Survival of the Funnest

Nov 20

After the Center closed out the season with Oktoberfest, my work focus shifted from people-centric work (like working with the sculling camps and putting some hours in at the Hosmer Point Camp kitchen) towards longer-term projects, mostly outdoor work. We’ve been working on projects to help the Center run smoothly–trail maintenance, garden harvest and clean-up, odd jobs for the new building–as well as project thats enhance guests’ experiences, like redecorating the cabins and rooms.

With all of this quieter work, it’s nice to mix it up with some guaranteed energetic hours: working with kids! Some of my favorite work is helping out with after-school programs like Wonder and Wisdom, a group from Greensboro that comes to Hosmer Point camp a few times per season.

This fall’s theme is outdoor survival. Each time they come to camp, the kids (and I) will learn an essential skill to surviving and thriving in the woods. Last Wednesday was really cold, cloudy, and a perfect day to curl up in front of a fire with a mug of hot cocoa. Instead, Jon (Hosmer Point Director) taught us how to make shelters using felled trees, sticks, and leaves.

Phil’s team took off first with an intra-team competition to see who could find the biggest sticks. Kyle’s group got straight to work finding and breaking sticks for the walls; my team chose a felled tree low to the ground for a low-profile design. Important considerations for our shelter were making sure it “blends in so the bears don’t get us” and outfitting the inside with leaf pillows to “make sure it has good comfortableness.”

Once we finished the log framework, the kids put on a layer of leaf insulation and we crawled inside to test it. Before we started, I envisioned building a haphazard pile of sticks and stretching semantics to call it a shelter, but as usual, I was happily surprised by the kids’ focus and creativity. We fit three kids and myself inside our stick/leaf igloo, warmed up pretty quickly and started telling scary stories. I’d spend a night in there! Hope my housemates don’t read this…