About us

Camp registration shouldn’t feel like a second job.

If you’ve ever registered a kid for summer camp, you know the drill. One login for this camp, another for that one, and sometimes two different logins for the same website. You type your child’s name, birthday, allergies, and emergency contacts into form after form. You text other parents to figure out which week their kids are going. You track it all in a spreadsheet, then juggle emails, calls, and group texts to sort out who’s picking up whom. And then you do it all again next week. And the week after that. All summer long.

And that’s if you can find the camps in the first place. In most cities, there’s no single place to see what’s available. Camps are discovered mostly through word of mouth: a tip from a neighbour, a conversation at the school gate, a message in a parents’ group chat. If you’re not in the right circle, you may never hear about a great program just down the road.

We know because we lived it.

How it started

Portage Camps was born the day we tried to register our three kids for swimming lessons. Registration opened at a set time, spots disappeared in minutes, and we sat there with multiple tabs open, entering the same details again and again, with “Eye of the Tiger” playing to get ourselves in the zone. It felt like a competitive sport, and it was only swimming lessons. Summer camp, with its weeks upon weeks of programs, was a marathon.

Somewhere between the third login and the third kid, we decided to do something better.

Who we are

We’re Katy and Kaveh, parents of three kids and the founders of Portage Camps, a proudly Canadian company.

Katy

Dietitian · adult education

Katy is a registered dietitian and a public servant who works in adult education. Her specialty is making things efficient. She spends her days helping people navigate complicated systems and make healthy choices, and she brings that same practical, people-first thinking to everything we build. If a process has three steps too many, she will find them.

Kaveh

Public servant · data

Kaveh is a public servant working in the data space. He knows how much time is lost when information is scattered, duplicated, and trapped in places it can’t be reused, and he couldn’t stop seeing that problem in our own kitchen-table camp spreadsheet.

Together, we know first-hand how challenging and time-consuming camp registration is. Between our day jobs and three kids’ summer schedules, we were spending evenings and weekends managing logistics that should have taken minutes. So we decided to build the tool we wished we had.

Why “Portage”?

In Canada, a portage is the stretch where paddlers pick up their canoe and carry it from one waterway to the next. It’s the part of the journey that connects everything else, and it’s a lot easier when you’re not carrying the load alone.

That’s what we want Portage Camps to be for families: the thing that carries your kids’ information, your plans, and your summer from one camp to the next, so you can focus on the paddling.

What we’re building

Portage Camps is camp discovery and registration designed for how families and camps actually work.

For parents

Find camps in your city

Browse what’s available in one place instead of relying on word of mouth.

One account, every camp

No more juggling logins and passwords.

Enter your information once

Your kids’ details, health information, and emergency contacts are saved and ready to reuse.

Plan with your friends

See which camps and weeks your friends are considering, so you can coordinate without a dozen separate text threads.

See your whole summer in one place

Retire the spreadsheet. Every child, camp, and week is organized in a single view.

Simpler pickups

Organize drop-off and pickup logistics, including carpools, without chasing people across emails, calls, and texts.

For camps

Be found

Reach families who are looking for exactly what you offer, beyond your existing network.

Campers’ needs at your fingertips

Allergies, swim level, health information, and other important details are right there when staff need them.

Know your returning campers

See at a glance who’s back, so you can welcome them and build on relationships.

Paperless sign-in and sign-out

No more printed sheets. Parents and guardians scan a QR code, and that’s it.

A daily log, automatically

See who signed in and out, who the camp counsellor is, and all allergy, swim, and health information in one place.

Registration data that’s easy to work with

Sort, filter, and search your registrations without wrestling with spreadsheets.

Less admin, better communication

Spend less time on paperwork and more time on programming and kids, and reach families clearly when it matters.

Your family’s information, handled with care

Your children’s details, from health information to emergency contacts, are some of the most important data you have, and we’re a Canadian company that takes that responsibility seriously. We collect only what camps need to run safe, well-organized programs, we use it only for that purpose, and we don’t sell your family’s information.

Why it matters

We believe the best summer memories shouldn’t come with the worst administrative headaches. Parents are already stretched thin, and camp directors are running programs with small teams and big hearts. Every family should be able to discover the camps that fit their kids, not just the families who happen to hear about them. Technology should take work off everyone’s plate, not add to it.

Built by parents, for parents (and the camps we love)

We’re not a big faceless company. We’re a family that has been through the same registration marathon you have. Every feature comes from a real problem we’ve faced, and we’re listening closely to other parents and camp operators to get it right.

If you have ideas, frustrations, or camp horror stories, we want to hear them.

Get in touch: hello@portagecamps.com