Endless Summers
Some Camps Have Been Around for Generations.
By Arin Greenwood | Online Only | Aug. 15, 2008
(From left) Winona staffer TJ Walker of Bristol, Vt., helps campers identify native Maine foliage.
Credit: Winona Camps for Boys
Ah, camp. Mosquitos, cold showers, swimming in frigid lakes, sailing lessons, horseback riding, corny songs, talent shows, and sunburns. It hasn't changed a bit.
Camping started in 1861, when Frederick W. Gunn and his wife Abigail took the kids from their school on a two week trip into the woods. Camping as we know it – with cabins and activities; with camp as a physical place – was a late 19th-century phenomenon. Family farms gave way to factory jobs, and kids whose summer vacations would have been taken up with chores suddenly had a worrisome amount of free time.
Thus was born camp, a place where kids could commune with nature, each other, and adults who would be good role models.
But despite these changes, the nation's 7,500-odd camps, including many of those from camp's earliest days, are doing well: 202 camps are at least 50 years old, and 29 camps still in existence have celebrated centennials. Many of these camps – like Winona , in Bridgton, Maine – are still using their original buildings.
Architectural historian Abigail Van Slyck, chair of Connecticut College's Art History Department, says another purpose of camp was to undo the bad effects of overbearing mothers.
The concern, says Van Slyck, was that the "Victorian model of motherhood was turning boys into sissies, that parlor behaviors were turning boys into sissies." Camp was supposed to be the antidote – the place where boys, whose mothers kept them proper and polite at home, would be away from this stultifying environment and moved to the wilderness where they could learn how to be men.
Girls' camps – where girls also got out into nature, and learned wilderness skills, as well as crafts – served a similar purpose. Except that the girls were being groomed to be better partners for the men, says Van Slyck. Both boys and girls learned how to build a hearth – for the boys, the hearth was where they learned the survival skill of how to make fire, not to make food; for the girls, the hearth was where they learned to nurture.
After World War II, says Van Slyck, camp began to change. Gone were tents and make-shift mess halls; camps began to construct permanent buildings – partly because health laws came into effect. "It's easier to stay sanitary with indoor plumbing," says Van Slyck. Camps developed more organized schedules, too, in response to a more hands-on parenting style coming into fashion. Camp directing became professionalized, a full time job. Camp went from being a place where campers were taught how to be adults, and became a place where kids could just be kids.
Alan B. Ordway and his wife Michelle have owned Camp Winona for boys for 40 years (notable camp alumni include Bobby Kennedy and John Groban). The Ordways are the camp's second owners – the first, in keeping with tradition, was an educator - and their two children Spencer and Laura are both in the business, too.
Ordway says that the camp has not changed much since it was founded in 1908. The camp has fifth generation campers, whose great-great-grandfather wore the same camp colors, and saw the same traditions. "The songs and the cheers are the same," says Ordway, and many of the camp's buildings – including wigwams and a fire hood - are from 100 years ago.
What we've tried to do is preserve the many wonderful things," he says. Ordway has introduced some new activities over the years – like frisbee golf – but for the most part, what happens at camp is what's always happened at camp: archery, hiking, canoeing, arts and crafts. And Camp Winona keeps another old tradition – it lets its campers choose their own activities, schedule their own days.
What's changed, says Ordway, is that parents have to be convinced that it's ok to let their boys go. Parents are used to their boys being overscheduled; it's hard for them to get their minds around the fact that at camp they have the freedom to be boys in an environment built just for boys, with healthy peers, says Ordway, and adults who are good role models. And that this unbound environment is good for them. "Once that becomes proven," says Ordway, "then the parents are much more understanding."
Bette Bussel, Executive Director of the American Camp Association New England, says that parental concern is influencing camps these days – some camps allow email, some post photos on their website every day, and lots have shortened their camp seasons since parents don't want kids away for two months at a time. Camps are also having to deal with specialization – it's not enough for kids to go to camp and learn how to swim and build a fire anymore; now they have to become baseball superstars or soccer champs over the summer, too.
"The good news is that camps are not going out of business," says Bussel. "The good news is that camps are holding their own. There's no other place in the world that's built just for children, a place to explore and learn, learn to make decisions as a group and on their own. These are tremendous life skills."
"Camp is always the antidote to the ills of home," says Van Slyck. "Scheduling, not giving the kids room to adjust. Then camps gives the kids the antidote."
Arin Greenwood is a lawyer and writer in Washington, D.C.
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