Our very own Seth Gibson ’67 received a lifetime achievement award from the Vermont Camps Association (VCA) at a recent ceremony. Seth has been working at Keewaydin Dunmore since 1967. During that first summer he and Abby Fenn led  one of the first Wilderness trips: Seven-weeks, 500-miles, 15 people, and seven canoes, or just plain heaven as Seth would probably describe it.

Seth continued to lead Wilderness trips until 1992 when, at age 56, he had gone on a total of 24 trips, accumulating 7,800 miles, largely in the northern reaches of Quebec and Ontario. That’s the equivalent of driving from NYC to LA, back to NYC and then back to LA! He served as coordinator and head driver of the Wilderness program from 1992 until 2012. Over the last 25 years he put in more than 125,000 miles for us at Keewaydin which would take you around the world five times.

Beyond his work with us at Keewaydin Seth has supported the VCA as a member and cheerleader of all that is good in camping and getting campers out into wild places. He has taken many trips in the offseason to visit friends he has made in Quebec and beyond throughout his many trips up north.

We always knew we were lucky to have Seth on our team here at Keewaydin. Thank you for the years of leadership and friendship! Congratulations!

Camp Songadeewin HSSS Form_Complex

While the summer camps don’t officially start until June, in early April staff start to arrive on the Songadeewin campus on Lake Dunmore in Salisbury, VT for the Keewaydin Environmental Education Center (KEEC). Many camp alumni may be surprised to learn that more than 600 public school children attend KEEC in the spring and the fall. Since its founding in 1973, an estimated 35,000 students have spent a week at KEEC learning about the local and natural history of the area surrounding Lake Dunmore.

About to start its 47^th year, KEEC operates for six weeks during each of the “shoulder” seasons of the summer camp. Tim Tadlock ’97 has been KEEC Director since 2006, and this spring Dara Aber-Ferri ’13 will return as the Assistant Director. Though many summer staff from Dunmore, Temagami, and Songadeewin have also worked at KEEC, the majority of the staff hired for KEEC are entirely new to Keewaydin.

This spring season at KEEC we are expecting 17 schools from Vermont and one from Massachusetts. Many of these schools and the teachers who work there have been attending KEEC annually for more than 15 years! In fact, the elementary schools from Chester and Cavendish VT have been coming to KEEC almost every year since 1973.

Just like the programming at camp, the main programming at KEEC has not changed much since its founding and still remains relevant to our daily lives. The average KEEC camper, aged 10 to 12, arrives at KEEC on Monday morning. Students jump off the bus, grab their gear, and move quickly into cabins located on the West side of the Songa campus. Shortly after, they are taken on a tour of the campus allowing them to become familiar with their surroundings. Then, that afternoon students spend two hours on the Communities Investigation, which takes them around campus and into the woods highlighting the theme of natural interdependence that is a central part of the curriculum. While involved in this introductory investigation, students learn about the Earth’s natural cycles such as the air cycle, the water cycle, the soil cycle, and the five basic needs of life. These topics provide a base of knowledge that is frequently referenced later in the week during other Investigations.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the campers participate in four more investigations, thematically centered around land use, local history, natural history, and human impact. These range from hikes on Burnt Mountain to discover how the glaciers carved out Mt. Moosalamoo, and Lake Dunmore, or an exploration along the Leicester River to discover clues about why dams and mills were built there during the past 300 years. Other investigations explore the lives of birds or plants surrounding camp, or how Keewaydin manages the surrounding forest.

Thursday is “Choice Day” in which the students get to choose what they would like to do for activities. This could be an all-day hike on Mt. Moosalamoo, a half day hike to Silver Lake, learning proper canoeing techniques on Lake Dunmore, learning to rock climb at our climbing wall or creating a mural to take back to school depicting the week spent at KEEC. They pack a lunch and spend the entire day outside. Thursday evening culminates with a campfire during which students perform their own skits about the natural cycles they have learned about during the week.

The benefits of KEEC continue beyond the investigations. Students are engaged in the learning process all day. In the evenings they enjoy the adventure of going on walks in the dark or engaging a mock town meeting. “Night Walks” help students explore their other senses beyond sight, and they learn about nocturnal creatures that do the same. The Town Meeting activity is a simulation of a real Vermont town meeting held annually to discuss town politics, and during this activity students are encouraged to get involved in their own community.

Even during mealtimes, the students are engaged in an awareness activity called Waste Watch. After each meal a KEEC staff weighs the food waste that is to be composted and posts the results on a graph. Throughout the week the students are encouraged to think about all of the energy that went in to getting the food on their plate, and what it means if they do not eat it. Table groups are then encouraged to discuss ways to reduce their waste during the meals and think about what other ways they can reduce their impact during their daily lives.

Many of the hallmarks of a typical Keewaydin camp experience exist at KEEC. Students rise with the gong at 7:30AM, have Inspection after breakfast, and we even have traditional Keewaydin style cookouts and campfires. But KEEC is more than just learning about our impact on the environment. Often, it is the first time that these 5^th and 6^th graders have been away from their parents, or lived communally with others. While at KEEC, each student is also assigned a job such as composting, weather reporting, dishwashing, or wood carrying. These activities help students understand how communities can function, and gives them a sense of individual responsibility.

On Friday morning the students play the Predator vs. Prey Survival Simulation Game. In this exciting capture-the-flag-like game of tag, the students assume the role of a particular member of the food chain and, while trying to meet their basic needs, are always on the lookout for other members higher up on the food chain. The game also serves as a capstone experience for the week as students are encouraged to think about how the lives of all organisms impact one another. Taking the time to think about how you impact the other organisms and environment around you is a primary goal at KEEC and one we are proud to promote.

If you would like to learn more about the KEEC program, or you know a school that would be interested in attending, please contact the KEEC director Tim Tadlock at (802)352-4247, or email Tim at [email protected].

Why The Kicker?

Summer 2015 Kicker Editor, Sam Besser ’15, wrote the following article for the opening Kicker Campfire in the summer of 2015.

By this point in the evening, many of you may have been lulled into a gentle stupor by the sound of Pete’s mellifluous voice coupled with words that, like a gentle rain, soothe the mind… until you realize all of your towels are still on the line.

Yes, we are nearing the end of tonight’s Kicker. Many of your thoughts are likely elsewhere, possibly puzzling over how the dining hall ran out of rice on stir fry night or wondering why Shawandasee looked so darn familiar. But as the fire starts to dim, let’s bring it back to why we’re here – the Kicker.

After some cursory research, I was surprised to discover that the Kicker, in some way shape or form, is about as old as Keewaydin itself. From 1910 there has been a tradition of sharing stories with the entirety of the camp, mostly reports, and tales from trips away from Dunmore. Where the name ‘The Kicker’ came from is unclear, but given that it’s older than the nation of Yugoslavia it probably comes from some old timey phrase like, “That story sure was a kicker!” or “I’m going to kicker you with this outlandish yarn!” In any case, it seems significant that formalized storytelling has always been a part of our Keewaydin culture.And why is that? What makes the Kicker so special, beyond the opportunity to have Pete recite comestible-themed

And why is that? What makes the Kicker so special, beyond the opportunity to have Pete recite comestible-themed haikus? Of course, it’s the stories.

From cave paintings and oral histories, to “Game of Thrones” and “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” (technically), storytelling has always been an integral part of the human phenomenon. I’m not about to get all academic and anthropological here, so to all you professors and teachers in the audience I confess my bibliography consists solely of hasty Wikipedia searches and the recesses of my own mind. From the former comes the following description of ‘storytelling’: Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, and images, often by improvisation or embellishment as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation, and instilling moral values. Now that’s pretty broad and the Kicker surely satisfies those conditions.

But storytelling, in my mind, goes even further than that. Stories are how we connect with each other. Think about it. All of the time you spend with friends you are either sharing thoughts and ideas, telling jokes, or trading stories. From the perfunctory “Bro, I busted this sick gainer the other day” to an in-depth recounting of your entirely wholesome and productive activities between the hours of 1:00-5:00 a.m. the previous night, we are all storytellers. In some ways, making a friend is the process of finding somebody whose stories you enjoy and who you are able to entertain and inspire with your own stories. And what is camp about if not making friends?

Another objective of storytelling is the creative expression. Whatever you may think of the stories, reports, and poems you’ve heard tonight, to write and publish these works took a good deal of courage, even from those who wrote under a pseudonym. All of us have at least a little creative spark in us, and for those who have tapped that spark to create a roaring fire of a finished work, we know there is little more satisfying than having someone come upon our blaze and say “Hot damn, that is one fine piece of combustion.” Indeed we cannot help but share our creative impulses with others whatever the outcome, and storytelling is a means to do just that. So admire the storyteller, if not the story.

And finally, getting a little heavier here, stories are a path to immortality. Even if we know the stories we tell may never be heard again, a part of us believes there is a chance that the adventures, experiences, ideas, and fantasies we are sharing will live on, possibly beyond even our own lifetimes. Sure, it’s doubtful that “This Week on Saranac Lake” will go down in the annals of human history, but that’s beside the point. By sharing our stories, our experiences, we allow our lives to grow and touch others. And maybe our stories will entertain, or educate, or enlighten, or maybe even help someone else through a difficult time. Whatever the case may be, in touching others with our stories we are enriching their lives, and that certainly satisfies the Keewaydin creed of “Help The Other Fellow”.

So, as the summer wears on and we revisit this campfire week after week if ever you find yourself thinking “Why the Kicker?”,  just remember the stories that we all need to tell. The stories we share, the stories we hold on to, and the stories that change our lives. That’s the Kicker.

By Big Chief Editor-In-Chief

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