That’s Kife!

When I first came to the Taylor Statten Camps I was overloaded with new terms and slang expressions. Included in this TSC jargon are words like KYBO (outhouse), Nahani (oldest female camper group), Pogo (Wapomeo guide residence), floaters (staff other than counselors and guides) and Kife.

Kife is perhaps a less familiar term than the others because it is generally only referred to on trip. Kife is the dirt, twigs and pine needles that you find on the forest floor and in your trip shoes that somehow always makes its way into your juice or your Beef Stroganoff or your Chinese Chicken.

Now, to some people Kife is Kife, but may I suggest that Kife can be more than the dirt in your trip food; Kife may be an entire concept.

Perhaps Kife represents the imperfections in all aspects of our lives. And perhaps it is this Kife that makes life memorable and unique. I have come to think of Kife as the stuff that causes you to exclaim, “One day we are all going to look back at this moment and laugh!”

So if Kife really does represent the imperfections in our life experiences, then there must be such a thing as a “Kife moment”. That being a moment when at the time it is not so funny, perhaps even frustrating, but becomes funnier with the passage of time.

A few examples of “Kife moments” will help to clarify:

• Kife is paddling back up the Little Madawaska river for the third time looking for the right portage.
• Kife is trying desperately to ranger your canoe on a rest bar in the middle of a long portage and discovering that it is too tall for you.
• Kife is having the syrup container burst in the same pack that your personals are in and you didn’t double bag.
• Kife is dragging your canoe through waist deep mud for four hours and knowing exactly why they named it Vanishing Pond.
• Kife is racing another camper group (all the way across) Burnt Island Lake and missing the best campsite by three meters.
• Kife is mixing a batch of juice at midnight in the dark with the salt bag instead of the juice crystals and you are the juice tester.
• Kife is getting your fourth picture of the rear end of yet another moose as it heads off into the forest.

When Kife gets into your trip food you may think that it takes away from it or makes it less desirable. Let me suggest that the reverse is true. How boring not to have Kife in your food, as well as in your daily experiences.

Kife can also be found in the people you meet and its not that hard to find. It may be the Kife in people that makes them bearable and even enjoyable. Everybody has a degree of Kife in their personalities even if the Kife is that no Kife is evident. This is the part of what makes each of us unique and memorable.

Perhaps when we learn to accept the Kife we see in others and in the world around us, our experiences will take on a beauty that we may not have appreciated before.

As I was resting my canoe on a particular long portage I was observing the beauty of the forest and I began to realize that what made it beautiful were the fallen trees, the fallen leaves, the overgrown moss, the jagged rocks mixed in with trees growing straight and tall. The Kife and non-Kife blended together to give the forest character.

To attempt to keep all of the Kife out of your trip food or out of your life is not even possible so I suggest that you do not try to keep things “Kife-free”. Accept people and experiences for what they are. Discover the beauty that exists in imperfection and let the memories evolve.