OK POLARIS IT'S TIME TO GET UP! MEET ME IN 15 MINUTES READY TO GO RUNNING/SWIMMING!!!!
Although it's already been one week without my campers, I still wake up every morning ready to rile them out of bed. It's oddly quiet here in my own room, no snoring girls or buzzing mosquitoes, and the walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night is much quicker. After spending four months at Camp Wenonah, it still has not hit me that I am home for good and not for just another day off. I've slowly been transitioning back into life in the suburbs while trying to catch up on sleep and find my voice that has been lost for the past two weeks. It's going to be a quick turnaround though, as Thursday I head up to my family cottage for the long weekend and then Sunday, my mom and I will head out to Lennoxville for my fourth year of university.
It's crazy to think that on exactly this day last year, I was visiting the Eiffel Tower with my mom in Paris following my summer in Disney World. I did not think that another summer at camp would be able to compare to my time in Orlando but I am happy to say that I was proven wrong. The past four months were by far the best months I have ever spent at camp over the past 14 years and I got to spend it with the greatest people imaginable. In many ways, working at camp is very similar to working in Disney, as every day, we strive to make memories and "magical moments" for our campers; however the one big difference is that at camp you are ALWAYS on stage! It's a challenging and often exhausting job, but you can go to bed every night confident that you have made a difference in a child's life.
Through May and April, Camp Wenonah is an Outdoor Education Centre for schools. Groups of students between grades 5 and 12 come up for 2-5 day stays and we run an intro-to-camp style program with a focus on outdoor education, teamwork, initiative, leadership and of course, FUN! I worked as a Program Specialist, meaning I was in charge of teaching programming in our various camp areas. I primarily taught climbing, canoeing, kayaking, low ropes and tie dye, with the occasional fire building and fishing thrown in. Outside of program area based instruction, we also did large group activities for the school, such as Capture the Flag, Cardio-Pictionary and my personal favourite, the Survival Game. The typical spring day is longer than the summer day, as we start with pre-breakfast activities and morning dip, followed by breakfast, interest sessions for instructional programming, lunch, more interest sessions, daily options, dinner, large group activities, snack and finally evening programming, which is often a campfire, night hike or talent show. Based on the size of the group, a certain number of staff are assigned to the group the entire time they are at camp and under the direction of one group coordinator, run all the programming for that group. During the typical week, we would have groups in from Monday to Wednesday and the second round of groups would come from Wednesday to Friday, making for a very quick change-over on Wednesdays. On the weekends, we generally had small groups in camp and a reduced staff team, to give the other staff time off. In addition to running program, we also all worked support, meaning when the campers were getting ready for their activities, all the staff jumped in to clean washrooms, do the dishes and clean up camp. What's more, when we were not attached to a group, we were full time support workers, but our staff team was so small that we were rarely on support. We had a core group of 12 staff at the start of spring, but grew to a team of 15 by the end, with guest appearances from many former staff over the two months, including one of my best friends, Sara, who spent her two week break from her coop in BC working at camp.
Right from the start, working the OEC was go-go-go all the time but it enabled me to create some great memories and really grow as a staff member. In our training week, I was certified by Challenges Unlimited to use the climbing wall and brand new Dangle-a-Maze, which was a hit all season. I got to go on two overnight trips, one with a group of exchange students from China and Japan who had never gone camping before. In June, I got to work the Camp Erin weekend, which is a grief camp for kids who have lost a close family member. This was a very moving weekend, as it really gave the kids a chance to grieve in a healthy way and make connections with others going through similar experiences but also forget about their grief for a while and enjoy the camp activities. The charity is actually based out of Hamilton, so I actually knew some of the volunteers with the camp. I also had the chance to work the Open House Weekend, where all new camp families were invited up to see the camp and try out our activities before sending their kid to camp in the summer. We had many alumni group members come up to work and ran the weekend "Family Camp" style, which was a lot of fun. A highlight of the spring season for me was working with the Ancaster Senior Public School grade trip, the middle school I graduated from in 2008. It was even more fun for me because my brother Jamie and cousin Kristen came to camp, along with many of my former teachers! It was a very big full circle moment for me!
Summer Pre-Camp began on Friday, June 20th, led by our brand new Summer Camp Director, Rudy. Everyone was excited to have Rudy in his new role, and I was excited to work with my little sister for the first time, who was hired as a first year resource staff. My role for the summer was POLARIS Director, which is our leadership program for 15 and 16 year olds. Transitioning from spring mode to summer mode was harder than I thought it was going to be, as we went from a staff group of 15 to a team of 70 and had more downtime once the all-hands-on-deck mode was no longer needed. However, it was great to start planning the POLARIS Leadership Program with my 5 co-directors, Dom, Hannah, Sage, Ben and Cam. In 2010, Sage, Ben, Cam and I were participants in the POLARIS program together, so we were excited to be leading the program altogether. The program runs for 4 weeks and has a "hard skills" focus: participants work towards their ORCKA provincial canoeing levels, CanSail national sailing levels, lifesaving swim levels and go on a 7 day canoe trip in Algonquin Park. At the end of the month, they also have a chance to either go on a whitewater kayaking or rock climbing trip. The program was completely revamped over the winter so we spent a lot of time during pre-camp studying the changes and preparing to run the program. We had 42 16 year olds arriving from all over the world at the end of the week and we were determined to deliver the best POLARIS program yet.
July Camp officially began on Sunday, June 28th and it was the rainiest day of the entire summer! From the moment we woke up until we went to bed, the rain did not stop once! However, just like they say it's good luck when it rains on your wedding day, we all hoped that a rainy first day was good luck for the rest of the summer. We had an interesting mix of kids, with 5 from Spain, 3 from France, 1 from Belgium, 1 from Chile, 1 from Italy, 1 from Austria, 1 from Australia, 1 from New Zealand, and 28 from Canada. We spent the first 3 days preparing for the big canoe trip and all departed for Algonquin Park on the Thursday. Sage and I were leading a trip together and had a group of 9 girls. We started at Canoe Lake and spent the next 7 days moving towards Lake Opeongo. I could not have asked for a better trip! I was very nervous before leaving that I would not be a competent enough tripper to lead a trip and was nervous about counselling 16 year olds, as I have always been a junior counsellor, but the trip went more smoothly than I could have imagined! The weather was perfect, Sage was a great co-tripper and the girls were so much fun, and also very good trippers themselves. We stayed on some beautiful camp sights, saw amazing sunrises and sunsets, cooked great meals over the fire and pushed through some tough paddles and portages. I could not be more proud of the amazing group of girls I tripped with!
Once back at camp, we jumped right into skill development and spent our days climbing, kayaking, canoeing, swimming and sailing. On the final Sunday of the month, the POLARIS took their exams and I actually took my canoeing exam as well and earned my ORCKA 3, the second highest level offered by ORCKA. On the final Monday, we all went to Haliburton Forest to go rock climbing, as we could not offer the whitewater kayaking trip due to the Gull River being used for the Pan Am Games. Fun story - when we arrived at the rock face at Haliburton Forest, I had an extreme feeling of déjà vu and then remembered that I had been on a rock climbing trip with Wenonah there 10 years ago!
The July POLARIS group was a lot of fun and they grew very close as a group. They started calling themselves a POLARIS family and surprise, surprise elected me as their mother. After a great four weeks together, it was very hard to say goodbye to all of our campers, but myself and the other directors were very proud of the program we had delivered and were looking forward to doing it all over again in August.
August Camp began on Sunday, July 26th and had a much sunnier start than July. We had a less than 24 hour turn-around between the last July campers leaving and the first August campers arriving so we had to change gears very quickly. Unlike in July, I knew a lot of the campers coming into the POLARIS program for August - in fact, some of the girls had been in the cabin group I was a counsellor in training for in 2011, which was crazy to think about. We had 44 POLARIS in August, and though we had many more Canadians in the group, we welcomed 2 campers from France, 1 from Italy and 2 from Taiwan. We followed the same schedule as July, and we left for Algonquin Park for a second time on the following Thursday. This time, I was leading another group of 9 girls with an alumni staff Celia. We started at the same place, Canoe Lake, but had a different, longer route to get to Lake Opeongo, which included a 3km portage on the fifth day! Once again, I could not have asked for a better co-tripper or better group of girls! The weather was a bit iffy, with a bit of rain everyday, but we were very fortunate that the rain always started once we were on our campsites and protected under a tarp! It was still very warm though so we were able to swim almost everyday. We got to see a moose on two separate occasions which was very cool! At the end of the trip, it was very bittersweet leaving the Park, because I do not know when I will get to go back to Algonquin again, but knowing that I was on my way home to a pillow and shower made the departure quite easy!
Shoutout to my granny for the awesome bucket hat! |
Just like in July, we spent the week back at camp working on canoeing, sailing, kayaking, climbing and swimming. I was fortunate enough to spend my day off in Peterborough with one of my best friends, Hannah, during which her family spoiled me rotten! (Big thank you to the Best family!) During the final week, I did not go on either out trip and instead stayed back to help with the swimming examinations, and was very proud when all of the swimmers passed either their Bronze Medallion or Bronze Cross. Celia was helping examine, so it was great to see her again! Jamie was also at camp for the last two weeks of the summer, and the Zuckers were reunited for a short span of time. In both July and August, the last three days of camp are the Wenonah Games, which are our "camp Olympics", for which I was a team house captain. At Wenonah, campers and staff are assigned to one of three teams and you become a member of that team for life, and we do our best to put all family members on the same team. Lauren and I ran the staff triathlon together in July and August and crossed the finish line holding hands in both months! Jamie did the triathlon in August and came fourth, an incredible accomplishment, and was also the team's star tennis player! Jamie and I also got to paddle in the camp canoe race together and came fourth overall. And most excitingly of all, after a 9 year drought, the Aki team was victorious in winning the Challenge Cup at the end of the summer!!! It was a great, green, end to a great summer!
After we wrapped up August camp, we had a staff dinner last Saturday, where many of my friends received their five year staff award. I guess I have to hang around for one more year to get mine, though I still have a hard time believing that I have already worked their for four years! I did love being a more senior staff member this year and getting to have my sister as a co-worker. After the dinner and award presentations, the spring and senior staff had an evening reception to celebrate a very successful camp season!
Every year after "real" camp finishes, we have a one week introductory program for younger campers. We offer Period 5, a five day intro program and WEEnonah, a two night intro program. This is often the week where our WCITs from the summer have a chance to work, but this year, due to the way the calendar falls, many summer staff were able to work it as well, including myself. The director for the week is alumni member and associate director Jason Monteith, who is also a teacher in the HWDSB Board at Highland High School in Dundas. I had never worked Period 5 before but was excited to have junior campers again and get back to my counselling roots. I was co-counseling with an August WCIT, Paige, and we were in the Birch cabin with 10 8-year old girls. The week was an absolute blast, though it reminded me just how demanding counselling can be! However, I can't complain, because I got to bring out my love for Disney and plan a Frozen-themed cabin choice and sing princess songs all week! I was the kayaking instructor for the week and spent more time in a kayak in those 5 days than I did all summer! We had all our best summer programming crammed into one week, with campfires and wide games and a talent show, at which the Birch girls did a cabin dance! It was the biggest Period 5 to date and it was great fun to be a part of it!
It was surreal on Friday to leave camp for the final time and head back to Ancaster, where I had not been since mid-July. However, after four months of camp life, I was definitely ready for a real bed, a bigger shower and some home cooked meals. I am still very much on the camp schedule, waking up before sunrise and craving meals at 8:15, 12:30 and 5:30! I have scrubbed off the dirt from my hands, my feet and my face and have only my croc and lifejacket tans left behind. The spring and summer flew by and I could not be more grateful for the last four months I spent at Camp Wenonah. It was four months I will never forget with friends I will keep forever. I made more seed bead bracelets than can fit on my wrist, ate more breaded chicken than I can count, and got hit in the head with a paddle more times than is probably safe, but am thankful for every moment I spent between the shores of Clear and Saw Lake. Thank you Camp Wenonah for an incredible summer!
Next up: five more days in Ancaster, a trip to my cottage and then out to Lennoxville for fourth year university! The camp suitcase is already unpacked and just a few loads of laundry and a trip to Walmart stand in my way of being ready to go back to school! I can't wait to be reunited with my housemates and school friends and see what the rest of 2015 will bring! It's going to be tough to follow the last four months, but I can already tell that it's going to be a great semester!
I hope you enjoyed my summer update! Have a great rest of your summer and a fantastic Labour Day weekend! The next time you hear from me I will be back in my cozy room at 27 WP, probably fully decked out in purple! Until next time!
All my love,
Erica xoxoxoxoxoxoxo