Greetings from camp, One of my absolute favorite aspects of this place is the diversity of interests that our kids hold, and the ability of our staff to be creative and cater to these. This amazing variance was on full display last night during our Special Interest (SI) evening activity. Special Interest is a program…
Read More...By Louis Levin If you’re not looking too closely, it’s been just another normal few days at Camp Nebagamon this week. Although we’re still a little early on in the session, two of the big special days that our campers look forward to are starting to appear on the horizon. Next week we’ll celebrate the…
Read More...By Noah Stein In conversations with campers and counselors the past few days, a recurrent theme has emerged. When I’ve asked folks what they think about the summer so far, I’ve repeatedly heard the response: “It feels really great around here.” I couldn’t agree more! It just feels like camp is clicking. Take our Wannado…
Read More...Two nights ago, Dave Knoepfle arrived at camp. Dave was a college friend of mine that I coaxed into coming to work at Nebagamon in 1987. (I know…you are all stunned that someone as young as me could have been in college in 1987. I don’t like to brag, but many of you may not…
Read More...BY NOAH STEIN Yesterday I spent some time bouncing from village to village, checking in with all of our campers and staff. Meandering between villages, I witnessed something pretty special. A counselor, headed out on time off, noticed a camper sitting by himself. The counselor changed direction mid-step and headed towards the isolated camper. It…
Read More...Greetings from Camp! Without a doubt, we are off to a great start here. Yesterday, our first full day of camp, was a picture perfect day. The boys spent the first period travelling to both the waterfront and to our CNOC (wilderness skills program) to get learn about safety policies and ranks that can be…
Read More...There can be little doubt that during the month of May, when Louis, Briggs, Andy Joe, Noah and I were up at camp without anyone else around, it is a particularly beautiful and refreshing place. Long isolated walks through the camp are a highlight of that time of year and we all truly enjoy them. But we all…
Read More...Happy summer all! Check out this page to read all about the summer up at Nebagamon. Every other day we will share some of the happenings to give you all a taste of what Camp feels like this summer. We are very excited!!! Look for the first post on Tuesday evening, June 18. All is…
Read More...Watch our announcement video where you can hear all of Camp’s full-time staff talk about this transition in their own words. Read the Board of Director’s letter to the Camp Family HERE Read Adam and Steph’s letter to the Camp Family HERE Read Noah’s letter to the Camp Family HERE As part of its latest…
Read More...by Adam Kaplan
There are, I believe, two particular places in camp that serve myriad purposes. One is the Rec Hall, which is a dining hall, a talent showcase, a rainy day respite, a repository of history, etc. The other is the Big House, which actually has served as all of that over the years, too, as well as an office, a home, a project site, a gathering place, a museum of sorts, even a kind of beacon on a hill. In other words, to call it simply a big house is to sell it short.
First, consider its age. It was built in 1898. That’s the year the Spanish-American War began and ended. The first American-built automobile was sold. Baseball’s 12 big league teams had names like the Cleveland Spiders, the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, the Boston Beaneaters. Vladimir Lenin and Annie Oakley and Teddy Roosevelt and H.G. Wells (The War of the Worlds) were making impacts.
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It was built to be a home – for John Phillip Weyerhaeuser, who oversaw construction of a white, frame, Palladian structure. Three stories. Eight bedrooms. Five fireplaces. When the property of the Lake Nebagamon Lumber Company became the site of Camp Nebagamon for Boys, the house served various purposes. It was a summer home for the Lorber family, but it also was… a dining hall (during the first few years, campers ate in shifts in the dining room), an infirmary (in the early days, this could be found in what became known as the “phone room” outside the first-floor bathroom), a stage (the earliest Follies took place on the front porch), a winter camp for boys (once, in 1940), even a wedding site (Nardie Stein and Sally Lorber in 1955). It was also, I might add, a model – for the replica Boathouse, built in 1902, that dominated the Waterfront until 1944.
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As I write this, the Big House is a 125-year-old structure. The floors creak and the beds squeak (as do the occasional varmints who find their way in), but it remains remarkably sturdy and bustling with activity. Campers in the living room and the kitchen. Administrators in the office. Staff members sitting around the dining room table. Residents trudging up and down the two stairways.
Sometimes, there is activity on the third floor. That’s where you might find a counselor rummaging through THE COSTUME CLOSET (see story). To my mind, that goofy collection of unfashionable fashions combines two primary elements of the Big House – as a center of activity and also a sort of living history museum. Most folks who set foot in the Big House don’t quite realize how much history resides in the building, not only simply through the institutional memory of the place, but also (quite literally) in the form of artifacts too numerous to recount in full. But we’ve managed to explore quite a few, and you can take a tour in the BIG HOUSE TREASURE HUNT story. And in the DID YOU KNOW tale, you can learn more secrets of the Big House, as gleaned from the memories of Sally Lorber Stein, who spent much of her childhood living there and much of her adulthood working there.
So sure, it’s a big house. But its impact on camp and its role in camp history loom much larger.
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