Days, Evenings, Themes & Social Events

Special theme days and evening activities are big events at Camp Haiastan. Our campers anxiously look forward to what the staff has planned each evening. It’s a tradition at Camp Haiastan for the staff to keep special theme days and evening activities a secret to enhance the fun and excitement. Campers look forward to Peanut Carnival, Treasure Hunt, Backbreaker, Detective Game, Backwards Day, Song Night, Talent Show, Alphabet Game, Night Swim, All-Camp Dance and Drive-In Movie Night. Every session traditionally begins with the First Night Bonfire and Introductions and sadly ends two weeks later with the Olympic Victory Dance.

Some close by and fun destinations that campers enjoy for special occasion field trips are Franklin Candlepin Bowling Center, Tangerini Farms (hay ride and haybarn maze), Hopkinton State Park (picnic grounds and lake canoeing), Spruce Pond Dairy (ice cream stand) and Franklin Town & State Forests (camping, hiking and nature interpretation).

Armenian Enrichment Evening is a new program that has fast become one of the most popular evening activities at Camp Haiastan. Twice each session specially recruited Armenian guest presenters are invited to Camp Haiastan to present, show or demonstrate their particular skill, talent, knowledge or expertise. Campers have been thrilled and honored to be in the presence of Armenian athletes, writers, photographers, clergy, youth leaders, artists, musicians, performers, academicians, cooks, political leaders from the U.S. and Armenia, and dance companies just to name a few invitees over the past recent summers. These informal yet intense experiences prove to be not only highly informative but also fun, especially when campers get the opportunity to try out a particular skill or activity that is being presented.