Nothing More American

All hiked out or maybe ready for more at (i believe) Picnic Point.

Each year during the fifth and sixth weeks of camp, the two oldest cabins (Bunkhouse and Cabin 15 during my seven years at Shewahmegon.) would go on a 10-day canoeing trip in Canada. While the Border Trip was an amazing experience, the real kooky fun was happening back at camp. Taking a break from the everyday Shewahmegon routine, Border Week was filled with all sorts of crazy activities including a mud-chucking battle in a swamp, campers throwing whip cream pies into Staffer faces, beach parties and much, much more.

In 2000, my first year on staff in the illustrious position of Junior Counselor, the entire camper population and counselor staff went out one day during border week on a series of All Day Hikes. After trudging through the woods, we stopped at Picnic Point to cook Puffers (more on these later!) and take a break before heading back into the woods to venture forth to our next destination. I have a lot of pictures from this brief stop and plenty of fun memories even though it only encompassed two or three hours of my entire camp career. That was always one of the interesting things about camp (As far as my memory is concerned, at least.), certain days just ended up being a ton of fun for no particular reason. All Day Hikes was not a favorite event among the campers or staff, so maybe that led to all of us banding together to make the best of a bad situation—I don’t know. Perhaps when camp shrunk as the oldest cabins left, the rest of us—shocked at the loss of our, dare I say, brothers—reformed our bonds of friendship stronger and faster in their absence only to welcome them back joyfully 10 days later into a more cohesive web of camp family. Either way, I remember this particular cookout was extremely enjoyable and chock-full of some seriously great bonding.

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