Paradise Lake is a lake in

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. This small lake is in the Township of Wellesley, Ontario in the

Regional Municipality of Waterloo The Regional Municipality of Waterloo (Waterloo Region or Region of Waterloo) is a metropolitan area of Southern Ontario, Canada. It contains the cities of Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo (KWC or Tri-Cities), and the townships of North Dumfr ...

in Ontario, Canada. It is due south of the large village of St. Clements and near the village of Bamberg.

Cottages and summer camp

The lake is surrounded by cottages on private land; there is no public access to the water nor a public beach. Early settlers in the Bamberg area were from Germany and the village was initially named Weimar; it was changed to Bamberg in 1852. The nearest city is

Waterloo, Ontario Waterloo is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is one of three cities in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo (formerly Waterloo County, Ontario, Waterloo County). Waterloo is situated about west-southwest of Toronto. Due to the c ...

. A residential summer camp for children has been located on this lake since 1924, currently the Camp Ki-Wa-Y, so-named in 1942. The 77 acres of land and the buildings were owned by the

Kiwanis Club Kiwanis International ( ) is an international service club founded in 1915 in Detroit, Michigan. It is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, and is found in more than 80 nations and geographic areas. Since 1987, the organizatio ...

of Kitchener-Waterloo but the camp was donated to the Kitchener-Waterloo

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

in the 2009. Thanks to an agreement with the Kiwanis Club, the Y had already used the site as a camp for some years (since at least 1975), sometimes in conjunction with some Roman Catholic groups, and has held year-round programming for school groups here since 1995 as the YMCA Outdoor Education Centre; the association also uses the site for conferences, retreats, meetings and family reunions.

References

{{authority control Lakes of Ontario Wellesley, Ontario