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Dear Chief:
This year, I am writing you about a book. Don't worry, it's not about law. It isn't a best seller either - at least not yet. It isn't exactly a history book although it does tell a compelling story - covering eight decades and thousands of people. It's also a story about a family - a very extended family. And I bet you know the name of the founding father.
So what kind of book is it you ask? It is called "Fires Of Friendship: Eighty Years of The Taylor Statten Camps".
When I read the book it made me think of Mickey Mouse. Now, Chief, some might tell you that mentioning "Mickey Mouse" in the same sentence with you is inappropriate, even insulting. They might also tell you that the next thing I will do is to compare other Camp notables to Minnie Mouse or Donald Duck or Pluto or, heaven help us, Goofy. Now Chief, I admit that the Camps have produced a few cartoon characters. I could probably provide a top ten candidates list for Goofy. But Chief, the people who might challenge the reference to Mickey Mouse probably don't understand Disney and have certainly missed my intended metaphor.
Without Mickey, there is no Disney. There are no theme parks and Fantasia would not have been made. To appreciate how central Mickey Mouse is to Disney, you need only go to Disneyland or Disney World or Euro Disney and see the daily parade. Mickey is front and centre.
Mickey has come a long way from "Steamboat Willie". He commands a vast empire - at least figuratively. Say Mickey Mouse to someone who has experienced the wonders of the Disney imagination and they will start in. Mention Taylor Statten to someone who knew you or who knew the Camps and they will start in. But Camp people will start in on something different, something much much deeper.
Like Mickey, your position as Chief represents the vision. Your mission - Fires Of Friendship - has come to embody the Camps. Chief, this is true although more than half the Camps' operating history has been without your physical presence. But Chief, you are still here. Here in the memory of those who knew you. Here in all of us who have come to regard your Camps as a formative piece of our personal history.
Chief, in every council ring you convened you warned us there would be a time when you must go. When your time came, you took your leave on Canoe Lake in the quiet season you loved so well. But, Chief, your leadership survived in your sons and daughter and in your grandchildren and in all of us. If you need proof, let me read from the book. It doesn't matter the era. You will hear testimonials - unpaid no less. You may also hear your voice in the voice of others. I have picked four.
The first piece I will read - in part - is written by Miki (Mitchell) Spring, Wapomeo 1938 - 1948:
"When I was seventeen, my father died. My aunts were gone, and I had no home. It made me different from other people. But at camp we were all the same. We were family for one another. I formed lasting friendships, friendships that I still cherish. I acquired confidence. I actually felt that Canoe Lake was my home and nobody ever seemed anxious for me to leave. But finally I got married, assumed other responsibilities ... and had to learn to adjust to summers in the city!...
I eventually had four sons and they grew up as campers and staff members at Ahmek. Nowadays, several of my grandchildren attend camp.
I just want to touch on one more thing. I remember how excited I was when I first became a counsellor. I felt very privileged. I loved my campers. I played games with them, sang with them, and often told them they were the best people on the island. If you read this, and you are about to become a counsellor, I hope you will consider it to be an honour to have been chosen, and that you take your responsibility seriously. You can make a difference in someone's life. One of my campers wrote to me years after she left camp and told me so.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to express my gratitude to Couchie and to all the members of the Statten family. I am glad you have kept the campfires burning. You gave me a life!"
Chief, the second passage I want to read comes from John Lewis Watson, better known as Jay. He worked in the Ahmek theatre in the thirties.
"After serving one season as a C.I.T. (The hardest-working gang of galley slaves on the whole Ahmek staff), I decided that I was not psychologically cut out to be a counsellor, so I wrote to Chubby and pleaded for a job - any job - connected with the theatre, that magical building arrogantly poised at the head of the long inlet. The Ahmek-Wap theatre was being developed under the brilliant, unforgettable Arthur "Suds" Sutherland.
I got my wish and worked as co-Stage Manager alongside John Hunt, then an R.M.C. student who, Suds said, "stood to attention every time I spoke to him." (John's fine military career ended soon after when he was killed in action in France.)
Suds, John, and Jay (yours truly) shared the directing and acting chores, designed and built our own scenery with brown paper, water paint, and binder twine. We set up our own lighting system, powered by a decrepit generator which we persistently overloaded - thus incurring the undying contempt of Archie, the camp electrician.
...
Looking back, I think we did something to significantly broaden the horizons of campers - an activity that perfectly complemented the camps' emphasis on healthy physical pursuits, the acquisition of practical personal skills, and the love of nature - although we ourselves were not prime examples of mens sana in corpore sano. I recall once emerging from the dark womb of the theatre looking so pale and untanned that the Chief immediately prescribed "a good long canoe trip." The mere thought of deserting my beloved log theatre (in whose tower I had my private apartment) for a bed of cedar boughs in the mosquito-infested gloom of some wretched forest was so appalling that I simply couldn't bring myself to comply with the Chief's no-doubt sensible suggestion.
I am now an octogenarian, but my memories of the years at Ahmek are still sharp and still treasured. I recall with bittersweet nostalgia my very last night on Canoe Lake. War was about to be declared and a group of us, all of military age, had gathered around a campfire. Inevitably, the conversation drifted around to the future we faced. Where would we be a year from how? How many of us would come through the dirty business that lay ahead? We knew that September 1939 was the end of a period in our lives that could never be relived - only recalled in the memories of an idyllic Camelot in Algonquin Park."
Two more readings Chief. This one from John Hamilton writing about the 60's - at work camp.
"An annual ritual that profoundly affected my values, ambitions, and lifelong rhythms was an experience in the 1960s we called "work camp". A handful of staff members, usually attending university, blended with a group of older men, some from the area, like Jack Coons, others imported, like Stan Murdock.
...
Mike Kundro, for example, never saw himself as a mentor, but he was. To most people, Mike was a very quiet, unassuming presence at Wap. His job was general maintenance. At work camp, I remember hours of wordless window cleaning with Mike. My first impression was stereotypical: "He doesn't speak English very well. He's been in the country for 30 years. What's wrong with him?" But constancy in our joint roles as window washers gradually produced a trust and mutual respect that went beyond the camping season and eventually into my own philosophy of life.
...
In a nutshell, Mike Kundro had to leave his family and his Russian homeland late in the 1930s. His education and skills were limited. For over 30 years, his entire adult life, he supported his Russian family with monthly cheques, but he never saw his wife or children again. The Cold War had many such victims. Mike's self-sacrifice, commitment, and sense of responsibility had no parallels for me as a young man.
...
Unquestionably, young people gave distinctiveness to the '60s, but I would hate to think that the quiet mentors of our generation were overlooked or forgotten - people like Stan Murdock, Joe Dupuis, and for me ... Mike Kundro."
And Chief, the final excerpt from the book is by Don Burry. Don was at Camp from 1968 to 1989.
"The Taylor Statten Camps are three things. First of all, they are a place - Canoe Lake. The physical plant does not change. There may be a new building here or there, but the landmarks remain the same: the Dining Halls, the beach at Ahmek, Ghost Walk Creek, Wigwam Bay, Wap's main docks, Senior Island, Chubby's Island, and Little Wap. These all combine to create a summer place to be.
...
Secondly, the camps are a time. Past, present, or future - no one era is any better than another, only different.
...
Thirdly, and most importantly, camp is people. It is there that the life-long friendships are formed and it is those ties that remain strongest throughout the rest of one's life.
...
We are fortunate to be able to share memories of camp over the years, to be able to travel back to a special time and place: the home of our dreams and an island somewhere."
Chief, the contributors to this book have described your gift for creation. Forgive the impertinence, but you seem to have two other rather unconventional talents. One is firebug. Firebug of friendship - that is. The second is ventriloquist. How do you manage to speak through others anyway?
Chief, if you aren't very proud of all of this - you should be. I will see if I can get you a copy of the book. I think you will like it.
Yours Ahmekly,
Bill Pigott |