Why would you go to summer camp in Rosebud?

or a city kid meets small community life

Please read post about first camp at Rosebud for background

The contrast was startling. I'd been forced to spend a week at a church summer camp the year before. It was okay, typical camp stuff - couple hundred kids broken up into cabins to group them for activities - large group activities such as singsongs and sports intramurals - waterfront playtime - simplistic crafts - cabin leaders who directed but never really talked to you and were more interested in other peers. Shy, dorky me was lost in the never ending round of activities and noise.

After that first memorable weekend camp in the Rosebud General Store, I jumped at going to camp that first summer (1973) at Rosebud. My dad and I even went out one late May weekend to help clean up the place so that it was fit for 40 or so campers and counsellors to stay at each week. My mom and other parents from the church youth group donated all they could of household items such as curtains, rugs, furniture and kitchen dishes and utensils. I don't envy the organisers sorting through all the stuff but I'm sure it saved a pile of start-up money. It made it kind of homey and fit the countrystyle surroundings.

We travelled to camp in small vans, parent's or counsellor's vehicles over the gravel road from Calgary and all over Alberta. Many of the first campers were young people from a large youth group that had grown from LaVerne Erickson and friends working with teens in the trailer court he lived at along with other youth that he and other young teachers met while substituting. So I automatically knew a few faces and I remember dragging a friend or two along. The range of the campers was from about age 12 to 16 and the counsellors were about 17 - 27 years old. Many of them were young professionals or in post-secondary education. That first summer the cooks were older women that volunteered their time from Calgary or Camrose.

What a different experience! We got there and everything was free form. We negotiated activities from ones the counsellors presented and we were also free to suggest a few of our own. The only thing set was campfire with singing and sharing time. That first year, to make sure it was dark enough at campfire we even set time back an hour for our very own Rosebud time zone. In the mornings after breakfast(getting up an hour later, of course) we could choose real arts and crafts and do them for a few hours so that you could learn how to do pottery, weaving, drawing, welding and so on. Not that I created anything too special but the teachers actually were skilled at these things and I learned a lot from their experience and example. Early afternoons were either rest/travel time (if it was too hot or the activity was farther away) and then we did sports. I fell in love with canoeing so that's what I really remember but we did other things like "Capture the Flag" down in Horseshoe Canyon, visit local landmarks such as museums, swam in the river and hiked in the valley.

Meals with 40 or so people in one smaller room, dishes and other chores like cleaning outhouse and washing floors etc. were no piece of cake. However everybody did everything - the counsellors did the chores right along with you and if dishes took an hour (no dishwasher so they often did) then it became a socializing event. If it got too crowded and noisy - there was plenty of open space and the prairie landscape and skyline was spectacular. I remember always improvising with what was at hand to make things fun - pancakes pink and green with food colouring and going to the local dump for materials to weld. LaVerne teasing that if we didn't eat all the porridge served in the morning that we'd have it fried for lunch the next day - sure enough we did. Sunnyboy (a multi-grain cereal) actually doesn't taste too bad this way and we ate it because he and the rest of the counsellors did.

Guess what? I phoned home after the first week and came back to help in the kitchen for three more weeks that summer. I was hooked. More to come.