Tamarack, Part 1

Far from the city we sing a little ditty
'bout Tamarack, Camp Tamarack...

There's only a small, select group of people who know that song. It comes to mind every now and then and is the song we taught our campers when I worked at Camp Tamarack. I was thinking about Tamarack for some reason on my drive home from work today, and thinking I should write about my summers there, and when I came in the front door, there was my Baby Girl wearing an old plaid flannel shirt I had when I worked at Tamarack. Go figure! I can't believe I still have it--or that she wants to wear it. It's more than 30 years old.

I found out about Tamarack from a friend of mine who had worked there. She knew I was looking for a summer job and suggested I apply. It was a camp run out of St. Croix State Park through a partnership between the Minneapolis Public Schools and the YMCA. Kids signed up for a 12 day session (Monday to the 2nd Friday) for a given "class". It might be outdoor sports, nature photography, a foreign language, drama, or any other host of choices. The kids' days were a mix of class activities and camp activities. Sounded good to me so I applied and was hired. Only to really get hired, you had to go down to some sort of unemployment office or jobs corps office, look through their files, and pretend there was nothing of interest to you. The game was, they would shrug, write you off, throw your name in their files, and later the camp coordinators would go through the files and pull the names of the people they had sent down there. Only I must have gotten some over-zealous new person who just couldn't believe there was nothing in the files of interest to me and kept telling me to go back and look some more and kept trying to talk me into all sort of things. I had to feign dis-interest and it took me forever to get out of there.

Once at camp, we were assigned to Camp A, B, C, or D at Norway Point, or to St. John's Landing. Everyone wanted to be at Norway Point because it was bigger and there was more going on. I got assigned to St. John's Landing and preferred it. It was more secluded and prettier. A lot of really old pine trees that gave it a phenomenal smell that couldn't be matched. The trees were tall enough to sway in the wind. And it was on the river. Norway Point had the swimming lake, but St. John's had the river. I've always been partial to rivers. The camper cabins each had 4 bunk beds, so the counselors got assigned 6 or 7 campers. These were mostly junior high kids so there was the usual drama that went along with that age including who was "going with" whom which would last all of a half an hour before they broke up and started going with someone else. At one point I asked one of the girls what "going with" meant. No one could really tell me.

So the breakfast bell would wake us up. Down to the mess hall, then morning class. The classes were actually run by Minneapolis teachers hired for the summer or at least a session. The counselors assisted the teachers and supervised the kids. Then lunch. Then in the early afternoon there were camp-wide activities that mixed up the classes. It could be obstacles courses and races, scavenger hunts, orienteering, whatever--usual camp stuff. Then after dinner there was a second, shorter class time. It was all fun, outdoor, hands-on class activities for the kids. Then in the evening there would be a campfire, or night time game like Capture the Flag.

Every new session, the counselors got assigned to a new group of kids and a new class. I don't remember much about the earlier courses I got assigned to, but the coveted courses were the quests...the canoe quest and the bike quest. These were trips that campers prepared for and then actually left the camp. A week long canoe trip down the St. Croix River or a bicycling trip to Madeline Island. I worked hard and lobbied hard for the bike quest. The very last of 5 sessions, I got assigned to it! It meant biking 150 miles through MN and northern WI...and back again, in little over a week's time. And that one event had so many implications for so many things to come in my life...