It’s been nonstop action here at Camp Nebagamon – the past few days have been packed full of amazing programs for our campers to enjoy. On Tuesday night, we had a rousing game of counselor hunt: campers spread through camp searching for counselors who cleverly hide – one dedicated staffer buried himself in the sand dunes, leaving only a nose and mouth sticking up. Yesterday was another spectacular Cruiser Day, in similar fashion to the two we’ve already written about this summer. It was an all-camp Space Race day, where president of the American Camp Association Sean F. Glennedy (one of our village directors doing his best Boston accent) guided our campers through a day of training and research to be the first summer camp to land a camper on the moon. Physical challenges like zero-gravity training hanging from our climbing wall and psychological evaluations including some outrageous would-you-rathers culminated in shooting rockets into the sky above the Upper Diamond last night. And today is the running start to Paul Bunyan Day, our first session all-camp competition day. Preliminary events begin throughout the day, leaving first- and third-place matches to be played on the official Paul Bunyan Day tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll hear more about PBD in our next update on Saturday, but it’s worth mentioning the enormous buildup to PBD that’s about to boil over in spirited competition.
And yet… that’s not what this update is about! Over the past three days, I think the best moments of camp I’ve witnessed aren’t things that took weeks and months of planning, but instead, are all the in-between times that are built into the day at Nebagamon. On Tuesday night, with about 25 minutes to spend between dinner and the counselor hunt, my wife Maggie and I sauntered up the hill to find a pair of campers to challenge in a game of cards. (I’ll help myself to another aside: Camp alumni would refer to this time as “Gabbercom.” Historically, this is when select Lumberjack campers, called gabbers, did chores for camp, such as mailgabbers distributing mail and laundrygabbers distributing laundry, as well as a time for committees to meet. We don’t have gabbers or committees anymore, so it’s not often referred to as Gabbercom, but it’s such a good camp word we still use it sometimes to describe this chunk of time.) Sitting in the golden evening sun at a picnic table, Maggie pointed out to me how special this unstructured time is. After Maggie and her Euchre partner from the Logger Village trounced me and mine, we spent a few minutes observing the lively activity around us on the Hill.
Plenty of campers were playing Hill Games, of course. A counselor and a camper were in a deuce on the ping pong table with a third player ready to take on the winner. The line at the four square court was long enough for the counselor referees to institute “slammin’ doubles” rules, meaning two campers per box working together, allowing twice the participation. And a few campers were crowded around the ring game, trying their best to catch a ring hanging down from a limb of a tree on a hook that looks to have sprouted naturally out of the ancient pine trunk. At picnic tables around ours, of course some campers were also playing Euchre, as well as Egyptian Rat Slap, and a few games of Magic: The Gathering. And at one particularly loud table, a group of campers were playing some obscure and complex board game that I couldn’t even begin to describe. One of our counselors brought around a dozen board games for him and his campers to play, and he’s been drawing a larger and larger crowd of campers each and every round.
Maggie picked up the lid of the game box and remarked to me that the game’s suggested playtime is 90-120 minutes – had they begun this game earlier? Nope. They started right after dinner and planned on playing no more than 25 minutes of a two hour board game. Now, in the off-season, Maggie and I love board games, and frequently host friends and family to our home to play, and it’s an event requiring a dedicated evening! How novel that these campers weren’t even going to attempt to finish the game – they had time to kill, they like board games, why not start the game with no intention of finishing it?
I looked up from the board game and noticed that nearly every camper was making the most of a little unstructured time – they were filling every minute of the evening, and it was completely up to them how to spend it. After every meal, our campers sprint out of the Rec Hall, not because they have to get to the next activity, but because there’s a few precious minutes between this thing and the next, meaning they get to spend that free time doing whatever they please.
So, while walking around camp yesterday on Space Race day, I was more acutely aware of the free time we afford our campers during the day. Cruiser Day is usually a great opportunity for this free time – we program lots of themed activities, and also intentionally leave a few blocks of absolute free time. There were Axemen playing the classic village game Rinde Ball, and a few tossing around a frisbee in the middle of their village. One camper had a boomerang he was working on freeing from a low hanging bough with his counselor and a few cabin mates. (They eventually were able to knock it out with a well-aimed baseball.) A group of Loggers swung in hammocks in the shade behind their cabin, some pouring over a comic book together, others engaged in a conversation about the upcoming Paul Bunyan Day. And Lumberjacks were playing pickleball and basketball by the lake before it was time to head off to the next activity.
Every day here at Nebagamon, campers participate in the spectacular programs we’ve designed for them – building skills, working toward ranks, and trying new things. Right along with that intentional program is the intentional lack of program. Rest Hour, General Swim, and Gabbercom are all left to the discretion of our campers. For a few hours every day, campers have the autonomy to choose their own activity, and the sky’s the limit. How unique it is for a group of campers to hike off into the woods to search for toads for a few minutes before their next scheduled program without an authority figure asking if there’s something they’re supposed to be doing. In fact, they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing during this free time: they’re being kids and learning to make choices for themselves.
At the end of Gabbercom on Tuesday, the bell rang, signaling the start of the Counselor Hunt. Campers put their four-square ball in the Push Shack, gathered their cards, stuck the ping pong paddles in the storage box, and ran down the hill to the fun activity we had planned for them that night. But to me, the real important activity was the one that had just ended – halcyon summer evenings of unstructured time, where kids can just be kids.
All is well in the Northwoods!