The Mennonite Brethren In Christ, Ontario District (predecessor to the Evangelical Missionary Church) held its first camp meeting along the banks of the Grand River at Breslau, September 14-22, 1881. The Berlin Weekly News published this report: “There was a very large crowd, estimated at between three and four thousand, on Sunday afternoon…Something like one hundred families have pitched their tents for the whole meeting…A large staff of clerical and lay workers are present, and a powerful religious influence prevails.” In the years that followed, these “Bush Meetings” were held annually at various locations across Ontario.  This style of Camp Meeting was the predecessor to Christian camping as we now know it in Ontario. 

In 1925, camp sites in Kitchener and Stayner were purchased.  The Kitchener site hosted camp meetings for nearly 40 years, after which it was donated to Emmanuel Bible College.  The white pine acreage on Scott Street in Stayner was purchased from the Gartlan Estate for $1500 to become Stayner Camp. 

In the 1970’s, leaders in the Missionary Church saw the need for additional camp programming with a lakefront property, and pastors from our Northern Ontario churches discovered a camp site for sale in 1971. Located on the traditional territory of the Anishinabewaki and Omàmìwininìwag (Algonquin) peoples, our site on Round Lake has a history of Christian camp ministry going back to 1954, when the property was operated by the Middleton Family as Franklin Middleton Memorial Camp (1954-1968). The camp later operated as Camp Kirjatharba, run by a group from Hebron Fellowship in Kars, ON (1968-1971).  Though the property was much desired by developers, Mrs. Middleton had put it up for sale with the stipulation that the property must be sold to an Evangelical church group that would operate youth camps.  The camp was purchased in 1972, and we ran our first summer as Camp Mishewah in 1973.