About

What:
The Canadian Outdoor Summit is an epic, national, historic project where participants are invited to excitedly co-create a reality where outdoor programs can thrive and be appreciated for their true worth.  The Summit will enable the creation of a more unified, national outdoor community and begin to remove roadblocks currently affecting outdoor programming.

Who:
The Summit is focused on Led Outdoor Activities, where at least one person is responsible for the well-being of participants while outdoors. If you lead others in the outdoors or offer those activities on the territory you manage, this Summit is for you and your perspective is important to us. 


How:
The Summit is a co-creation process where individuals can engage with workgroups through this website. This will begin to inform the consolidation and development of important ideas, which will be further discussed, enriched, and then adopted as strategic new directions at the Summit gathering in September of 2021.

When:
The Summit is postponed to 2021 but the journey has already begun. Workgroups are actively seeking input from all interested parties. The culminating gathering and the blossoming of this inspired collective work will take place from September 28th to October 1st, 2021.

Where :
333 Boulevard de la Cité-des-Jeunes
Gatineau, QC J8Y 6M4 Canada

News

October 14, 2020

Next Advanced Camp

The Summit will host a virtual gathering. The theme is to regroup and discuss how we can overcome the challenges we are facing with COVID. Be there!

Outdoor insurance

Problems regarding outdoor insurance were brought up during a Basecamp Conversation last spring. Our joined forces made a huge difference and are now transforming how outdoor insurance happens in Canada!

September 30, 2020

Teaching outside

As teaching outside is gaining in popularity across the country, we want to be there to share best practices and support teachers in going outdoors.

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Summit Outcomes

The Summit is bringing together educators, trainers, knowledge keepers, program administrators, students and industry leaders to discuss strategy, directions, and decisions that help move in the direction of the following important outcomes:

  1. Create an evidence-informed statement about the value of outdoor activities for Canadian Society.
  2. Identify accepted practices of Canadian outdoor programs.
  3. Discuss and develop a proposed national framework of competency training for outdoor leaders.
  4. More widely promote outdoor education strategies for students in K-12.
  5. Invite and Integrate Indigenous perspectives on Led Outdoor Activity and its connection to land-based programming.
  6. Promote greater access to the outdoors for individuals with differing mobility.

Each outcome has its own dedicated workgroup coordination team and their mandate is to widely gather input from all interested parties and then use it to inform the development of tangible recommendations, strategies and innovations to further collectively explore at the Summit gathering.

Summit supporters

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STEERING COMMITEE MEMBERS

Process

Transforming the future of outdoor programming is an ambitious project and the Summit has been intentionally designed to invite and incorporate the wealth of knowledge and experience found within the national outdoor community. We know that we can’t solve all the most compelling challenges of our time with a single project, but the Summit is a strong start!

The Canadian Outdoor Summit gathering has been designed to be an innovative model where participants are not simply attendees of workshops and receivers of information but are seen as honoured custodians of unique viewpoints, respected knowledge keepers and passionate agents of change. If you have an affinity for Led Outdoor Activity, then your voice is essential to the Summit process.

To engineer potential solutions that are widely accepted and embraced by the outdoor community, each committee and workgroup is composed of individuals representing a wide spectrum of  organizations from throughout the sector and across Canada.  

Already, more than 50 outdoor organizations have answered the call and are working directly towards the  success of the Summit. 

If you offer or have offered Led Outdoor Activities, we invite you to be a part of this unprecedented, national  co-creation process.

Supporting Structure

A Steering Committee is responsible for designing and implementing the Summit.

An Advisory Committee is reviewing the work of the Steering committee and ensuring the Summit meets the needs of the outdoor community.

The Outdoor Council of Canada sits on the Steering Committee and serves as the promoter for this project.

The project  benefits from the engagement of 6 workgroups coordination teams, several project-specific volunteer teams, and many passionate individuals promoting the Summit from coast-to-coast-to-coast.

Two independent groups have merged their 2020 conference with the 2021 Summit Gathering. These groups are the Canadian Adventure Therapy Symposium and the réseau des URLS responsible for the Forum plein air.

Be Part of the Collective Effort!

If you care about bringing people outside, this Summit is for you. It is designed to give space for your opinion to influence the results.  Join this unprecedented national collaboration and help co-create the future of the outdoor community.

Support the Summit and join forces with hundreds of people and organizations passionate about Led outdoor Activities.