Our week has been filled with adventures, inspiration, learning, exploration, and fun, fun, zany fun. I’ve watched the faces of our campers change from sad (to be away from home) to happy and confident as they feel at home here and able to be themselves. Our Big and First Lodge trips left for wilderness adventures on Saturday. All First Lodgers spent some of their time canoeing and some of their time backpacking. Big Lodgers were either canoeing, backpacking, rock climbing, or doing a wilderness skills and work project trip. All of our campers not only learned skills they will be able to use for a lifetime (like cooking over a camp stove and “Leave No Trace” camping techniques), but they’ve also come back with an added self confidence that is visible on their faces.
While at camp our apprentices (in Senior Lodge) have been diving deep into their skill areas. Today I was able spend the morning with the Rock & Ropes group. They’ve already mastered the basic knots necessary for climbing. Today they were climbing our wall with blindfolds. Our Pottery group is spending their mornings at the wheels. Today they showed me teapots, plates, and bowls they had made (as well as a map of the world–I’m not sure what that is becoming…more to come on that…but it looks cool). The Creative Arts apprentices are working on a beautiful stained-glass window, which they designed. So far, our Canoeing apprentices have been mastering their flat water strokes. The building of the huge Interdependence Day fire has filled the mornings (and a lot of afternoons) of our Pioneer group as they perfect their axing skills. They’ve also spent a morning exploring our forest and learning wild, edible plants. Lily, our head cook, reports that the Cook apprentices have been a great help in the kitchen. They’ve been contributing each day to our menu while planning a big meal for all of camp and collecting their favorite recipes. Barns and Gardens apprentices have made lip balm, butter and are planning their own homestead. Our Woodchucks (work-project apprentices) took on a leadership role in our cabin raising, which happened on the 2nd. They hoisted beams and set up the frame for the cabin we’ll be working on for the rest of the summer. Our “Rock Stars” have been learning guitar chords and strumming techniques while learning their favorite songs.
Big Lodgers and First Lodgers have spent their mornings learning new swimming strokes, building a new trash shed, identifying trees and exploring our wilderness, making butter, milking our cow, and caring for the vegetable garden.
Wednesday was “Amazing Women Day” here at Indian Brook. We were inspired by women from the past and present. It was such a privilege to host Carol Browner as a guest speaker. She was the Director of the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy for President Barack Obama, and she served as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for the Clinton Administration. You might know her as the “Energy Czar”. Carol encouraged everyone to follow their individual passions to the end of contributing to their community. We enjoyed fun activities during the rest of the day centered around learning about amazing women. The day culminated with a counselor hunt where our staff impersonated famous women in history.
Yesterday was garden afternoon at IB. Indian Brook campers worked in the garden, identified seeds, played garden games, performed in a garden jug band, painted garden row signs, and consumed ice cream made by campers with strawberries from the garden and fresh baked bread (some baked in our cob oven) with honey butter made by campers.
We’ve been preparing for our Interdependence Day performance since camp started. F&W celebrates Interdependence at the beginning of July every year. At this event, all the camps gather at the fairgrounds, each camp shares a skit or song (we’re shared a pop song re-written with words about IB) and then there’s a contra dance and bonfire (which was built by some of our campers).
Peace,
Amy Bowen, Indian Brook Director