The End of Camp

August 23rd, 2008: 4:08am

It’s my last night in Webequie! Or rather, by now it’s my last morning. I spent the night cleaning the gym, our house, and then finishing our Memory Book from back in Kingfisher (it’s essentially a camp scrapbook that we need to hand in). It’s crazy to think that in just a few hours I’ll be leaving this dusty island, likely for good.
As I’m typing, there’s a dog barking outside – it sounds close enough to be in the living room. It’s probably going after a bear, since they tend to hang around our house.
I should back up – this week has been too exciting to just glaze over! The highlights of this week included starting Lauren’s 10 Step Program to Trust (she is too scared to play Catch Me, so we started a “trust other people program”), going to a sweat lodge, going for a boat ride around south Winisk Lake, running a community treasure hunt, cookie baking, and our camp party!

The sweat lodge, which we attended on Monday, was one of the things we’d really been looking forward to and trying to work into our schedule. It’s like a sauna inside a canvas hut, but has a lot of spiritual ties as well. The hut is shaped like a womb, turtle, or signifies the sun, depending on who you ask and when. It’s covered in canvas, and after a short ceremony acknowledging the four directions by tossing tobacco into a fire, we all entered in – men on one side, women on the other. There were about 7 of us in the lodge, 5 men in their underwear and then Lauren and I, fully dressed and ready to sweat. There were three sections where rocks were put in, there were prayers and people had a chance to speak, and then the hut was reopened for a short air break. They went easy on us and didn’t make it too hot, and Lauren and I were close to the door, which isn’t as hot. The experience was really refreshing, especially thanks to Bob, who ran the sweat and was very welcoming to us!

On Wednesday night, Kenny, our community counsellor, took us out on the lake in his boat. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find his hooks, so we didn’t fish, but we got to go to a few islands to see where his family campground was, and another where people sometimes go to fast. On the trip we also saw 3 eagles, and a flock of about 9 loons! On our return, Kenny was about to drop us off at the dock by our house, but there was a bear there. It didn’t look very threatening (it’s hard to look threatening while going to the bathroom), but we ended up getting of at Kenny’s dock further down instead – after following the bear around, trying to see it through the trees for a while!

Camp itself ran pretty smoothly this week, except for the few usual fights and tears, but nothing severe! Many of the campers dwindled away during the week, as a lot of families are going to Casamonica (sp?), a nearby reserve that’s having a festival this week! The best part was probably the treasure hunt we ran – we stayed up until 3am planning it and putting together clues, and then ran the 1-2h community treasure hunt the next day. The morning group didn’t have time to finish, so we brought them to treasure early, and the afternoon group all finished, but the treasure was stolen! Thankfully, it was returned, and the treasure hunt itself went well, but it still caused quite a kerfuffle. The treasure hunt took us across Webequie and back, and had 9 different stations where campers had to do tasks like doing crosswords and wordsearches, making pyramids, and deciphering poems and word jumbles! All the campers said they loved it – I guess it was worth the late night after all!

Today was our camp party, and we were finally able to get some community guests to come in! In the morning, two elder women came in and did beading with the kids, and in the afternoon we had a drumming group play for us! We arranged it through our good friend Howard, and they turned out to be really good! One of our campers came in and was drumming along with them, and he certainly held his own in the group. Our numbers for the final day weren’t crazy high, but those who were there had a great time!
Now, being as it’s 4:30am, I’m heading to bed and catching a plane in 7 hours back to Thunder Bay for debrief! I’m excited to hear from the other teams, but sad to leave this community and experience behind.

And yes, to all those who told me to before I came here – I did buy myself moccasins. I guess my trip can be considered complete.