The last week in Muskrat Dam begins...

Last week was amazing. Simply amazing. Yes, we had a few behaviour issues at camp, such as a five year old whipping markers around the room to the point of us needing to send him home to stop him from blinding someone, but with these few exceptions, it was phenomenal. We were not able to use the gym, and the rain kept us indoors most of the time, but this was a blessing in disguise! It allowed us to do some cool projects, such as making Play-dough, which then became volcanoes, was then painted, and exploded! This took a series of days, and gave a bit of continuity to the camp. We also played some fun literacy versions of Musical Chairs, and have been having around an hour a day of reading and alphabet practice with our younger campers. They only learn syllabics until the end of grade one in school before being introduced to English letters, so we are working hard too help them with their spelling and phonics.

This week we're expecting a drop in numbers, as some families are leaving town, a few older campers are going to a Junior Rangers camp, and one or two more are starting jobs. However, some of these campers expressed that they don't want to leave, and that they want to stay at our camp instead! Win!

This past week we have been able to integrate really well into the community. We had a band counsellor/deputy chief come into the morning camp and play guitar, and a parent come into the afternoon camp and bake bannock with the campers! We also got out into the community during a treasure hunt in the morning (which we're repeating Monday for the older campers), and we cancelled Friday afternoon to go to Family Day events at the baseball field instead.

For "Friday's Family Day: Part One" there was a feast, with lots of hamburgers and smokies, and a number of competitions, such as egg toss and piggy backs - women carrying men! During all this we were painting faces, and Ryan and Lizzy ran some games (I was still painting!) After the feast we were asked to judge cakes in a baking contest, and so got to try some of each and award about $400 in prize money! The top cakes were a fruit and yogurt pizza, a chocolate cake with strawberries around it, a lemon meringue cake, and a cake designed to look like a hamburger! Later on that night we also went into the forest behind the church to look for envelopes that were hidden and contained descriptions of prizes ranging from "Sorry, try again next time" to a laptop! Unfortunately, it was 11pm, very dark, and our flashlights, eyes and detective skills didn't allow us to find anything; it was a lot of fun though!!

"Family Day: Part Two" was Saturday. We didn't take part in the fishing derby, as we lack both rods and a boat, but we took this time to plan camp and bake chocolate drop cookies! We went up for more games, and this time brought some books, boggle, beads and a ball (lots of B items apparently) for the kids to use. Between this and throwing around a football, Ryan and I managed to win $90, and Lizzy took the lead with beading with a number of kids. Ryan was on the winning teams for both a relay race and leap frog race, which won him $20 total, and I won $20 for being the first to cross the finish line while balancing a marble on a plastic spoon - in my mouth! Ryan and I each won a backpack race, for the men and women respectively, where you had to run in a race against time while carrying a heavy backpack. He traded the 1st place fishing rod for the second place prize of $50, and I decided to donate the set of pots that I won to the school, to stock up their kitchen a bit more. (It's not as altruistic as it sounds - I wanted to be able to use them to cook for camp this week too!)

While at the event we go to know a number of the adults better, and they are all very welcoming! One woman has given us a ride to the field a couple times, and she has offered to arrange for us to go boating on Wednesday night with her husband, and is also trying to make sure that a Bingo night runs before we leave; Ryan and I need something to spend our money on besides sweets at Louie's shop! Also, I was trusted enough to drive someone's truck down to our house to take the cookies up to the feast. It was very kind of him, and amazing to be back behind the wheel after months in England on busses!

I don't know how it will be possible to top last week, but I have faith that between this community and our ideas for this week's camp, we'll do it somehow! On that note, I'm off to bed. One of the most important things I've found for running a successful camp is to sleep enough! So I best sign off so that I can be up in time for a morning jog and setting up another treasure hunt. Hope all is well in the lives of anyone reading this! Have a wonderful summer.

-V. :-)