It’s quiet here. As it was in May, the loudest cabin on the hill is the bird’s nest above Swamper 5, chirping shrilly from the Hill. While it’s peaceful, Camp also feels empty. With campers back at their homes-away-from-this-home and our staff–aside from a small family camp team– on their return voyage, the slamming doors and high pitched howls have ceased. The raucous laughter and sharp pickleball pings have stopped their echoes. The buddy board is closed, the cabins cleaned, and the lost and found consolidated. (Though, hopefully your camper departed with everything he arrived with!) The project board is blank, our final Council Fire has long been cold to the touch. The story of the summer of 2025 is closed.
While it’s quiet, the emptiness makes the fullness of the summer ever more apparent. Our days were filled with smiles and laughter, friendship and fun. With no screens in sight we were present, attuned to the sights and sounds of nature. Our weeks were filled with choices–which projects will I attend? What trips will I sign up for? Brownie glop or cookie glop? (A heated debate this summer as we added the latter, gooey cookies over vanilla ice cream to the menu.)
Two nights ago we gathered around the Council Fire Ring one last time as a camp family and enjoyed a long Keylog ceremony. Campers of all ages–from first-year Swampers to ninth graders placing one last log on the fire–shared gratitude for the people who shaped their summers and the community which allowed that to happen.
Consider this last “update” of the summer one final Keylog. It’s a three-part Keylog.
First, thank you to our staff. Hailing from around the globe, this summer’s team came to Lake Nebagamon, Wisconsin with a single goal: provide transformational experiences for children. That they did.
Next, thank you, parents. Thank you for trusting us with the most important people in your lives. We believe that summer camp is, at its core, a partnership with families. Each of our campers is an individual. Thank you for sharing with us your expertise on your children and collaborating with us to create the best summer possible for them. We had so much for working with them all summer long.
Finally, thank you to the campers. Whether it was their first summer or their final summer as ninth graders, they bought into what we were trying to accomplish here, what kind of community we were trying to build. In their own ways they all grew and we hope they all went home with more confidence, more self-assuredness than when they arrived.
We believe that everybody in their lives deserves to have experienced a time and place that is simply magic. While our grounds here are beautiful, they aren’t inherently magic. The magic, the transformational quality of Camp comes from the people who make it so. Thank you all for what has been a great summer, and Keep The Fires Burning.
All is well in the Northwoods