Dear friends,

Warm greetings to all of you.

From July 26 to August 2, 2026, the 26th St. Tikhon Orthodox Bible Children’s Summer Camp took place, organized by the Patriarchal Parishes in Canada and held, as in previous years, in the beautiful setting on the shore of Pigeon Lake in the province of Alberta.

I want to express special gratitude to the staff, teachers, counselors, cooks, kitchen helpers, those who organized crafts and sports activities, the photographers and correspondents, and to everyone who donated money, food, and time to help us with our camp. Without this help, our Children’s Bible Camp would not have taken place, and it would not have been as successful. Thank you to all the parents who sent their children to our camp. THANK YOU ALL!!!

We welcome more volunteers and look forward to seeing you next year!

With love in Christ, Father Igor, Priest and Camp Director

A distinctive feature of our 26th children’s camp this year was the large influx of children wanting to attend (along with an expanded geography of where our campers came from). This, of course, meant great responsibility and a great deal of work for all our staff and helpers. We tried to account for this back at the preparation stage: there were quite a few meetings before camp, where we did a kind of “lessons learned” review and tried to communicate the camp’s requirements more clearly, and so on. This year was also expected to bring a lot of rain, since the whole region was still receiving a record amount of precipitation.

We opened the season on July 27, and, as always, it wasn’t easy: taking over the facilities, registering everyone correctly, assigning rooms, introducing everyone to one another, putting up our prayers on the walls of our main dining hall, cleaning and lighting the stoves for the traditional first barbecue, and so on. Our first thank-you goes to everyone who agreed to help welcome the children to camp!

That evening we had our first campfire by the lake, and the next morning, our first morning exercise session, led by our young counselors.

After exercises, we headed to the small church we already knew so well — the spiritual center of our camp life. We learned to use (or reviewed how to use) the prayer books published especially for the children’s camp, and reviewed the rules of behavior in church. Every morning, in addition to morning prayers, we read the Gospel and reflected on it together, then prayed for our mentors, parents, and friends.

Long before wake-up, our cooks were already hard at work in the kitchen, so that right after prayers we could gather in our spacious dining hall, say grace, and have a hearty meal before a day full of events.

Every day we tried to teach the children something new, and above all, to live in cleanliness and order — which is why there was always a morning cleanup of the grounds and all the buildings. And most importantly: on one hand, this was followed by a lecture, where this year, with the help of our clergy and counselors, we tried to learn about the Sacraments of the Church; on the other hand — while one group was at the lecture — the other group took part in art class (always interesting, always something new), creating beautiful and original crafts. This year we would especially like to thank our lead and only art teacher, Svetlana Storozhenko! And all her helpers.

I’d like to say a special word about the weather, which surprised us with how steady it was: all around us there were storms and downpours, while we had only a few rain showers — and even those mostly during meals or activities — and lots of sunshine! But we didn’t have that unbearable heat that makes it hard even to eat. Naturally, this meant quite a few mosquitoes, but our ever-faithful camp nurse, “Mama” Tatiana Popovskaya, supplied us with a huge amount of bug spray, and the counselors gave instructions on how to use it. Of course, children will be children, and some of them still had to build up a bit of immunity to mosquito bites.

As has become tradition, after one of the rains we were again treated to a beautiful double rainbow stretching across the whole sky!

Like a real family, we celebrated the children’s birthdays! In the kitchen, under the direction of our head cook and organizer, Natalia Ilyina, delicious cakes were baked; we sang “Mnogaya Leta” and Happy Birthday, and the birthday children blew out their candles.

On the feast day of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Great Prince Vladimir, we had a Divine Liturgy, served by our clergy, Father Igor and Father Evgeny. Our counselors sang, and the children went to confession (or learned how to) and received Holy Communion.

On one of the camp days, we learned how to pitch tents — the boys did this, splitting into teams after the instructions to see who could do it fastest and most correctly. Meanwhile, the girls learned the culinary arts, baking delicious cupcakes under the guidance of our cooks and our teacher Elena Ivanova (cupcakes some of them may remember from childhood).

The camp is equipped with several sports areas, including tennis courts and basketball courts, and a purpose-built mini soccer field, while the game room (in the same building as the lecture hall) has table tennis and a cozy movie theater.

Our kitchen always smelled of something delicious — and it was different every time. Here are just a few of the dishes prepared with love by our wonderful cooks: Olivier salad, pigs in a blanket, meat patties, vareniki (dumplings), milk porridge, homemade pirozhki, borscht, casserole, and stuffed cabbage rolls. Everything was tasty, healthy, and nourishing — just what the children needed to keep up with their constant activity!

For the third year in a row, a petting zoo came to visit us! It once again brought the children enormous joy and delight. Fellow parishioners of the Patriarchal Parishes, Allan and Carol Boris, made quite a journey with a large trailer carrying a whole variety of animals. They set up a pen and gave the children not only the chance to see their sweet animals, but to hug them, groom them, feed and water them, play with them, and learn something about their lives!

This year we had several quests. In one, the children had to find “treasure” hidden around the camp grounds by solving a series of clever clues. In another — a great favorite among the kids — they had to break open a box of candy while blindfolded.

Although the lake was quite full this year and not entirely suitable for swimming, our camp director, Father Igor, had planned for this, and we still had plenty of the children’s favorite water games and activities.

Despite how busy they were, the children spent the whole camp preparing a performance for the concert (the Saturday presentation). On Saturday, they presented the lives of the saints assigned to their groups in the form of short skits or even presentations — showing their usual resourcefulness and revealing their talents.

We closed the camp on the 9th Sunday after Pentecost, the feast of the Holy Prophet Elijah, with a Divine Liturgy, assisted by Deacon Alexander and the altar servers of St. Barbara’s Cathedral in Edmonton.

This report was put together in an unusual way — through the wonderful daily photo chronicle of our camp, created and updated every day by our photo correspondent Elena Dianova on WhatsApp and Telegram. Thanks to her, parents could stay at ease and happy for their children, and we now have a warm and very complete photo record of this wonderful week spent at our church children’s camp!

Once again, a huge thank you to all the counselors, teachers, helpers, volunteers, and our doctor. A special thank you to everyone who worked in the kitchen, to our priests, to the organizers, and to everyone involved! We bow low before you all. May the Lord keep you! And God willing, we’ll see you again next summer!