On Camp

This is an accolade to camp. As a child I attended summer camps for one or two weeks or a few days at a time over the summer, sometimes a few different camps during a summer break. Never for the entire summer as some kids especially in the east do. It was mostly a lovely experience, a part of a childhood where my parents sought to provide me with many varied experiences in life. Not extremely elaborate, but well rounded. Ballet, violin and piano lessons, little weekend family trips around our state, things like that. My dad was a pilot so there was also the opportunity to fly in little planes. We never had our own but he would take me up frequently and give me lessons.

My kids attended Young Life camp in Florida where we live. My girl loved it. It’s hard to tell if the boys did but they did receive fierce sunburns so at least they were out enjoying the water. That much we know.

In 2024 my daughter asked to go to camp. We had lost her brother in February and it was her request to go to a camp where no one knew her. I think our whole family was feeling a bit under the microscope in our small town where everyone seemed to know about our experience and we could not escape the well intentioned pitying gazes.

So as I do when my kids ask me for something that I feel will be positive for them, I being to search my rolodex brain. I landed on a camp that one of my highschool friends had worked at and were I had visited her once when camp was out of session. It is in Michigan where I grew up. The one where I visited her is apparently is the boys’ camp. However both the girls’ and boys’ are located on idyllic northern Michigan lakes. Think Trumpet of the Swan setting (although I believe that was Canada). So I searched the internet and found it. I inquired and signed her up for a two week session. We all flew up to Michigan and dropped her off. Now one of the beautiful things about this camp, which by the way is Hayo-Went-Ha, is that the campers are without phones or other techy devices for the entire session. They can write letters the old fashioned way and the parents can write letters as well. So…after dropping her my other kids and I and my dad went to stay at a nearby Airbnb for the time my daughter would be in camp. I thought she is either going to love this or hate this. There is no in between. I sat with bated breath until her first letter arrived. Mom, I LOVE it here. I have so many friends. We have a lake we jump in first thing in the morning. We are going on a 4 day canoe trip. I was so relieved. But I thought is this really my daughter, who sits in front of her mirror every morning before school doing her makeup for an hour, who spends four hours putting on and elaborately decorating her nails?

The two week session included the 4 day canoe trip in the upper peninsula of Michigan. This involves hiking while hoisting the canoes over hilly areas. This turned out to be a life changing experience for my daughter. After I picked her up she cried that night in culture shock with having her phone back and also missing her friends.

Not surprisingly she wanted to return the following summer (this past one). She talked her sister into it but her experience was opposite. Each child is an individual! In any event, my older daughter loved her second year at camp even more. This time she was there a month and this included 2 weeks canoeing and portaging in Ontario. We are talking super roughing it. No showers, wilderness campsites, even a medical evacuation of one of the campers (who turned out to be ok), eating packaged meals that you add water to. The whole shebang. She swam in beautiful freezing crystal clear lakes. She got eaten alive with mosquitoes. She laughed. She cried. She pushed herself. Now I didn’t mention that in December of 2024 we had lost another of her brothers to suicide. So this camp session and wilderness trip for my daughter was life saving. Honestly. It was what she needed to cope, to grieve, to distract, to escape, to feel alive, to move forward.

So guess what? I just signed her up for a third year and this is going to be the coup de grace. The campers at her age go to Alaska for 3 weeks for kayaking and hiking. It is going to be an amazing experience and I am so glad the other years have prepared her. I have never done anything like what she has done and I know it is making her so strong, so confident.

And that is my raving review on camp and this on in particular. It is not cheap but in terms of what you are going to spend your money on toward your kids (and you know you are going to spend a lot!) it is so well worth it!