Minnehaha Academy’s relationship with the Adventurous Christians
I met John Patton and Ken (Bos) Bosworth in 1968 shortly after I began teaching at Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis. They were two young men who loved rock-climbing and had a desire to do youth ministry. They already had chosen the name for their ministry, Adventurous Christians (AC), but had no solid organization nor staff.
They did have enthusiasm and many friends who wanted to join them doing ministry in the wilderness. As a board was being recruited, I was asked to become a member. It wasn’t my camping expertise that they were necessarily looking for, although I was a director of a summer camp in Michigan, it was the possibility of introducing Minnehaha students to their program. At the time everything was run out of John’s home near the University of Minnesota campus.
As climbing was their prime interest, you can imagine the excitement on the Minnehaha campus when one afternoon after school a group of young men were seen rappelling off the roof of the gym building. That was the beginning of the relationship. After that, on many weekends, we took students to Taylors Falls to learn techniques of rock-climbing from the AC staff. Minnesota Educator Association’s (MEA) weekend, an annual break in the fall for students in Minnesota (in 1970 or 1971), was the first of almost 20 following MEA weekends that the Minnehaha Adventurers Club shared the adventure with AC. Since climbing was high on AC’s agenda this first MEA outing
was to Devil’s Lake State Park near Baraboo, Wisconsin, to rock climb. Bos and John and friends were really into climbing so they tried to plan trips for us to Devil’s Tower and the Wind River range. I was not a climber and, honestly would not have stuck with them if this was all they wanted to do. I was a canoeist and when they got the use of a building from the Methodist church near Bearskin Lake and decided that they could expand their program to canoe trips in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA), I jumped in with both feet.
Land was obtained on Bow Lake from Okontoe, a Christian Retreat Center and family campground. The MEA weekend in October of 1972 must have been our first with AC on the Gunflint Trail, where the property was located. A lodge was up, though not yet complete, but it would become the very heart and center of AC. For years it housed groups in the lofts at each end. On the main floor was the kitchen and dining area, a small pantry, a bed room for John and Annie Patton and their two kids, and finally along the outside wall, an office. A bunk house was built just above the Lodge which housed up to eight fellows. Bub and Bonnie Nelson, a young couple on staff, built a cute one-room cabin below the Lodge. Oh yes, the very first thing built was the sauna on the lake shore.
By the early 70s the Lodge was pretty well built and there were staff coming out of the woodwork. With the large group of staff, mostly college men, and the endless “friends” who showed up regularly, I never understood how AC could make it financially. Of course, no one had a salary, not even the directors John and Bos, but the cost of food to feed the gang must have been frightening. In those early years it existed much like a commune.
From this beginning in 1972 through the Fall of 1989 MA was up there almost every MEA weekend. In March of 1973, 1974, 1975, and 1987 Minnehaha came up for a Basic Life Course which was more than mere winter camping. This was a two-week program which included the first week of learning what it was like living in the wilderness. The kids became part of the AC community taking part in all activities including sawing and splitting wood, and cooking and baking on a wood burning stove. Probably the most memorable task was logging, or bringing in logs from the burn-over areas around camp. The logs were so charred that the kids were as black as coal miners when they finished the day’s work. One year, during this Basic Life course, our Minnehaha students went to school in Grand Marais, Minnesota, attended classes, went home with local students and came back for a second day of classes. The second week of each of these courses was winter camping and travel was by skis or snowshoes.
During those years, until 1989, Minnehaha had its own buses and this made it feasible and affordable to take groups up to camp. In June and July during most of those years, we took canoe trips, usually of 8 to 10 days. In the summers of 1974, 1975, and 1986 we took Minnehaha students on the Border route canoeing from International Falls to Lake Superior. Besides Minnehaha students I often brought youth and other groups from Twin Cities Covenant congregations. I do believe that in those early years of AC’s existence Minnehaha was the basic source of income for the camp.
I was on the AC Board for many years, but felt a need to resign when I went on a sabbatical study leave from school. I kept up my regular canoe trips and MEA weekend trips through AC, but I was no longer up on the broader workings of the camp. I knew, as did everyone else who was connected with the camp, that the camp always operated on a shoestring budget. Never did we end a year in the black. I still don’t know how it lasted as long as it did. However, I was surprised when I got a call from the board chairman asking if I thought Minnehaha would want to take over Adventurous Christians. Wow! Unbelievable! Ken Bosworth and John Patton, the two originators of AC had been asked what should be done with the camp since it could no longer keep going financially. They both had said they would like to see Minnehaha take it over. I met with our president, Craig Nelson, and we discussed the offer and the possibility of our running such a camp. It was quickly decided that we were unable to do that. I did, however, visit Stan Henderson, the superintendent of the Northwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church, and with Austin Kaufmann, Christian education director for the conference and shared the news that AC was looking for a viable Christian organization that would continue its ministry of wilderness camping. They were very excited about the possibility of adding this kind of camping to the conference’s ministry. The conference wrote a proposal which was accepted by the AC board and then took over the ministry of AC.
One of the very best things that came with the Northwest Conference getting AC was the hiring of Russ and Kathleen Viton, who brought stability and vitality to the program. I went back on the camp board and was thrilled to see the program expand, especially among the Covenant congregations. I kept taking groups through AC even after my retirement from Minnehaha in 1999. After Minnehaha gave up the bus program in 1989 the number of trips dwindled, but I am thrilled to see that the ski teams and leadership programs have kept the Minnehaha-AC relationship going.The ministry between Minnehaha and AC continues to be strong today along with other offerings for canoe trips and retreats to churches, ministries, and other groups in their desire to participate in a Christian wilderness ministry in the BWCA.
Over the years I was privileged to work with many of the AC staff and have been blessed by their friendship and Christian commitment. As I have often said about Minnehaha Academy, it is the dedicated Christian teachers and staff that makes the school a Christian school. So it is with the Adventurous Christians, it is the Christian staff that makes it Christian, not the name.
Adventurous Christians’ mission is to provide a Christian environment where people encounter God in the wilderness. Now a ministry of Covenant Pines Bible Camp, you can find out more about canoe trips, retreats, and other ways to get involved at https://covenantpines.org/adventurouschristians/