A 3 hour tour

Well… it wasn’t really a three-hour tour, and we certainly didn’t get marooned on an island together, but on Monday evening, the Pontoon Boat was scheduled for a sunset cruise on Ahmic Lake.

Lynn took some time asking questions and getting information about some of the legends and sights on the lake, and planned a sunset cruise that Family Campers could sign up for and head out on.  Monday evening, although it had filled up quickly, only two people ended up able to go (maybe because earlier in the day the weather had not looked promising).  That opened the door for some of our staff to go who were there when Lynn found out that she was only taking two people on her cruise!

Sandy Martin (our head of hospitality), Natalie White (our program team leader), and I all hopped on the boat with Simon and Lori Miller, and set out on an adventure!

Lynn toured us around, showed us a few points of interest, and taught us things about the lake that I didn’t know!  I was really glad that I got this opportunity, because not only did I learn things, and get some spectacular sunset shots from the point where the Magnetawan River meets Ahmic Lake, but I got to get to know Simon and Lori a bit better as well, and isn’t that what Family Camp is all about?  Getting to know the people we spend our weeks with a bit better every time we come?  At least, that’s what I love about it. 

I really enjoyed the whole evening, and so I thought I’d share my sunset pictures with you!  If you’re a week 4 camper and you’re not here yet, perhaps these pictures will inspire you to keep an eye out on the lodge porch for the sign up sheet for the sunset cruise.

It’s Worth the Drive ~ a Kahquah Road Trip

How far would you drive for a great family vacation to spend it with people you love?  Would you pack up your RV and drive across the middle of this great, big country?

We have a family here who’s done just that.

This week, dear friends of Frank ~ our director ~ have spent two weeks on the road getting here to spend a week camping in rural Northern Ontario.  Frank’s friends Otto and Jamie, along with their two kids Sydney (5) and Benjamin (3) made the trek.  Jamie drove across the country with the kids while Otto flew out and was picked up in North Bay on Friday.  They’re here to reconnect, relax, and enjoy the sights our country has to offer.  They’ll all drive back together.

This just goes to show that family definitely can run deeper than blood, just like I mentioned when I shared the 5-Generation-Mater story.  You can be with people who are such close friends that you consider them family, and even when you don’t see them that often, it’s like you were never apart.

In fact, we here at Kahquah have Otto to thank for having Frank as our director at all.  Frank credits his jump into Christian Camp ministry to God of course, but also to Otto, who asked Frank to go guest-teach for the CREW program at Camp Chestermere just outside of Calgary 23 years ago.  Jamie was the office manager at Chestermere for 10 years while Frank served as director there, and now even though they’re in very different places in life, they’re still good friends.

On Saturday after dinner, before the deluge of rain that was forecast for Sunday and into today, we took Otto and Jamie and the kids on a pontoon boat sunset cruise into Magnetawan for ice cream at the Snack Shack — a quintessential Magnetawan activity.  We walked out onto the lock and taught Sydney and Benjamin how a lock works (whether they understand or not being a different question, but they seemed interested).

Frank also gets to enjoy “Grandpa moments” for the week, even though he has no grandkids of his own yet, as he got to walk hand in hand down the streets of Downtown Magnetawan with Benjamin and Sydney, and this morning Benjamin coloured a picture and gave it to him.

Family isn’t just reserved for blood relations.  Some family you get to choose.  How far would you drive to spend time with dear friends?

The Chicken Wing Song

Last night was the Kahquah Cafe, which is always a highlight of each week of Family Camp for me, especially now that Paul and Heather Martin are back on site.  Paul smokes ribs and deep fries his breaded chicken wings, all in his own home made barbecue sauce (which we sell in the tuck shop, by the way 😉 ).  It’s been a few years, but while he does so, Paul and Jim Lambert, along with anyone who likes to sing or play to some old Bluegrass hymns comes around the picnic table behind the entrance to the kitchen and just jams.

For years, I’d watched this and either sang along, or sat and wished that I could join in.  This year, my fiddling skills were finally to a point where I could play along with everything they played, and I was SO thrilled to be able to be a part of this fun!  Bluegrass is my favourite way to do hymns, after all 🙂

I’m not the only one who has longed to participate in this Kahquah tradition.  Hannah Robertson, daughter to Paul and Heather Robertson, has been a camper for years, listening to the jam session that goes on out behind the kitchen door on Cafe night, and has wanted to be a part of it as well.  She learned to play the guitar this year, and has been practicing I’ll Fly Away, but hadn’t quite figured out the strumming pattern yet.  She couldn’t remember what the song was even called to ask for help, so she told her Mom “I need help with the strumming on The Chicken Wing Song, do you think you could ask Jim if he would show me?”  Of course, we needed to know what the chicken wing song was…. but you see, because Hannah is of a generation that is less familiar with old hymns, the only place she’s really heard them is at Camp.  She’s heard I’ll Fly Away being belted from behind the kitchen for several years, and wanted to join in.  While Paul’s making chicken wings, that’s her association.

I am pleased to announce that yesterday evening, Hannah Robertson joined a group of us jamming behind the kitchen, and was able to take part in something that she’s wanted to for a long time.  Jim played the Banjo, I played the fiddle, Hannah played the guitar, Justin played the guitar, and Ian, one of our volunteers from Port BIC who’s been working tirelessly on the chalets, played the bass.  Nancy, Jim, Paul, and many other voices all joined in.  It was a beautiful sound!  We’ll welcome Hannah back in with open arms next year to play with us again, and maybe with another year under her belt she can jam with us the whole time!  That’s how I made it in!

Toward the end of the jam session, Blain Mater, Shari Mater, and Tim Hershberger came and joined in on the fun, and the vocals were awesome!  I had goosebumps!  Walter Brillinger watched and recorded while he sang, and Ivan Winger lent his voice at times as well.

I have a sweet video of Ivan shaking a bucket of wings to coat them in sauce while Jim and Paul played and belted “Shake it up baby now” (that Twist and Shout song)….. but because Camp’s Internet bandwidth is both extremely limited and unbelievably slow, I’ll have to upload them when I’m in Huntsville or Parry Sound next, and then I’ll post them and link back to this post to remind you 🙂  For now, just the couple pictures I took will have to do.  The videos are better, but alas, my hands are tied.  I’m also including a picture of Sarah and Jared Long, and Cameron Lofthouse singing a song during the Open Mic part of the Cafe night.  I think it’s so great to see how far Jared especially has come in the last few years, and it’s awesome to see so many of our young staff using their musical talent to glorify God.

Throw Back Thursday

#TBT to many years ago when Camp Kahquah was a pretty new thing, and kids could come to teen camp for $14.00.  Would you take a walk through time with me?  Come back to a time when Birchmere was the only accommodation outside of the lodge or a campsite you could rent, and kids camps had boys and girls split up.

Last week, our fearless office assistant, Brookyln Lester, decided to tackle cleaning and organizing the outer office so that she could see her desk, left neglected in the last year or so, and so that she could focus.  While she was cleaning, she found an album of old pictures that appear to be from the very beginning construction work on the Camp site, some old brochures from the 60s and 70s, and an invitation to the 25th anniversary dinner in 1987 (written partially by my Grandmother, Elaine Winger, so that was fun for me to find!).  I remember the 50th Anniversary Dinner held at Crossroads in Burlington with an “I love to tell the story” focus.  It was great!

I’ve taken pictures of all of it.  Sorry that not all of it is great quality, because a picture of a picture isn’t always awesome, but I sure enjoyed this stroll down memory lane, and I hope you will too.  For me, it’s less down memory lane as it is history, because I wasn’t around for a lot of it, but I find the history of Camp VERY cool.

If you’re ever up here and in the Tuck Shop, you’ll find a book called The Chronicles of Kahquah, which was written by Harvey Sider for the 50th anniversary in 2012.  We sell them here, so if you’re as fascinated by Kahquah’s history as I am, you may want to pick one up!

Who knows, maybe I’ll write the 75th anniversary book 😉  …. but I make no promises.

Here are the pictures of all the things Brooklyn found buried in a desk drawer.

All in the Family

Well it’s Family Camp.  I told you earlier that I wasn’t going to write a blog unless I had something story-like to share with you, and I have something!  So here we are.

Yesterday, while I was swimming for endless hours on my day off (the lake is unbelievable.  If you’re not here, why not??), Ashley Veenstra came boating alongside me in an inflatable boat and asked if I had anyone give me stories yet.  Truth be told, the answer is no, I hadn’t yet.  But she suggested “do you know anyone else whose family has been represented here across 5 generations?”

No, we couldn’t think of anyone who could say that!

In 1961, Merle Mater along with a group of several other men came up to the site to walk around and see if this would be a valuable property purchase for the Brethren In Christ Church as a retreat and conference centre.  They were looking for a Camp.  We still have the snow shoes that Merle walked the property in, and they’re hanging on the wall in the dining hall!

Now, 54 years later, we have a large Mater clan here who still camps faithfully every year during Family Camp.  And they’ve been coming this whole time.  I can remember in my years as a kids’ camper having Uncle Merle as a bus driver, and not just because we call everyone Uncle and Aunt at Camp, but because Uncle Merle is my Great Uncle.  (Laura Winger writing)

My side of that family tree is close to having 5 generations, but because neither my brother nor I have any kids, we’re sitting at 4 for now.

On site this week, we have Brian and Shari Mater, their daughter Heidi (their son Dustin is not here), Blain and Jackie Mater and their three kids:  Brendan, Ashley, and Jocelyn.  Ashley’s husband Jon is here with them as well, with their two kids Landon and Madison.  Brendan’s wife Sarah is not here, but two of their three children, Bianca and Audrey are here with him.  Jocelyn’s boyfriend Taylor is here as well.

We can boast other families who have multiple generations who come to camp as well, probably too many to name.  I think it’s really neat though that as descendants of one of the original men to walk the property, camp is still an important part of the lives of the Mater family.  It’s been a real blessing for me this week to hear Blain and Brian’s bass voices ringing out during worship in the Chapel, and Ashley has been on the worship team this week along with Jim Lambert and Ashley Cunningham.  On Monday morning, Ashley Cunningham recorded them singing “Lord I Need You” and made a video of it, accompanied by pictures from all over Camp, then posted it to Facebook.  In it you can hear not only their voices leading, but also those of everyone joining in.

Here’s a picture of the CK 2015 Mater clan, in front of the snow shoes Merle Mater walked the property on in 1961.

The thing I love about Family Camp is though, that it doesn’t matter whether your family has been here for 5 generations, or whether you are the first generation of your family to start to come here, everyone is welcome and, I think, feels that ‘family’ feel.  My favourite part of Family Camp is getting to see the ‘family’ that I wouldn’t see anywhere else, even though they aren’t related to me.  I’ve gotten to know so many of you in my years as a camper and then as staff, that I can honestly say the people at Camp are like a second family to me.  And for that, it doesn’t matter how many generations we span, because we’re all family in Christ.