It’s hard to believe we’re staring down the end of the camp season. In just a few short days, your campers will be back at home, reflecting on their summers, in awe of their experiences. I hope that when they think about their summer at Camp Nebagamon, they simply sigh and remark: “that was truly magic.”
From my perspective here at camp, it has been truly magic. The highest highs of The Grand Pursuit and Paul Bunyan Day, the normal old four-project-period days, the days of paddling and hiking out on our wilderness trips, and all the free time in between… our campers’ days have been chocked full of magic. When your camper reflects on his summer, magic is an appropriate term: for him, camp sometimes feels inexplicable, wondrous, otherworldly. But I know the explanation, I know the tricks up the sleeves, the rabbit hidden in the hat until it’s revealed at just the right moment – I know what’s behind the curtain. It’s our staff.
Supporting our campers this summer has been a cast of over 120 fine staff members from as close to camp as just down the road in the town of Lake Nebagamon, to as far away as Hungary, from those who had never even heard of Wisconsin before setting foot on our little slice of heaven, to lifers who have worked for camp for well over 30 years. The staff this summer have been nothing short of spectacular. They all came to camp with a shared goal in mind – to enrich the lives of the children in our care. Every corner of our camp is run by competent and confident folks who have spent their summer working tirelessly to ensure that our 96th camping season is the best one yet. And boy oh boy have they succeeded.
Logistically, operating a summer camp is no small task. Simply arranging travel for 300-odd individuals takes long nights and a steady writing hand, let alone handling the countless (high-quality, detail-rich, and not at all candy-motivated) letters our campers sent you or producing the printed materials necessary to keep our environment tech free for the campers. (The reams and reams of paper we’ve gone through simply draws us closer to our lumberjack roots.) Our office staff does all this and more with a smile, and have kept the gears turning flawlessly this summer.
Feeding 300 people is a tall order. While our stove doesn’t compare to the acre-sized griddle in the Paul Bunyan fables, our kitchen staff surely measure up to the legendary cooks from Paul’s camp. They keep our boys well fed, working from 5am to 9pm literally every single day of the summer. Campers and staff alike rave about our food – this summer, we debuted butter chicken on the menu, and innovated on a camp classic Brownie Glop (a big bowl of ice cream flooded with gooey, fresh brownies) to introduce Cookie Glop (you get the idea). Our camp food transcends the stereotype, and it’s all thanks to the never ending work performed by our kitchen staff.
Despite our slick marketing techniques, there are still mosquitoes in the Northwoods, and where there are mosquitoes, there are bug bites, and where there are bug bites on young boys’ legs… there are scabs. Our health care team has seen it all this summer, and are some of the most caring people I’ve ever encountered. On what is most often the worst part of a camper’s day, they provide generous and thoughtful care for our campers, helping them get back to the part of camp they’d much rather participate in. They’ve kept us all healthy this year, and done so with a welcoming attitude that can make it difficult to say goodbye and run on back to the cabin.
The infrastructure here at camp is astounding, and if it has a moving part and a camper can get his little hands on it, chances are whatever it is needed some careful attention from our caretaking staff this summer. They keep camp in tip-top shape, are up before all of us to clean the bathrooms, and are there late at night when a cabin has blown a fuse. Alumni visited this summer and remarked (as they always do) that the place hadn’t changed at all – that’s because of the diligence and thought of our caretaking team that truly steward this place, and teach our campers to serve as stewards in the process.
And we haven’t even talked about your boy’s counselors, the ones who lived with our campers literally 24/7, all summer long. It is perhaps one of the most demanding and rewarding jobs out there – you know this, you do it when the boys aren’t here at camp. They’ve been role models, cheerleaders, confidants, bedtime storytellers, sock finders, game organizers, referees, costume coordinators, life coaches… it’s a long list, too long to fully write out here, and they’ve done it all.
To make things more complicated, we then take our campers out of their comfort zone and into unmitigated wilderness. Our Trip Staff venture into the forest with the boys so they can truly get close to Northwoods, and to chase something that can’t be found anywhere else. For these audacious folks, teaching wilderness skills is more than just teaching your camper how to paddle their canoe and set up a tent. They’re teaching life skills in the wilderness, skills that can only be taught when the going gets tough and the campsite is still a few miles out and it’s starting to rain. Our Trip Staff thrive in this setting, helping campers see the beauty in these special Northwoods, and see the beauty in their own learning and growth out on trail.
Our in-camp program is complex, and is run by a team of specialist staff who ensure that day in and day out, the instruction at camp is top notch. These specialists bring to camp an expertise that rubs off on our campers through one-on-one attention and teaching. On top of that, they go above and beyond to make the biggest days of camp as big as possible. This summer, our all-camp events were spectacles, literally firework-capped events that left our campers jaws on the floor. Our program staff could somewhat easily scratch out “24” and replace it with “25” on the schedules and run some pretty great special events, but instead, they go the extra mile to dream up new, exciting twists and events to keep camp fresh every single summer. Those marquee days of camp are flashbulb memories that punctuate our summer, and couldn’t have been done without the program staff’s creativity and dedication.
Supporting all of this is our administrative staff, who counsel the counselors, who mentor the mentors, who set the tone and show the way and make sure that every single camper has the best summer experience of their lives. Our administrative team is large and various, and are unquestionably invested in this place and these children. Camp has felt incredible this summer in large part due to who these administrators are, how they lead and carry themselves and make us all feel.
In every corner of the little city we construct for the summer, you’ll find a staff member working to make camp what it is. Sure, plenty of this work is really enjoyable. My job description yesterday included “go swamp a canoe for fun with some campers.” This is true of all our jobs up here: tossing frisbees, singing songs, and roasting marshmallows are the joys of our work. But those moments of joy are intermixed with all those, uh, other moments as well. Staff learned what it’s like to sit and comfort a homesick camper as he cries. Staff practiced skillful conflict resolution as they helped the campers solve disputes among peers. And staff worked to empathize, to get inside a camper’s feelings with him, to try as much as they could to understand the enigmatic inner workings of a 13 year old and to help him understand and express those feelings in a positive and constructive way. All of this work, the joy and the growth, is transformative, of course for our campers, but certainly for our staff as well. This transformation is the reward of summer camp. It’s the mark of a job well done. It’s the riches our staff share in as we head our separate ways. And while this transformation is simply just magic to our campers… and it’s all because of our incredible staff who made your son’s summer as good as it could possibly be. Our staff deserve all the credit we could possibly heap on them. They are the true magicians.
The magic isn’t quite over yet. The next few days are simply brimming with magical moments that our staff have planned. Today, campers across camp are enjoying some of their last project periods of the summer. One Lumberjack camper is spending his day swimming laps in order to achieve his Golden Goggles. The goggles require a camper to swim 200 laps of our swim area in a single day, quite a feat that this camper has been scheming all summer long. With the support of our incredible waterfront directors and swimming staff, he just finished his last lap. Loads of campers and staff came out to watch him finish, and he gave a mini post-swim interview for the crowd. He had too long a list of staff to thank who helped him hit is goal, both his counselors and swim staff, and those who he’s relied on all summer long. He couldn’t have done it without the staff by his side. Tonight is our last Special Interest of the summer, perhaps our campers’ most revered weekly evening program. Tomorrow, our final trips will return from the trail, and we’ll visit with A.K. Agikamik to recap the summer, and then the next day is a Sunday Service and the Follies, and the next is packing… I’m getting ahead of myself. Like I said, there’s magic still out there. It’s time for me to get up from my desk to savor a few more moments of it.
All is well in the Northwoods.