The Great Storm on Council Fire
On the Thursday night before Interdependence Day, we gathered together with everyone back in camp from trips. We had our scheduled Council Fire, where we shared our appreciation beads, camper jokes and songs, and watched the Senior Lodge Trips Skits. It began to rain in the evening and we decided to have the event in the Upper Lodge. Then it began to really rain — and it was fun to watch it come down from inside the lodge. Then the power went out, so the fire was our primary light, with a few headlamps illuminating our hosts and acts. The Trappers campers were the emcees for the evening, and they did an admirable job of maintaining order, respect and high spirits. With all the noise from the rain on the roof, even though the young performers were inaudible, they were a quiet, polite and enraptured audience. At one point I considered pulling the plug, but just then the rain died down enough for giving out beads of appreciation. While perhaps the whole room did not hear every appreciation, the giver and recipient did and most importantly the whole community was present and held the space well. Later, the group who had hiked to Flying Cloud for a Naming, returned early as the storm was of such intensity to cancel the event. Being outdoors more brings an undeniable respect for the power of nature.
The next day we found that the rain had been so intense it washed out half of our road from the upper lodge to the trading post. Jay, the resource director at F&W, got in his tractor and had the road patched up before we had finished our songs. There was still more work to be done, so we grabbed our tools and started with our own road crew to make new drainage, fill gravel into trails that had been washed out and generally fix up camp. The rains also left us our own private “lake” across from the trading post since the rainwater drainage pipe had silted up. The next day some campers had a blast splashing up to their knees in it – so the “lake” became a new activity area for an afternoon. All of this was a reminder of how nature, even in its raw expression, can bring people together and we can choose to celebrate some of the changes in our landscape.
Interdependence Day
“You just have to be louder than anyone else and have a lot of fun”
That was my advice to Timberlake, and that’s pretty much what we did. Since everyone loves a parade, we built ourselves a musical float on the back of our old black truck, the “BLT”. Each F&W camp had fantastic songs and skits; the contra dancing had different camps holding hands and dancing, and the treat of ice cream is always welcomed. While Senior Lodge was on trips, our younger campers worked very hard to construct a fifteen-foot tall bonfire (check out the photos on Smugmug’s All Camps gallery, then Interdependence Day). It was a great success, providing us with our own “fireworks”. The lessons learned about hard work and keeping at a task until finished will hopefully light up campers’ imaginations for a long time to come.
Superhero Day & Dream Big
Camp should be fun, and our Superhero Day was a great moment to show how staff and campers can be unselfconscious, dress up and be theatrical. The TimberFriends vs the Merlicht Corporation ending with the TimberFriends saving the day, thankfully. Our Dream Big night was separated by the different age groups or Lodges and reached to a more intentional and reflective space. First Lodge created stencils and t-shirts that reflected their ambitions. Big Lodge created beads and Senior Lodge used their fears as kindling to ignite their dreams in a symbolic fire.
J1 Farewell
Excited young boys bring an energy that is hard to beat. When J1 campers were picked up, some of them clearly just didn’t want to leave. One of the first things a camper told his parent was how the older kids, the Senior Lodgers, made all the decorations for the banquet and they were AWESOME. That’s how we roll. We didn’t buy decorations and party hats from Party City, we made them ourselves. We didn’t play “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Green Day, we played it on guitar and sang along.
Coming Up:
All Camp Reset Cycle, followed by First and Big Lodge Trips and Senior Lodge in camp.