The First Full Day of 2nd Session
The first full day of 2nd session was a scorcher in the Northwoods. It was hot and humid with a high of 93! That meant that the water was warm for swim tests and a great afternoon of waterfront options. All of our four-week campers hopped in the lake to swim laps and tread water, the length determined by their age level. Swimming in a lake is always a bit different than swimming in a pool, but our boys did a fantastic job of handling any nerves and were very successful! I get to swim with the Juniors as they take the swim test and I love to see the way the campers support each other as they get over their nerves and get swimming.
Every village played dodgeball today, but in this version everyone has to stop and introduce themselves to the people that they had just eliminated. With the heat of the day, the Junior Village Dodgeball ended early in favor of running through the sprinklers. The campers also had their entry physicals in the Health Center, and had time to continue getting settled, explore camp, catch frogs, play roofball, tetherball and get in a little fishing.
Dinner was our opening banquet, which features a delicious pasta feast with spaghetti, ravioli and tortellini with sides of garlic bread and Caesar Salad. And for dessert, we feast on the camp tradition of Dirt & Worms, oreo pudding with gummy worms. But before the kids get to eating, they celebrate the banquet with the welcome line, featuring our staff dressed in ridiculous costumes singing and dancing. Our 8-week campers and counselors spent time teaching everyone the cheers, songs and camp traditions. One such unique North Star tradition is our birthday song. Today at dinner we celebrated one of our Pine Manor camper’s birthday! Our baker Sandy bakes beautiful cakes, that look and taste delicious. Birthdays are always exciting over here in the Northwoods because the camper’s entire cabin gets to enjoy the cake, the whole camp sings to them, they get to make a birthday wish, and often they get woken up with a pizza party later that night.
But the fun did not end at dinner. Following dinner, we had our first Wanegan of the session. Wanegan is the Ojibwe word for store, and for our campers it means candy! Campers line up and sing for candy at the porch behind Cabin J-5, and campers go through the Wanegan line to a great deal of excitement and fanfare to choose their candy bar. Our Wanegan King Nkosana brings all sorts of fun and joy to the experience as well as the kids cheer their way through the line.
We followed up Wanegan with an all-camp game of Capture the Flag. We split into temporary green and white teams and based one team behind the Junior Village and the other on the athletic fields. The flags were flying tonight, with teams opting for quick offense and less defense.
Tomorrow is Cruiser Day and we have a great deal of excitement planned for each cabin all, All, ALL day long!
Today’s Grace:
“Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.”
– Oprah Winfrey
