Camp Nebagamon

by Nardie & Sally Stein

The following, excerpted from Keep the Fires Burning: A History and Memoir of Camp Nebagamon (available on Amazon.com or at Left Bank Books in St. Louis), is a trip through trip transportation.

As a camp deeply committed to providing wilderness trips both near and far away, Camp Nebagamon was always dependent on safe and reliable vehicles. Needless to say, the definition of “safe and reliable” changed dramatically from the first days of tripping to recent years.

One of the memorable vehicles that transported campers and staff to wilderness areas for canoe trips was a customized, twenty-passenger, flat-bedded Dodge truck with wooden benches and a metal-ribbed canvas-covered top and sides for rain protection. This plus a variety of station wagons, some with wooden exterior paneling, made up the early motor pool. Several times in the 1940s, Muggs brought the big Dodge truck back to St. Louis. Sally and Ruth Lorber remember it being used to take their friends to the downtown Veiled Prophet Parade, a St. Louis tradition.

In the 1940s smaller trucks were used to transport campers and staff to the Ely, Minnesota, area for canoe trips and to nearby sites as well. In the late 1940s camp also began leasing the Lake Nebagamon school bus to haul larger groups. Trygve Brevig was a local driver for the school district, so it was convenient for camp to hire “Trix” and lease his bus over the summer. He and Harlan “Christie” Christensen of White Bear Lake, our wonderful early-year trip program director, supervised these trips and their transportation needs well into the 1960s. By the way, most of these camp vehicles were quickly named the “Vomit Comet.”

Camp was fortunate in having no serious accidents during the years, when great vehicular risks were taken. The only accident I recall was in the early 1970s when our fairly new Dodge crew cab truck was returning (no campers involved) from putting in a group of fifth-grade hikers and was struck by an eighty-five-year-old driving a small sedan in Poplar, Wisconsin. This version of the Vomit Comet rolled over several times and was totaled. Fortunately, our driver, Clarence “Moose” Lacina, was unhurt, but the accident made us acutely aware of the risks. We decided we would no longer use trucks, even with modified flat-bedded rear areas, for hauling campers.

This decision ushered in the era of vans. The next Vomit Comet was “Big Blue,” a Dodge fifteen-passenger van. This vehicle lasted about twelve years, and then we turned it into a maintenance vehicle, lovingly used by our caretaker staff.

There also was a steady stream of station wagons used by the motor pool in summer and by the camp directors in winter for recruiting trips. These started out being Fords, as there was a Ford agency in Lake Nebagamon owned by our neighbors and friends Art and Ernie Vennerstrom. When they gave up their agency, we started using Pontiac wagons, including the famous “Bronze Lemans” and the “Maroon Loon,” which when retired from the camp fleet, was used by Eric Kramer’s family in East Troy, Wisconsin, for many years.

Once we bought a used yellow Ford station wagon from the Vennerstroms that had been used by the local high school as a driver education vehicle. It was a great car with one exception. We quickly learned that it had a hole in the floor on the passenger side where an extra set of instructor brakes had been removed. During rainstorms, streams of water would shoot up and douse the person sitting in the passenger seat. Sally let me hear about that one!

Another chapter in our history of vehicular mishaps occurred with the purchase in the mid-1970s of a used school bus from a local friend who thought he was doing us a favor. The bus was old but usable, could haul about fifty kids, and cost only $1,500! I couldn’t pass it up, but I should have! It broke down only once the first summer, only twice the second summer, but then numerous times its third, and last, summer! Its transmission conked out near the end of the Gunflint Trail. We had it towed to Grand Marais and left it to be sold to the highest bidder, then sent three station wagons and a truck 150 miles to pick up the stranded campers and staff.

When seat belts and shoulder straps became prevalent, we put these to use, according to the American Camping Association (and our own) automotive safety standards. We posted explicit operating regulations in all camp vehicles.

In the late 1970s, as we were sending more trips to more distant parks and wilderness areas, it became more economical to rent fifteen-passenger vans than to own them. We eventually rented at least three vans per summer.

We are grateful that “Lady Luck” smiled on us in the early years and that later with the combination of capable wilderness trip director and drivers, ACA standards, and guidance from our insurance agent, alumnus Bud Herzog, our motor pool carried out its mission with diligence and an enviable safety record.