Well, I suppose I should say something
about the 6 weeks of vacation I just had. Here's an outline, so you
don't get confused: On June 24, I flew to Minneapolis where my aunt
lives for a day, and the next day went off on the long bus ride to
Bemidji. There, I spent 4 weeks at French camp, canoeing through the
Voyageur National Park and the BWCA (Boundary Waters Canoe Area).
After camp, I went home with my dear friend Solange, who lives at
Hackensack, the neighboring French camp to our Voyageur. (Except by
the time we got there, it was second session and had become Italian
camp.) I stayed with her and her wonderfully hospitable family for 3
days, until my parents picked me up in the Cessna and we continued on
to Wisconsin. We stayed at my aunt and uncle's cabin on Lake Wyandock
for one week – just like we've done every summer since I was old
enough to not drown (maybe 4 years old). Then, on the return journey,
we stayed 2 days in Boulder, Colorado, where a good friend of my dad
lives. He was in Atlanta on business, but let us stay in his house
while I checked out the University of Colorado, Boulder. We returned
home from all that on August 2nd.
As you can see, I've been busy. Now
that you have a handy-dandy outline, I'll do my best to flesh it out
a little.
French camp is incredibly hard to
describe. I think (I hope) most people experience something like it
at least once in their lives, be it summer camp, band, theatre, any
really good group of people working for a common cause. Voyageur has
really become my family. Even though there are new people every year
and some people don't return for a 2nd (or 3rd,
or 4th) year, it just becomes a nebulous and flexible
family. I spend the other 11 months of the year feeling homesick for
camp, and then one blissful month where my only complaint is the
number of mosquitoes and the fact that all the tents are broken.
Imagine loving something so much, and then trying to describe it to
your friends back home, who have no frame of reference for it. It's
tough.
We spend the first week at base camp,
learning how not to die in the woods. We learn how to canoe, make
fires, pitch tents, use the camping stove, pee in the woods, and sing
Voyageur songs. This is my third year at camp, and I'm sort of a
hardcore camping fiend, so I spent a lot of this time hanging out
with my new idol, a counselor named Paul. He likes fixing things, and
is actually a genius at it. You don't need to be a genius to fix
things, but if you saw how creatively and effectively Paul does it,
you would agree with me. Anyway, base camp is pretty dilapidated in
parts, because no one ever has the time to fix it, and I'm pretty
sure we're the only CLV camp without a handyman/janitor/fix-it sort
of guy on staff. (CLV is Concordia Language Villages, that runs 15 or
so different language camps including Voyageur, where I go, and
Hackensack, where Solange lives.) So I followed Paul around during
week #1 and fixed things. I've never had more fun during a week 1 of
Voyageur, which I usually think of as the Boring Week.
We also do lots of team bonding,
usually the last few days of week 1. It's very important to be good
friends with your brigade and to trust each other, because in the
woods, you put your life in your friends' hands. If your friends are
stupid or thoughtless campers, there are thousands of accidents I
could think of just waiting to happen. My brigade was called
Montreal, and it was probably the best brigade I've ever had. We were
all there for 4 weeks, not 2. We were small – 6 campers and 4
counselors. (If you are surprised at the high ratio, remember that we
spend all this time in the woods and it is far more dangerous than
most summer camps.) For the first time I've seen, we had an even
gender ratio – I've been in 2 brigades in previous years that were
all girls, and that is way too much estrogen for me. And no one was
there who thought they were going to Princess camp, our neighboring
French camp across the lake where they live in châteaux
and wear dresses and make-up every day. We always get a few of those,
and it's tough for them to get used to Voyageur. Three of us were in
our third year, and the other three had no difficulties acclimating
to the woods. It was amazing. I started to realize during the last
one or two days of week 1 that we were all in for something special.
Week 2 is spent in the Voyageur
National Park. This was my 4th time in the VNP, because
last year we also spent weeks 3 and 4 in the VNP due to not having
enough counselors to split us into two groups, and therefore being
too large a group to be allowed in the BWCA. So many of the lakes and
islands we passed were familiar to me, and brought back a lot of
really good memories. I can't really go into a whole lot of detail as
to what we did without typing up my whole 61 page packet of letters I
sent home to my family, describing every single campsite and the
exciting events of each day, but I can describe a typical day.
We usually wake up quite early,
somewhere around 5:00am. In previous years this hasn't always been
the case, mostly because I've always been with a fantastic counselor
named Louis who really likes sleeping. But this year Louis didn't
show up because he got kidnapped by pirates (or decided to become a
paramedic, but I like my story better). So we got up early, packed up
the camp in 30 minutes to an hour, canoed for another 30 minutes to
an hour, ate breakfast on some rock sticking out of the lake, or in
the canoes, or on shore, or wherever. Then we canoe until around
lunch-time, when we find a campsite, pitch the tents and a tarp, and
eat lunch. Then we usually took a siesta during the hottest hour of
the day, went swimming afterward, and had the last hours of daylight
to make dinner, work on projects and homework (since 4 weeks of
French camp is technically a year's worth of high school, we have
lots of homework), and write letters. We'd eat dinner watching the
sunset, which is glorious without exception in the North Woods. Then
we'd run into our tents for the night to escape the mosquitoes, and
my tentmates and I would discuss philosophical subjects for several
hours while the counselors yelled at us every 30 minutes to be quiet
and go to sleep. They have a theory that I never sleep, because I'm
always the first one up in the mornings AND stay up all night talking
with Solange about philosophy. Jean-Luc has a suspicious theory that
I secretly have an alarm, because I couldn't possibly be waking up so
early on my own. Teehee. The real secret is just that I sleep
incredibly well in tents, especially with all the sunlight and
exercise we get. At home, I need almost as much sleep as a normal
person, but in the woods 6 hours is more than enough.
Last night in the VNP, at Lake Mukooda. The sunsets are always like this:
That's how week 1 went. It was
magnificent. We came back to base camp and bid a tearful goodbye to
the 2-weekers (but they were all in the other brigade, so my group
wasn't too teary). Then we had International Day, known as I-Day, a
phenomenon that I've heard lots about but never went to because we
were always in the BWCA. This year they changed the schedules, so we
got to go. It's where all of the Concordia Language Villages get
together at Waldsee (German camp) and, well, celebrate our
international-ness. There's games and songs and food and lots of
people wandering around speaking different languages. This year,
unfortunately, we had the “rain plan” version, because the other
camps are under the impression that villagers will melt in the rain.
This meant that we went to Princess camp instead, along with 2 or 3
other camps – so that if it started raining, everyone could fit
inside. There were other mini I-Days at Waldsee and Norwegian camp, I
think. It was interesting and had some very good moments, like when
we realized we'd forgotten to make a Voyageur flag, so Michel ran up
onstage holding a rain jacket as our flag. It also had a few moments
that I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at: Michel, Ousman and I
had a conversation with a few princesses from Spanish camp that went
roughly like this:
Princesses: “Hey, are you guys
Voyageurs? Do you really not shower for a whole month?”
Us: “Yup, it's true. But we swim in
the lake.”
Princesses: “Eeeewww. That's GROSS.
Do you guys really eat squirrels?”
Us: “Yup. Well, not only squirrels.
But they certainly supplement our diet.” (There's a rumour that
Voyaguers all hunt and eat squirrels, and we do our best to keep this
rumour going. This year I tried to make it true, but squirrels are
fast and really hard to catch!)
Princesses: “REALLY?”
Us: “Yeah. Actually, see these
leather nametags we have? That's squirrel skin.”
Princesses: “...Are you just pulling
my leg?”
Us: “No, really.”
Princesses: “...Yeah right. Liars.”
So it kind of made me happy because
they were SO naïve and princess-y, and it kind of made me sad
because after they decided we were lying to them, they didn't believe
ANYTHING we'd told them about our lifestyle, and most of it had been
true. It also made me sad because they were just so catty and mean,
which is unfortunately how a lot of people are in real life, but not
at Voyageur. At Voyageur I try to forget about real life, which is
pretty cool most of the time but not as awesome as camp at all, and
they were a sad reminder of the sort of person from real life that I
try not to associate with.
But my favorite part about I-Day,
besides Michel's rain jacket flag and seeing Louis, the counselor who
got kidnapped by pirates, was the closing ceremony. We all walked to
Waldsee for a big closing ceremony with all the camps, because
Minnesota is weird and had decided not to rain all day. Each camp had
a presentation on the theme of “Live together, Speak together.”
The Voyageurs are famous for having bizarre presentations that leave
people talking about it far longer than any of the well-rehearsed
dances from other camps. It's also a tradition to come up with it 5
minutes before performing, but this year we actually rehearsed it
three times the day before.
Dahveed, the dean, came up on the
circular stage with a giant frying pan, hit it three times with a
metal pole, and yelled “VOYAGEURS!” The Voyageurs, hidden all
around the circle of listeners, yelled it back to him. He then yelled
“A L'ATTAQUE!”, we yelled it back, and ran up on stage. We began
to sing a chaos of 3 different songs, stopped, yelled at each other,
began again with 2 different songs, stopped, and began fighting each
other with fists and large styrofoam swords. Then four “demons”
dressed in black covered the mob with a giant tarp, and Bras-Forts
(with HATE and IGNORANCE written on his back in duct tape) came out
to the theme of Darth Vader, and said something along the lines of
“bwahaha, I've won!” Then tiny, cute Aicha came out all dressed
in tie-dye. She handed flowers to the demons and started a chant:
“Vivez ensemble, Parlez ensemble,” which means “live together,
speak together.” So all of us came out from under the tarp, wrapped
Bras-Forts in it, and carried him offstage, dancing to some catchy
Quebecois rap. Everyone loved it, even if they didn't really
understand it.
After I-Day, we had “credit weekend,”
where we go into town and get to buy new supplies – say, for
example, if you were like me in my first year and brought a rain
jacket that wasn't actually waterproof, you could buy a new one at
Gander Mountain. Minnesota is an odd place – it can be blazing hot,
and then some clouds roll in and it pours buckets of rain for several
hours (while still being fairly hot, temperature-wise) and then
suddenly disappears and the sun comes out. That is a very normal day
in Minnesota. Anyway, so credit weekend was fun. We all bought
“Gander bands” at Gander Mountain, like Silly Bandz but with
animals. I had a deer and a Jean-Luc-osaurus that was probably
supposed to be an eagle. We terrified the customers at Target and
then ate at a Chinese Super Buffet where we met a really funny man
who recognized us from I-Day.
Finally we left for the “immense
voyage.” 7 hour drive up to Canada. Voyageurs have the best road
trips ever. We spend all 7 hours listening to catchy French, African,
Cajun, or Quebecois music, usually singing along. In Canada, we
visited Old Fort William for two days, which is a recreation of a fur
trading fort. The first day we took a tour and wandered around the
fort, seeing what there is to see. Everyone was supposed to do a
historical project on something at the fort, be it the canoe-makers
(which I did two years ago), a historical figure like cartographer
David Thompson (which I did last year), or the doctor, the Ojibwe
women, the tin-smith, the farmers, etc. I don't actually need school
credit, I just do camp for fun, so I wasn't stressed out about doing
the project or not and didn't even choose a subject the first day,
preferring instead to wander the fort and talk with all the
interesting people who work there.
At Old Fort William, there are certain events that repeat every day, because they relive the same day in June, 1815. Every day there's the arrest of the blacksmith, Alexander Fraser, and also a "fire" in the square that we helped put out with this big old-fashioned firetruck:
Day 2 is spent in the private Fort
William library, which is not open to the public except if you pay
them. I LOVE this library because I'm a complete history nerd. It is
chock-full of original sources. You can read actual diaries of
important men in the fur trade, letters they wrote, etc. I made a
beeline for the “Bio files” which are kept on hand to educate the
staff of Old Fort William. If you are assigned to be Alexander Fraser
for a day, you'll go to the library and read the bio file on
Alexander Fraser so you'll know who you are, how to act, and what
background to fill in if the tourists ask you personal questions. I
researched Lord Selkirk and the Red River scandal, which was a
fascinating part of the war between the two big fur trade companies,
the Compagnie de la Nord-Ouest and the Hudson Bay Company. I'm such a
nerd. I could live in that library.
After visiting the fort, we drove back
down to the BWCA, where we spent the remainder of the second two
weeks. Picture a daily schedule roughly like that of week 2, except
the days were often longer, sometimes canoeing for 7 or 8 hours a
day. We also added portages: we didn't do a single portage during
week 2, but we averaged about 4 portages a DAY while we were in the
BWCA, because we took a route that led through the interior lakes,
which is beautiful and isolated and you'll never see another canoe
group, but is sort of a pain in the shoulders (literally) to get to.
For the first time I learned to portage a canoe by myself, and did so
for almost every portage. The canoes we have, let me add, are the
oldest and heaviest type of alumacraft imaginable. They're about 80
lbs. per canoe. Woohoo!
My brigade for this second two weeks
was called Les Hipster Canards (the Hipster Ducks), and we were
almost the same as Montreal except we lost two boys, added one girl,
and lost two counselors. It was a lot of fun, and we were also a very
tight group. We played lots of aqua-Ultimate (frisbee in the lake!)
and loved to climb trees and big rocks. Fortunately we stayed pretty
close to the other group, Les Barbes de Plusiers Jours (the Stubble)
and met with them often to hang out during the day, since we were all
good friends at this point.
It passed too quickly, as always. I
don't want to write about all our farewell rituals, because I'm still
in denial that I've ever left. So soon I was with Solange at
Hackensack, where her grandparents own the land and rent it to
Concordia, and her dad is the handyman. I helped her and her family
with the daily bathroom cleanings, the recycling, and the brush
clearing. It was really fun, and I envy Solange for having grown up
at a camp with so many things to do every day. Soon my parents came
and stayed for a day with us at Hackensack in one of the guest
cabins. They came unannounced, as my father is prone to
overestimating the time it takes to get anywhere, so fortunately for
them, Solange's family was flexible and welcoming. The last morning
at Hackensack, Solange and I made pancakes over a campfire just
because we missed cooking over a fire.
The week in Wisconsin was relaxing and
lovely. My aunt is a terrific cook, so we always eat like kings, and
though my cousins did not make it up, my uncle came just for a
weekend, so it was nice to catch up with family. Every day went
roughly like this: wake up, spend the morning reading (I got through
Catch-22, A Spell for Chameleon, Almost French, and Catcher in the
Rye during just that week), go running around 11 for 5 miles with my
dad, come back and swim across the lake and back, eat lunch, and
spend the rest of the day swimming, learning to windsurf, cooking,
canoeing, or reading. I was very active and got to keep my canoe
muscles for a little while longer, but nothing was required or
stressful. It was really a vacation for my brain, which didn't have
to do anything the entire week.
Then came the CU Boulder visit. I'm not
going to do a whole long write-up about it like I did for the other
colleges, mostly because this post is already far too long. But I
will just say that it's a beautiful place to live, very active and
intense, where everyone goes skiing and mountain-climbing on the
weekends and bikes everywhere in town. The college is a good school
with lots of options – the sort of thing I'm looking for. The
campus is beautiful. I was impressed, but didn't fall in love with it
like I did with Madison, Seattle, and McGill. I think my biggest
problem was just that, coming from the North Woods, I couldn't
possibly imagine living in a place with so little green. It's just
too desert-ish. But it's a good safety school for me, and I wouldn't
mind going there at all. However, I'll probably apply early to
Madison and possibly Seattle and see what happens. I'm too lazy to
apply everywhere, especially since I already think I know where I
want to go.
Well, that just about covers it. My 6
weeks away from home. It's actually the longest period of time I've
ever been away from home, even though I've been doing 4 weeks away
just about every summer for 7 years or so. Now I have a month at home
before a much longer vacation, and so far I've been using every day
to prepare. Getting all my paperwork in order, insurance, bank card,
getting a new computer, figuring out what to pack, etc. etc. Turns
out, moving abroad isn't very easy. But I'll be a pro after this.
No comments:
Post a Comment