Atomic Energy on Canoe Lake:
CIT City 1963

Having CIT City as part of the Camp is like living next to a nuclear power station. When all is well, it hums along smoothly, the lights are on and you hardly know it's there. But, if the station has a problem, the reaction it may loose can be quite destructive. Such was the summer of 1963.

Ahmek's nuclear plant was located in the isolated splendor of CIT City, now Domain Eastaugh. There were two incidents in 1963. The first incident resulted in a minor flare-up quickly quenched. The second incident triggered a meltdown.

In CIT City 1963, there were two permanent buildings. The larger of the two, now the manor house at Domain Eastaugh, was used for meetings and for storage. The smaller out building was the residence of the CIT Director.

Channelling the power of forty-two 17 year olds was always a challenge for any CIT Director. In 1963, various projects were invented which had some or no success at energy release. But, when "the boys" came up with their own initiative all forty-two backs bent to the oar. What was the initiative - a sauna - where - the big cabin.

Being temperamentally a cautious sort, the incumbent Director did a litmus test on the Ahmek cabinet. No one objected so the sauna project was launched.

On being told they could proceed, the Director asked how "the boys" would obtain the needed materials. "Better that you don't know" was the reply. Although the White House was yet to perfect the technique of willful deniability, not knowing had appealing logic.

In less than a week, the sauna was built. The "boys" erected a small room out of 2 x 4's within the bigger structure. They drilled holes in the floor. Secured an oil drum stove and extended an L-shaped stovepipe through the roof. Insulation was provided by laying several tent flies over the wooden structure. It was ready to go and the excitement was palpable.

During the period of construction, odd reports were filtering into cabinet meetings. A stove was missing from the maintenance area. Two tent flies had disappeared from the Trading Post. Jack Coons' toolbox went missing for a day and mysteriously reappeared on the Dining Hall steps. Bits of stovepipe would later be discovered as missing from the Art Shop and from the Craft Shop - not noticed because the weather had been warm. A couple of canoe trips reported that the Department of Lands & Forests seemed to be working on the dock at the portage in Joe Creek because the 2" x 4" decking on the southern third of that dock seemed to have been removed.

"Would you like to attend the opening of the CIT City Sauna", invited the Director. "Sure" said the whole cabinet.

The Sauna opened with great fanfare with the entire cabinet in attendance. CIT City never looked so clean and "the boys" were very proud of their accomplishment. Later cabinet feedback to the Director complimented "the boys'" productive effort suggesting that it appeared to have applied their significant energies away from mischief.

After the successful opening, the steam bath was in great demand. It operated late into the night, held "the boys" interest and was the envy of both camps. There were reports that the Wapomeo cabinet attended for a session but those reports have never been reliably confirmed.

The sauna came to an unhappy end late one night about ten days after the opening. As it happened, an engineering flaw brought the project down in flames, literally.

The culprit was an L-shaped stovepipe. An operating instruction was developed when the sauna was commissioned that someone had to be assigned to pour water on the stovepipe elbow from time to time because it tended to get red hot. Late one evening, those enjoying the wonders of Swedish Sauna Therapy forgot to comply with the operating instruction. When they completed their therapy, they left the sauna to let the stove gradually die out. They had forgotten about the L-shaped stovepipe but it had not forgotten that when a red hot pipe brings wood to the kindling temperature it burns. And burn it did. The marvel of CIT Engineering met an ignominious end. No, the cabin didn't burn to the ground. It suffered only minor damage. But, the cabinet issued a "stop work order" and the sauna went into mothballs. "The boys" were humiliated; they needed something to rehabilitate their image.

Now and again at camp, the inmates indulge in good natured teasing. The Ahmek CITs were the butt of a number of pointed comments about their tendencies toward the incendiary. The Wap guides were particularly eloquent.

The seeds of a conspiracy began to sprout about ten days before the end of Camp. The object of the conspiracy was the Wap guides, the most stinging critics of the sauna fiasco. "Wouldn't an end of Camp prank be just the response to the flak we've been getting?"

CIT City is a small place. It's hard to keep a secret from the Director. He got wind of the plot and eventually its details were uncovered. The plot was to steal into Pogo at lunch the day before Camp ended, remove all of the guide tents - "Think of how great it would be if we did it on a Silver Day", said the informant. Once "borrowed", the tents would be returned the same afternoon by inter-Camp mail accompanied by a blue note saying that these tents had been discovered on the dock at Ahmek.

There is no doubt that it was the duty of the Director to stop this plan before it could be implemented. There was a strict cabinet policy against such pranks. Doctor Tay was known to regard perpetrators of such deeds in a worse light as those caught consuming alcohol in Camp.

The Director did not do his cabinatorial duty and no prohibition was issued to the proposed prank. At cabinet, positive comments were made about the lack of any "incidents" a euphemism for "pranks". The Director knew better but remained silent.

Then, on a sunny August afternoon, the day before the Camps went out, the plan was executed and it came off perfectly.

The Camps were abuzz with the telling of the tale. "The boys" felt their humiliation properly expunged.

Those moments of hubris were short-lived when Dr. Tay, possessed of all the salient facts, dressed down the Director like a fresh stick of cedar headed for a totem pole. Eye witnesses described Dr. Tay's reaction as "controlled fission". Had "the boys" and their boss not been utterly essential to the next day's Camp change logistics, the buses surely would have been rumbling down the road with the culprits in full, fired disgrace.

Angered at being found out - although they had always intended to be - "the boys" acquitted themselves admirably with the change of Camp. The prank itself has disappeared into the annals of long lost yesterdays. But it is said that the Director remains haunted to this day by the confrontation and by a question from Dr. Tay who was perplexed that the Director had permitted the prank. "What is it in your makeup", he said, "that would lead you to tear down of a whole summer with such a foolish judgment?"

Both Doctor Tay and the former Director declined interviews on the topic, both claiming they could not longer recall it.

Not much later, CIT City was decommissioned and the CIT's sprinkled throughout the Camp. As with the power generation industry in all of Ontario, atomic energy on Canoe Lake is out of fashion.