Horse camps for children are not uncommon, but the Horse Whisperer Grief Camp in Chilliwack, B.C., is special - each child has lost someone close to them.

The camp was organized by the Chilliwack and Langley Hospice Society in hopes it would encourage more conversation and reflection about their losses.

"I lost my best friend named Stanley," Kianna Taylor said. "I think once he died, I really felt empty, that I didn't have anyone to talk to."

"When I came here today, it felt like the horses are quite like best friends."

There is a horse spa for hands-on pampering, and art classes for the kids to use their artistic flair to capture the horse they met.

"Children grieve a bit differently than us," Geri McGratch of the Chilliwack Hospice said Saturday. "They kind of do it in bursts, where they are happy one moment, the next moment they are crying."

For some children, the day was a chance to celebrate the person they loved. Breanna Lafrance honoured her foster brother at camp.

"When he was in hospital, where I last saw him, he had a smile I had never seen before," she said. "And I think in heaven, he may be smiling that same smile when I last saw him."

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Leah Hendry