I’ve only ever loved one place as much as I do my own home. This place is located off of Highway 60, near Huntsville, Ontario. A trek to get there from my house, roughly ten hours of driving, but it’s a trip my mom and I have made every summer since I was nine years old. Highway 60 is lined with dark green trees. The road is newly repaved and smooth, but my mom always tells me she remembers when it was full of potholes and cracks in the pavement.
My first summer at camp she questioned her choice to leave me at a summer camp she’d never been to ten hours away from home and her. As soon as we entered the gates of Algonquin Park, I began nervously unbuckling and rebuckling myself in the seat and rubbing the seat fabric with my shaking fingers. Since we always drove up on the same day, July 26, we saw the beauty of Algonquin Park as it changed every year. Sometimes it was blustery and rainy, sending leaves floating across the road and across our windshield and other days it was silent and calm, excluding the roar of our engine.
Once we got to the landing, my nervous and excited energy could not be capped. I would leap from the van and begin loading my bags into the first boat from camp I could find. The parking lot was familiarly muted in beige tones, accented by our van. Brown dust lingered in the air and swirled around the van’s tires. I stepped gingerly from the beige wooden dock into a small motorboat with the camp's name inscribed on the side of the green hull. I watched the landing become smaller and smaller as we motored away, water splashing onto my lap as we went. I watched the drops gather by my toes and threaten to wash over my flip flops. I looked up and all I could see were the wispy baby blonde hairs that framed my face flapping across my forehead in the wind.
Suddenly the crisp blue water was interrupted by a dark green peninsula and all my nervous energy dissipated. I was home. The canvas tents came into view perched and staggered on the hillside. The ground was made up of pine needles, sticks, and scattered with the roots of the trees that grew tall and dark against the sky. Each wooden step that led to a tent’s platform creaked and gave a little bounce and the wash dip buckets sitting upon each step were welcome tripping hazards.
The front docks were a blur of jumping girls and shrieks of joy all directed at us, the long awaited arrivals. Water was seeping through the cracks of the dock with every bounce the girls made, their weight sinking the once sturdy Swim Dock. I could see Canoe Dock, with twelve perfect hand crafted Jim Spencer canoes lying on it, hull up.
I couldn’t wait for the next day, when I could put one in the water and paddle away around the islands, with straight arms and squinting eyes watching the whirlpools my paddle left behind. The air smelled like balsam and Mac and Cheese and I saw the smoke coming out of the kitchen where lunch was being prepared. I shouldered my duffel and walked down the tentline, towards my tent where my campers were waiting for me, being careful not to slip on the pine needles or moss.
I’ve spent the past decade of my life swimming in the waters of Algonquin's lakes and singing songs around the campfire under the stars. Being a part of that camp community has shaped me into the woman I am today, more than anything else. I found my sense of self while walking isolated portages in the depths of the park and discovered a deep resilience and strength that I never knew I had, when I carried my first canoe. Some of the best friendships I have are with people I’ve met somewhere along the way of my ten-year camp journey. I know those relationships will keep growing and developing like the trees that line the shore of the clear blue lakes and grow wild in the forests along our paths.
