About This Camp


161 Klevin St., Suite 100
Anchorage AK 99508
United States
Camp Fire Alaksa Nandita Lal
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Camp Fire was founded in 1910 by Luther Gulick, M.D., and his wife, Charlotte Gulick, as the first nonsectarian, interracial national organization for girls in the United States.


Shortly after the national agency was formed, Edith Kempthorne started Alaska’s first Camp Fire club in Juneau in 1913 as part of a national movement to extend the Camp Fire model through the “Guardians of the Fire” program. Camp Fire was one of the

Alaska Camp Fire Girls Juneau Falls, 1914
Alaska Camp Fire Girls Juneau Falls, 1914

first youth organizations in Alaska. Edith was soon hired as the first field secretary of the national office, in part due to her “frequent and lively” letters from Juneau.

In 1916 she returned to assist Camp Fire’s founder and the group of volunteers operating sporadically through the ’20s and ’30s in Sitka, Wrangell, Nenana, Bethel, Kodiak, Homer, Cordova and Juneau.

In 1959, the first official Camp Fire council began operating as The Chugach Council of Anchorage, serving 350 girls through Camp Fire clubs. Camp Fire started Camp Yalani at King’s Lake Camp in Wasilla in 1960 and offered two one-week sessions each summer for girls.