Camp Nebagamon

by Adam Kaplan

At Camp Nebagamon, the notion of chance can mean a lot of things. Yes, it can mean randomness — whether we’re talking about a horse ‘n’ goggle, the Luck of the Draw Run, your bunkmate for the summer, or the myriad stories of campers and alumni enjoying chance encounters anywhere from Hawaii to Hayward. But from my point of view (and most importantly), chance at Nebagamon means opportunity.

It means the chance to be whoever you want to be, do what you want to do, explore the unfamiliar. It means a certain kind of freedom from the angst and expectations and self-categorization that may dominate the rest of the year.

Often, this opportunity manifests itself in a wondrous diversity. One of my absolute favorite aspects of this place is the variety 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 during a couple of consecutive nights last summer during our Special Interest and Wannado evening activities.

As a reminder, Special Interest is when our normal program areas offer abnormal activities. And Wannado, for those who scampered around the Northwoods before its advent, is when folks with skills and hobbies that don’t fit perfectly into our program areas get a chance to share their passions. For example, here were some of the opportunities that arose in the middle of July:

• Instead of working on backhands and volleys at tennis, the tennis program headed to the upper diamond for a giant home run derby with racquets and tennis balls.
• Down at sailing, instead of learning proper tacks and capsizing skills, they flipped over the boats and windsurfers and enjoyed team paddleboarding.
• Our nature program took a night off from teaching about the flora and fauna of the area, and instead, found various appliances that had died, and spent the evening dissecting them. The boys got to see the inner workings of a toaster and a computer, but mostly they got to tear things apart.
• At athletics, instead of a typical game of soccer or basketball, they offered trench bombardment – a giant game of dodgeball in the natural valleys and berms within the Axeman Village.
• Music took a break from teaching guitar and became a travelling interpretive dance party (with an iPod and a speaker) that danced from one corner of the camp to the other, every minute gathering more dancers and growing in size like a snowball.
• There was a session of Nerd-ology that invited those that wished to engage their nerdier sides and discuss all things nerdy. (Indeed this event was populated by some of our more jock-y type kids who wanted a moment to indulge the sides of them that are sometimes shelved for a variety of reasons.)
• One of our British staff, along with another staff member who is a goalie for the University of Minnesota water polo team, offered a combination of British polo with water polo – Water Noodle Pony Polo in the deep end of the swim area.
• Down at art, they built driftwood boats and then set them ablaze before launching them out into the lake.

I love — and I’m sure my fellow alumni did, too — the fact that Nebagamon campers are given the opportunity to pursue whatever it is that tickles their fancy on a particular day. They aren’t told where to go and when. They are guided only by their interests and ambitions.

And there is no social stigma associated with any activity. Surely, we all recall what a particularly special gift this is for boys navigating those tricky and socially challenging middle school years. It is an age when doing what is proscribed by a social “in” crowd takes on huge importance. It is an age when one of the things to be most avoided is standing out from one’s peers in any way.

It is different at Nebagamon. In fact, this is a community which expects that you WON’T follow the crowd and instead which supports following your interests, your passions, and your curiosities. This is a community that not only accepts trying something new and out of the norm, but encourages it.

And so, it was the “hippest” 14-year-old who gave himself to a totally goofy dance party around the camp, and it was the most timid 4th grader who smeared his face with camouflaging mud for a rousing game of bombardment, and the driftwood boat making project was as popular with Lumberjacks as it was with Swampers.  Now, maybe the cynics would argue that this was because they were excited to set the boats on fire, but the pride and care with which these Lumberjacks created their little boats belied that notion.

Something else was going on there, something freeing and wonderful. Summer camp.