Camp Wekeela

Camp Wekeela is a 60-acre sleep-away summer camp in Maine with close to 300 campers and 135 employees. It is a traditional resident summer camp for boys and girls ages 7–16, in season from June to August.

This property is situated on a mountain lake, Little Bear Pond in the town of Hartford, Maine. Camp Wekeela is twenty minutes north of Lewiston-Auburn in the Oxford County region of Maine. The facility is approximately seventy minutes from Portland Airport, three hours from Boston and six hours from the New York Metropolitan Area.

In 1922, Emma Graumann opened a camp for girls on the shores of Little Bear Pond called We-You-Wega. After World War II, Joe and Francis Weene took over Camp We-You-Wega and turned into a boys' camp now named Wekeela. They came up with the current name by blending their last name with the names of their sons Ken and Larry (We+kee+la).

During the Summer of 1968 Camp Wekeela served as a training site for a group of Peace Corps Volunteers going to Ethiopia.

In 1970, Claire and Dusty Drew purchased Camp Wekeela turning it into a co-ed camp. During this time, the camp had approximately 75 - 100 campers. Most of the cabins had indoor plumbing but some cabins relied on outdoor showers. Cabin names during the 1970s included: Fireball, Brookside, Lakeside, Roadside and Strawberry Hill. An area designated "up top" was reserved for older campers. Dusty was known for his cigars (memorialized in a camp play as "Dusty Drew Exploding Cigars") and Claire was the camp nurse. Popular camp activities during the 1970s included Drama, Arts and Crafts and Archery. Free swim in the lake occurred each day. Throughout the swim period, to ensure all swimming were accounted for, the call of "Buddy Up" required campers to stop their swim and join and raise hands with their designated buddy. During free time an ever present game of soccer ensued with campers joining in on either side throughout the play. Evening included various activities including the popular Capture the Flag. During the 1970s, an Outward Bound Ropes course was added.

The Drews sold the camp in 1981 to Laurie and Eric Scoblionko. Scoblionko was offering eight-week sleepaway camp sessions by 2001, charging slightly above the industry average.

Ephram Caflun became the next Assistant Director of Camp Wekeela, joined by his wife Lori. The Cafluns and their three children first arrived in 1997. Ephram is a 1989 alumnus of SUNY College at Oneonta and Lori is a 1986 alumnus of Brandeis University.

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