Camp Keewaydin marks 100th year
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Campers paddle around Lake Dunmore during afternoon activities at Keewaydin Dunmore on Monday in Salisbury. Keewaydin Dunmore is a summer adventure camp for boys 8 to 16, and celebrates its 100th year today with a canoe flotilla and ceremonies. Alden Pellett / The Associated Press |
Toolbox
By JOHN CURRAN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - Published: July 1, 2009
SALISBURY — Eleven-year-old Stephen D'Agostino is all excited. Soon, he'll be an old-timer.
At Keewaydin Dunmore, this is a very special honor. It's reserved for boys who've completed four years at the summer camp on the shores of Lake Dunmore.
On the night before camp ends in August, D'Agostino and other fourth-year campers will be blindfolded, taken to an "Indian circle" in the woods of adjacent Mount Moosalamoo and given an old-timer nickname. The blindfold prevents them from revealing the location.
"I get to go up to the secret Indian circle," said D'Agostino, of Darien, Conn. "I'm very excited."
It's corny, but it's a tradition. And at Keewaydin — the name means "spirit of the northwest wind" — tradition is everything.
From dining hall sing-alongs to monthlong canoe trips in Quebec to secret ceremonies in the woods, the rustic lakeside camp for boys remains a summer constant, nearly 100 years after it opened its tents as an adventure camp centered on canoeing.
"It's old-fashioned, it's hokey, but I think it has a spirit," said Ben Smith, 23, of Portland, Ore., a counselor. "It has magic, it has energy. And everybody seems to buy into it, which is great."
Not that it's cheap to buy into. The camp, for boys 8 to 16, offers a four-week program for $5,500 per person and an eight-week program for $7,100 per person.
But its pristine location, emphasis on character building and 3-to-1 camper-to-counselor ratio keep the campers coming, even if they have to stay in cramped tents with no electricity. The character building comes in the teamwork required on the canoe trips, which range from three days for the youngest campers to 30 days for some of the oldest.
"It's not necessarily taking children from modern society, full of technology, and putting them into the woods," said counselor Cameron MacDonald, 26, of Roanoke, Va. "It's more than that. It's about taking children out in the woods and talking about what it means to help out the other fellow, in a context that's removed from modern competitiveness.
"This camp has thrived for 100 years because of the environment it's created with its members. Kindness and thoughtfulness and character traits are emphasized as the most important thing, above other intangibles usually emphasized in schools," he said.
On Monday, the sprawling settlement of small green cabins, recreational facilities and tan canvas tents set on a peninsula at the northeast corner of the lake was abuzz with activity as the season's opening session got under way.
Bennett Werner, a counselor, introduced a group of 11- and 12-year-olds to the basics of paddle technique, standing around a campfire site.
"The paddle will take you to incredible, incredible places, but you have to treat it nice, you have to treat it with respect, and that includes not taking the tip and getting a little bit of dirt in there. Maybe you're putting it on the ground, leaning on it, you're using it as a hiking pole, whatever. Dirt will get in there, and that dirt is going to get up into the wood and it's going to crack," he told them.
"And you don't want a broken paddle. You're going to be stuck in the middle of the lake. What are you going to do?" Werner said.
There are other activities — hiking, basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis. And there is down time, including a post-lunch "rest hour" in which the boys retreat to their tents to read, sleep or write postcards home. There are two live-in nurses who address medical issues with the 220 campers and 65 staff members.
The dining hall is the center of nighttime activity. Up to three times a week, a staff member takes to the piano and leads sing-alongs.
Today, Keewaydin — sometimes known as Camp Keewaydin — kicks off a summer-long celebration of its centennial with a breakfast banquet, a 170-boat canoe flotilla on the lake and a "four winds" ceremony featuring the blessing of the camp by costumed counselors in Native American outfits.
Also planned for the centennial is an Aug. 27 to 30 reunion of Keewaydin Dunmore alumni. Nearly 400 people — including some who attended in the 1920s and 1930s — have signed up.
Among the camp's alumni: Former Walt Disney Co. CEO Michael Eisner, whose Eisner Foundation now sponsors eight campers each summer.
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