Since 1966, Concordia Language Villages has maintained a permanent site nestled on 800 acres of woodland on Turtle River Lake near Bemidji, Minn. This is home to seven of our authentically built, year-round Village facilities (Finnish, French, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Russian and Spanish). French Voyageurs also has a base campsite on the property where they cook their meals outside and set up tents for sleeping.
Some of our other Villages (Arabic, Danish and Korean) populate these facilities for part of the summer, while some Villages (additional Spanish and French sites, plus Italian, Japanese, Chinese and Portuguese) are at more traditional lakeside camps and resorts that Concordia Language Villages leases around the state of Minnesota.
Each Village has a kitchen, dining room (seats 100-170), health center, swimming area, program activity areas, cabins or houses with bunk beds (besides French Voyageurs) and an administrative building. All windows and swinging doors are covered by screens.
Some of our facilities are only used during the summer; consequently, sometimes wood walls and studs are visible. Our facilities are inspected on a regular basis by state fire marshals and state sanitarians. We ensure that smoke alarms work, fire extinguishers are charged, emergency directions are posted and sanitation standards are implemented.
Part of the daily schedule includes staff and villagers working together to assist in the upkeep of their own cabins and bathroom facilities. Common household cleaning supplies are used. There is a large maintenance staff and housekeepers on-site to keep everything running smoothly.
Villagers are housed by gender, age and language experience. It is an option to request a roommate, but roommate assignments are not guaranteed. If you did not make a cabinmate request on the Villager application but would like to do so, please contact the Moorhead office at (800) 222-4750, ext. 1.
Requests involving villagers from different families must be agreed upon by both families prior to submission. There are expectations that all villagers maintain the language even in the cabins to continue the immersion experience. Each cabin is overseen by at least one staff member who is fluent in the target language.
Each site is different, and therefore has different bathroom and shower facilities. Some of the leased, traditional camp facilities have bathrooms and showers housed separately from the sleeping cabins. Newer retreat facilities may have bathrooms in sleeping quarters. The villager experience is based on a communal living environment with shared bathroom and shower facilities. This is the norm in most of the facilities leased for our programs. In addition, some villagers use the saunas (with bathing suits) at sites where they are located, as well as daily swims to stay clean.
Please contact our Summer Programs or Health Services office if you would like to discuss concerns with us.
