Siren News Update: November from North Star
Greetings from the Northwoods! Andy and I decided to take a quick trip up to camp this week. November at camp can be a great time to visit. Its often a nice time to be up in the Hayward area, just as the fall is ending. Temps are often in the 30’s and you can still get some pretty mild days. Of course, for most of you, you’re likely seeing cold weather that is far below normal. Take heart, odds are that its a heck of a lot colder here than where you are! Since we headed up here early Monday I don’t think we’ve seen temperatures north of 11 degrees.
We did come up here for a reason. Tom Brokaw, our caretaker has been hard at work on several camp projects. We wanted to check in on him, see the work that he had done, and also talk about some other projects. When we got to camp, Tom and his brother-in-law Art were hard at work in the Kings Lodge cabin. Over the past few weeks, they have been reconfiguring and upgrading the insides of the building which houses two of our Senior Village cabin. They’ll soon be relocating up to the Ridge and working on an overhaul of the interior of cabin I-1.
The other big project that has began several weeks ago has been a renovation of the interior of our Junior Village washhouse. It was important that some of the significant work was done before temps dropped below freezing and thankfully the early cold held off just in time for that. Keep an eye on The Siren as we’ll be posting full details of our off season camp renovations, including pictures of the work being done.
We also had quite a bit of time to walk around camp. In addition to the cooler than normal temps, the Hayward area got about 16 inches of snow last week. While this made a hike around camp a bit challenging, it certainly added to the beauty of camp. Camp in the winter is totally different than summer. The trees are without any leaves, so you can really see from one end of camp to the other, spotting cabins and other things that are normally hidden by trees. The day we arrived here, Andy and I checked out the washhouse and then headed down to swim point and up the ridge. The wind was not our friend, and while it may have been about 9 degrees at that point, it felt much colder. We did our best to brave the elements, but several layers of clothes, ski gloves and wool socks can only do so much.
Over the last day and a half, we’ve managed to hit up most parts of camp. We checked out the Council Ring, athletic fields, riflery and archery ranges as well as the villa. Another thing that is very different about winter at camp is the sunset. During the summer we’re used to picturesque sunsets at the Council Ring over Clear Lake. By this time of the year, the sun is setting further south in the sky, so we see the sun setting over Brewer’s Bay. A potential winter funbug dude assignment would include watching the sun set towards Timber Bay Resort.
We’ll head back to Chicago tomorrow. Again, keep an eye on The Siren for more news, including full details on the exciting off season camp projects. For more pictures of our “winter” trip to camp, check out the album on Facebook. We’ll be adding more pics in the next few days!
