Camp Nebagamon

90 Nuggets of Nebaga-trivia

  1. by Brad Herzog
  1. “Nebagamon” is derived from a Chippewa Indian term for “hunting deer from the lake by fire.”
  2. Lake Nebagamon (the lake) covers 986 acres and has a maximum depth of 56 feet. Lake Nebagamon (the village) covers 14.34 square miles.
  3. The Big House was built in 1898 to be the home of John Philip Weyerhaeuser. Four years later, the family built a 36-square-foot replica on the lake that served as a Boathouse (lower floor) and schoolhouse (upper floor).
  4. The Boathouse was dismantled in 1944, some of its time being used to construct Voyageur in 1953.
  5. Muggs Lorber always cited 1907 as the year in which Nebagamon was really launched. That’s when, at the age of five, he took his first camping trip with his family.
  6. Muggs was a three-sport athlete (football, basketball, baseball) at Indiana University from 1922-24, and was named an honorable mention All-American quarterback as a senior. At 5-foot-6 and 175 pounds, he ranked seventh in the Big Ten in scoring.
  7. During several college summers, Muggs was a counselor at Camp Kawaga in Wisconsin, where he established a wilderness tripping program.
  8. Muggs and Janet Lorber purchased camp’s property from the Patrick-Duluth Woolen Mills on July 5, 1928. That same year, President Calvin Coolidge established the “Summer White House” at Central High School in Superior. Muggs and Janet earned money by running a tourist camp.
  9. The Lorbers’ lawyer for the purchase was David Sher—father, grandfather, and great-grandfather to future Nebagamon campers.
  10. There were 47 campers and 15 counselors in 1929, Camp Nebagamon’s first summer. Tuition that first summer: $350. Four years later, during the depths of the Depression, it was $275.
  1. Two songs from camp’s original summer, introduced by Bob Basch from Toledo, are still mainstays of the camp songbook: “Drop a Nickel” and “The Billboard Song.”
  2. The first camp Follies were staged on the front porch of the Big House in 1929.
  3. The first camp doctor, Jerome Levy, doubled as a cabin counselor.
  4. The biggest fish ever caught by a camper? Bob Misch’s 24-pound northern pike at Alton Lake in the Boundary Waters in 1931. The second biggest fish? Roger Goldman’s 23-pound northern pike a quarter-century later.
  5. “Throck” is short for Throckmorton Manor, which was originally in the location of the current infirmary. The original infirmary was a room in the Big House.
  6. The current Swamper jop was originally built as a playhouse for the Weyerhaeuser children. And the word is an homage to first-year camper Jerrold Berman from Joplin, Missouri, who supposedly missed a departure train while indisposed.
  7. “Thanks for the Pines” was written by the parents of 1931 camper Donald Kahn—words by Gus Kahn (who also wrote lyrics for such classics as “Dream a Little Dream of Me” and “Makin’ Whoopee”) and music by Grace Kahn.
  8. Covered wagon trips began in 1932. Eight years later, the horses “ran home,” leaving campers and wagon stranded 18 miles away.
  9. Back when Nebagamon had a horseback riding program, one of the attempted activities was polo… using a potato.
  10. The Rec Hall was built in 1932. The porches arrived in 1935 (Axeman) and 1938 (Lumberjack).

  1. Muggs Lorber held down three different winter jobs to make ends meet during the Great Depression.
  2. In 1934, there were three men named Pete on the staff. They were known as Big Pete, Little Pete, and Re-Pete.
  3. The totem pole at the Council Fire Ring was built in 1935 and re-painted in 1961 by counselor Chuck Long and campers in Lumberjack 4.
  4. Chuck Hirsch was a camper who was diagnosed with leukemia and chose to spend his last summer, in 1936, at camp. His shrine was dedicated a year later. Matt Cohen, memorialized by the Keylog Box, was a camper who succumbed to a heart condition after the 1980 summer.
  5. In 1937, the first Paul Bunyan statue was carved by Ta Gabrielson, a sculptor from Superior. That same year, Chief A.K. Agikamik paid his first visit to 54849.
  6. In 1939, Muggs and Janet turned down a request from a pro football team to train at camp.
  7. In the middle of the night on May 24, 1939, a large fire in Lake Nebagamon burned down half the businesses in the village.
  8. Over its first dozen summers, Camp Nebagamon operated without a village system. Cabins were instead identified by tree names.
  9. Thirty-two campers and staff attended “Winter Camp”—tobogganing, skiing, skating, daily snowball fights—from Dec. 22-28, 1940.
  10. The all-camp birthday tradition began in 1942 when all campers’ birthdays were celebrated at once due to a wartime sugar shortage.
  11. In 1943, campers and counselors arrived via six different trains on three different railroads on two different days. The last year in which campers arrived by train: 1968.
  12. Five Nebagamon alumni—Dave Wohl, Dick Marx, Dick Mayer, Bruce Cohen, and Ben Goodman—were killed in action during World War II. Four alumni—Ed Shifrin, Bill Gingold, Rickey Eisenstadt, and Chuck Edison—were prisoners of war during the conflict and eventually returned home safely.
  13. During camp’s first few decades, Cruiser Day actually took place on Tuesday. Cabin cookouts were originally on Fridays.
  14. The tomahawks awarded to each winning Pow Wow Day big chief for more than three decades were crafted by Nardie Stein, using the skills he learned at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico in 1945.
  15. Camp’s original set of canoes, used to run the Brule rapids, were made out of canvas. Aluminum canoes arrived in 1946.
  16. The first See America First trip, featuring older ex-campers in a multi-state trek through the West, took place in 1947. The fifth and last one visited 14 western states and traveled 7,000 miles in 1958.
  17. Three names for camp transporation vehicles over the years? The Vomit Comet, Urping Urma, and the Maroon Loon.
  18. The first second-generation campers, in 1950, were Bill Tucker (son of Joe), David Scharff (son of Nick), and Lou Siegel (son of Norman). The original plaques honoring them were carved by Orval Craig.
  19. Camp’s cookout boxes date back to 1951, as does the camp social. The first girls’ camp to participate? Camp Chickagami.
  20. Orienteering and air riflery became official projects in the same year—1952.
  21. The Fatigue Squad was once a grounds cleanup crew featuring campers who had three or more pieces of clothing in the lost-and-found box.
  22. In 1953, Maggie Rolfe (Janet Lorber’s mother) found 200 four-leaf clovers and distributed them around camp. Her last year as official Camp Grandma was 1969.
  23. A “name the new infirmary” contest in 1953 was won by Ronnie Borod, who came up with “Waldorf Castoria.”
  24. The same year (1954) that motor boating briefly emerged as a project for older campers, there was a ham radio program set up on the second floor of the craftshop.
  25. Nardie Stein’s first job at Nebagamon, in 1955: Senior counselor, Swamper 1.
  26. There were three additions to Nebagamon in 1957—the OBR program, skishing, and four-square, which Nardie discovered during a winter trip to Cincinnati.
  27. The year 1959 marked the beginning of mock range wars between archery and air riflery, started by good friends Al Goldman and Bud Herzog.
  28. When Nardie and Sally took over as full-time camp directors in 1960, they were ages 29 and 26, respectively.
  29. The Little House was constructed in 1961 and named by Jane Stein.
  30. Not only did Andy Rinde lend his name to “Rinde ball” at Nebagamon, he also nicknamed the old wash basin in the Axeman-LJ jop the “bird bath.”
  31. The first Nebaga-person to join the Peace Corps was Joe Froehlich in 1961.
  32. In 1961, the campers and counselors in Swamper 7 caught 396 finish during a trip to Boney Lake.
  33. The first cabin plaques were created in 1962. Afternoon project periods began in 1963.
  34. Camp’s 1964 mock Republican Nominating Convention nominated… William Scranton for president.
  35. In 1964, Marilyn Gordon became camp’s first female trip staff hire, running the younger-boy outpost with her husband Gil. Five years later, Freida Weisner directed the craftshop, becoming the first full-time female project staff person.
  36. The only camp parent hauled before A.K. Agikamik? Hubert Kiersky in 1965. Nine years later, camp mother Judy Scharff appeared as the chief of the Yo Yo Islands.
  37. Camp’s first nature museum was known as “Skunk Hollow.”
  38. The current waterfront shack is the former Axeman 5, moved in 1965.
  39. Several Nebaga-buildings were moved from elsewhere, including the Pioneer Post (found in a farm north of Highway 2), the bike shack (formerly a hot dog stand across from the Lawn Beach Inn, moved in 1966), the Axeman Push Shack, and the Jail.
  40. The artshop? It dates back to 1940 at camp, having earlier stood in an area called The Barrens along Highway 27.
  41. The current Lumberjack Point Five was originally two Logger cabins divided by a partition.
  42. Beloved counselor Bill Eoff was the only Nebagamon staff member lost during the Vietnam war.
  43. The 400-pound white rabbit that sits in front of the Little House was a gift for six-year-old Jessie Stein, crafted from the leftover concrete used to build the Paul Bunyan statue in 1969.
  44. The heads of the original two Pauls are saved in display cases on one wall of the Herb Hollinger Museum, which was originally a log cabin in Brule, Wisconsin.
  45. Camp’s longest-serving caretaker (so far) was not actually Herb Hollinger. It was Bob Johnson, from 1960-1993.
  46. The Upper Diamond scoreboard replaced a chalkboard in 1969.
  47. In 1971, one year after Nebagamon alumni William Goldman won an Academy Award for writing “Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid,” his brother James won a best adapted screenplay Oscar for “The Lion in Winter.” The Goldmans also collaborated with alumnus and there-time Tony Award-winner John Kander on a musical, A Family Affair. One of the songs was called “Summer is Over.”
  48. Nebagamon’s four-week camper option began in 1974, with one grade per year added thereafter.
  49. Jim Mendelsohn became Nebagamon’s first third-generation staff member in 1974.
  50. The indoor cooking program, then known as Bachelor Survival, was originally suggested and led by Connie Couts.
  51. The participants of the 1975 Camp Scandia trip traveled to Lapland, Finland, and experienced a snow storm in July.
  52. In 1976, soon after she starred in “King Kong,” Cloquet, Minnesota native Jessica Lange bought a home on Lake Nebagamon.
  53. The scale model of the Weyerhaeuser railroad train on display in the Big House was built by John Altshool in 1979.
  54. In 1981, The Keeper was donated to camp in memory of fisherman and Nebagamon alumnus Gil Gordon. Two years later, Lorber Point was renamed in honor of the late Muggs and Janet Lorber. The gazebo and pavilion were designed by alumnus Pat Ackerman.
  55. In the 1980s, “cubbies” were installed in cabins, marking the end of the footlocker era.
  56. Jane Stein and Euan Kerr were married at Lorber Point in 1985—30 years after Sally Lorber and Nardie Stein tight the knot in the Big House living room.
  57. Among the staff members in 1986 were campcraft director Roger Wallenstein and his soon-to-be wife, Judy Weiss, who served as quartermaster.
  58. Nebagamon’s first promotional video appeared in 1986, written by Jessie Stein.
  59. In 1987, Hide Harashima was Nebagamon’s first Japanese camper and Chris Little, son of Alan Little, became the first second-generation counselor from England
  60. In 1991, goal posts on the Upper Diamond, dating back about a half-century, were replaced by wooden soccer goals.
  61. Kim Swenson became Nebagamon’s first female associate director in 1994.
  62. In 1995, Axel Berger made an entrance into the Paul Bunyan Day Council Fire flying from a tree—with the help of an almost-invisible guide wire.
  63. Muggs Lorber was a 1997 honoree in the St. Louis Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
  64. CampNebagamon.com went live in February 1999, the same year that Joe Crain began his “Caretaker Joe at Camp” column for The Arrowhead.
  65. In 2000, wilderness trip leaders began to carry satellite phones.
  66. In 2001, associate director Adam Braude arrived for the finals of the horse ‘n’ goggle tournament on horseback.
  67. Ben Edmunds used birch bark to write out a Sunday Service in the summer of 2003.
  68. The Y.A.K.D.M award for most clever announcements actually stands for “You Are King of the Diarrhetic Mouths.”
  69. In 2017, 39 years after the first winter Nebagamon reunions in California and 33 years after the first Mexico City reunion, Adam Kaplan traveled across the Pacific for the first-ever reunion in China.
  70. This first three languages on the “THIS SHALL BE A PLACE OF WELCOME FOR ALL” sign were Danish, French, and Spanish. A later one—“LLA ROF EMOCLEW FO ECALP A EB LLAHS SIHT”—was added by mischievous staff members (one of whom wound up becoming a camp director).