Camp La-No-Che is the Boy Scout Camp located on the North shore of Lake Norris in Paisley, Florida. It is a part of Central Florida Council of the Boy Scouts of America and is home to Tipisa Lodge of the Order of the Arrow (OA), as well as the most awesome summer camp staff in the United States of America, and that is a proven fact due to them winning best camp staff in the USA over twenty times in a row. Camp La-No-Che is part of the Leonard and Marjorie Williams Family Scout Reservation.
La-No-Che is 1,480 acres (6.0 km2) and located near the southern border of the Ocala National Forest and on the shores of lake Norris. It is also on the North side of the Wekiva River Protection Area.
The camp is open year round with its most active time being the 8 weeks during summer camp in June and July. La-No-Che also hosts weekends for local JROTC units, Venturing units, Learning for Life units, Cub Scouts (Boy Scouts of America), and Webelos (Boy Scouts of America) weekends. Tipisa Lodge also hosts OA events including sectional weekends.
There are multiple sub-camp locations on the Leonard and Marjorie Williams Family Scout Reservation including Camp Rybolt — a large group camping area, Camp Pooh Bear — a secluded and primitive camp, and Adventure Camp, which has a Project COPE course.
The camp has two waterfront areas with docks, an aquatics program, a climbing wall, two swimming pools, laundry facilities, a trading post (camp store), shotgun, rifle, and archery ranges, a health lodge, outdoor chapel, dining hall, and multiple modern latrines. Also contained on the property is a water treatment plant, 5 residential houses, sulphur springs, Pooh Bear Lake, 17 Troop campsites, a baseball field, amphitheater, basketball court, bouldering wall, a dance arbor, and the Florida Trail.
The W.T. Bland Dining Hall is a full service food facility able to produce 3 meals a day for 1000+ campers.
Adventure treks and hiking trails are numerous including Big Stump, a 12′ cypress stump an Orlando area attraction trek, Eagle Week, SCUBA diving, climbing, caving, kayaking, sailing, and trail biking. American Red Cross Health & Safety Certifications are also offered.
History
Central Florida Council’s summer camping was originally located at Camp WeWa off of Orange Blossom Trail (US Hwy 441) Apopka, Florida. Due to limited available land for expansion, close proximity to a highway, and a polluted lake on property, the Central Florida Council decided to seek new property around 1949. The Committee to find new land suitable for a summer camp was headed by Judge Don Cheney, an Orange County judge and long time Scouting supporter who was the first president of the Central Florida Council when it was organized in the 1920s.[3] Through various means they investigated the Gould Hunting Lodge on the north shore of Lake Norris in Lake County, FL. The hunting lodge was owned by the wealthy Gould family from Massachusetts, owners of the Gould Pump Company. The former Camp WeWa was sold to the YMCA, which still operates a program there under that name.
The first summer camp held on the new property was in 1950. During 1950 and 1951 there was no public electrical hook up onto the camp, although there was an electrical generator used for lights and a well-water pump. Ice blocks were brought in along with butane and propane for cooking and hot water purposes. In 1952, a 5000 Watt generator was purchased due to plans for an on-site refrigerator unit.
A few years later on the west end of the property land was purchased from the Dyke family, who was given continued access. Their house still exists today. The purchased land included the Sulfur Springs and the Big Stump nature areas, as well as a creek that feeds into Lake Norris.
The camp name was given by Judge Don Cheney and consists of “La” for Lake, “No” for Norris and “Chee” to give it an Indian sounding ending. According to Tom Burgess a professional Scouter of that era, “Cheney absolutely insisted that the name be La-No-Che… one “e”, and even in the face of the fact that “La Noche” translates “the night” in Spanish…behind his back everyone understood that it was his way of putting the name of “Cheney” on the camp in perpetuity!”
In the mid-1990s, Florida based supermarket Winn-Dixie donated a large sum of money to the Central Florida Council, and the camp was given the overall title of “Winn-Dixie Scout Reservation.” In 2007, the Winn-Dixie name expired, and the Scout Reservation later sold naming rights to the Leonard and Marjorie Williams family.
The current camp director is Matt Ragan and assistant directors are Kathy LaBar and Matthew Moon.
