Sweetness of Life

I was playing the Google game the other day and I looked up Camp Ojiketa, which is the camp I attended in 4th/5th grade, and the camp that I was later a counselor at my last 2 years in high school. It's a camp that is run by the Camp Fire council for Camp Fire Boys & Girls (used to just be girls.) The camp has been there for 80 years - since 1926 (my Aunt attended as a girl too, and was also a counselor) and earlier this year, the Camp Fire council made the decision to sell the camp. It's to be sold by the end of August. Apparently, no one sends their kids to residential camp anymore, and if they do, camping, swimming, crafts and leadership skills are not enough for them to learn. They all go to dormitory style computer camps or something.

I can't even tell you how upset I am that the camp is being sold. I've actually shed tears about it. It breaks my heart to think of it not being there anymore. Obviously, I am emotionally attached to the place. I think if I had only gone as a kid I wouldn't feel so strongly, but since I went back as a counselor too - at the impressionable ages of 17-18 that just adds to it. I remember when I went for the job interview and I got the tour of the camp and all kinds of things came flooding back to me, so much of it was exactly the same.

When I went as a kid I was all of 10 years old. It was the first time I had ever really been away from home by myself. I didn't know a soul and I was in cabin #3 in Raspberry Hollow. I quickly became fast friends with one of the other girls in the cabin, Treeva, who was so nice. The only thing I remember about her now is vaugely how she looked and that she was an "oops" baby. (Her parents were in their 50's and her brothers were in their mid 20's. ) My counselor was Miss Kris and I thought she was the prettiest "grown up" I ever met. She also had the most contagious laugh, and she laughed all the time. She never yelled at us and liked to have as much fun as we did. Adults never know how, or how much they impact the children who are watching them. This was back when the camp had horses and I got to ride every day that whole week and I had never done anything like that before either. My horse was named Rocky and he had a white spot on his nose. "J.R." was the horse instructor and every single girl in that camp had a crush on him. He was tan and had dark hair and had the most amazing eyes and- he was the horse instructor! No preteen girl could withstand that combination- he was like a rock star to us. It was the first time I had wild raspberries, the first time I ate sumac (not all sumac is poisonous) and the first time I had gooseberries. I'm sure there is even more I have forgotten about, but it all still seems very vivid to me. They are the kind of memories that you hold on to for a lifetime.


The cabins are the kind that just have 3'x3' screens for the windows. In the off season, they are borded up with these huge wood panels, but we took them down for the summer and just had the screens. Sleeping in there was like sleeping in a screened in porch. You could hear all the outside sounds, the trees, the crickets, and the lake.

When I went back as a teenager to be a counselor myself it was almost like becoming that enthusiastic 10 year old again. I was painfully shy as a kid (I know, can you believe it?) I spoke quietly, read a lot and mostly kept to myself. As I got older, and became interested in theatre, I started to be a little more outgoing, but still, even in high school, people often thought I was stuck up or high. When really, I was just shy and worried what people would think of me. But I swear, something happened when I went back to Ojiketa. As a counselor I *had* to be fun, outgoing, creative, and unafraid. I made a fool of myself on a daily basis. We all did. Being a camp counselor isn't for everyone, but the the best ones are a little bit wacky and very enthusiastic. I was in skits, I was in costumes, I tipped canoes, I told lame jokes and sang loudly even if I was a little off key. I was more myself than I had ever been in public and I fit right in.
Looking back, it seems like a turning point, but at the time, it was not all that important -it was just having fun and what I had to do. But when I went back to high school that fall, I no longer fit into the mold I had created for myself. I broke up with my boyfriend and my senior year was vastly different than what it might have been. And I can't even image what my life would have been like if I hadn't had that experience before going off to college.


It sounds so cheesy to say, but something about Camp Ojiketa is magical, there is a certain spirit in the air there, and you can feel it when you are on the hill overlooking Green lake. In many ways that place changed the course of my life. I learned so much there, not just camp, survival and watercraft skills, but also respect for nature, our interconnectedness to it and a little insight into myself. It was just by chance that I learned that the camp was being sold this month. Hopefully it won't go to developers. The current plan is that the city of Chisago can buy the land (or most of it) and preserve it as a regional park- but they are currently in negotiations with the Camp Fire council over the price. That would be ok if it was a park-at least it would preserved then and I could even go and visit. I swear to you though, if I had a few million lying around, I'd buy it myself in a heartbeat. "Ojiketa" supposedly is Ojibwe for "sweetness of life". No camp ever had a better name.