For every summer from 1916 to 1948, Camp Meenahga, on the picturesque shoreline of Lake Michigan in Door County’s Peninsula State Park, hosted young girls and women from across the United States and Canada. From July to September each year, campers slept in canvas tents, told stories beside a massive stone fireplace, swam, canoed, sailed, hiked, rode horses, and watched the sunset from the Lookout, a gazebo with a spectacular view of the waters of Green Bay.
 
With big ideas, little money, and no experience, Alice Orr Clark and Frances Louise “Kidy” Mabley founded Meenahga as a place for young women to refine their manners, enjoy outdoor leisure activities, and learn woodcraft. From the Lookout is an account of these experiences, a history of Camp Meenahga informed by what campers, counselors, and others left behind, including letters home, notes from Clark and Mabley, and many pages from the camp yearbook and newsletter Pack and Paddle. 

Brimming with nostalgia, From the Lookout brings to life the sights, sounds, and smells of an idyllic summer retreat, one that long after it closed lived on as a place of respite in the memories of those who knew and loved it best.
 

Kathleen Harris has been a naturalist at Peninsula State Park for almost thirty years. She is the editor of The Centennial Reader: A Collection of Stories and Histories, a book commemorating the centennial anniversary of Peninsula State Park.