By: Hannah Metzner In just a few days, the campers will head home, staff will pack up camp, and Birch Trail will become quiet again. I hope your daughter comes home with stories. Stories about the canoe trip that got rained on, the friendship that started on the first day, the project she was proud of, the campfire songs she’ll still be singing in the car, and the moments that made her laugh until her stomach hurt. Those stories are part of camp. But they aren’t the most valuable thing she’s bringing home. Before becoming an Assistant Director at Birch
by Beebs & Todd We want to talk to you about something serious. And that something is playfulness. After Color Wars ended, we found ourselves talking about the exact same thing. Not about who won. Not about the competition. Not even about the events themselves. We kept coming back to one question: Why does one of the most competitive days of the summer also seem to be one of the most joyful? If you’ve never experienced Birch Trail Color Wars, that might sound surprising. For two days, “normal” camp stops. The entire camp, staff included, is divided into five
A few days into the second session, I stopped by a cabin where none of the girls knew each other before camp started. One camper was teaching another how to finger knit. The two of them were just sitting on their bunks, quietly hanging out. Then the counselor pulled up a seat and asked if she could learn too. Then another camper joined. Then another. Within a few minutes, the whole cabin was tangled up in yarn, making the funniest creations and laughing so hard I could hear them from outside. Nobody assigned that. Nobody scheduled it. By the time
Something I have been thinking about a lot this summer is decision-making. Tonight, as I watched our first session TM campers give their speeches at the TM Council Fire, I was struck by how related my preoccupation with decisions were with their reflections on their time as campers. Every single day at Birch Trail, your daughter is making decisions. How will she contribute to this community? What does she need from it? Who does she want to be in it? And unlike a lot of places in her life right now, those decisions are genuinely hers to make. At home,
Tonight’s evening program is what we call “Puttin on the Hits” If you don’t know what that is yet, you will soon. It’s one of our evening programs where cabins put together a dance and perform it for the entire camp. The lodge deck is packed. The music is loud. There are costumes that make absolutely no sense. Someone is using a hairbrush as a microphone. It is chaotic, ridiculous, and one of the highlights of the summer. It’s also one of those nights where, almost every year, someone’s feelings get hurt. Not because anyone is trying to be mean.
There’s something that happens at camp after just three sleeps. The nervous energy of arrival day starts to quiet, and makes room for the joyous energy that fills the camp. You can feel it in the Lodge during cheers, the ski docks when encouraging friends, and the giggles that can be heard in the villages in the evenings before bed. The unfamiliar becomes familiar. And somewhere between the first night and the third morning, kids stop arriving at camp and start living there. I’ve been watching it happen all week, and I’ll be honest with you: I’ve been doing a
I’ve been at camp for the majority of my life and have been running Birch Trail for the past 25 summers. Yet, there are still days where the things that we do at camp amaze me. Today was one of those days. I was at the waterfront taking the new drone (I crashed the old drone into a tree) out for a test flight. We had 16 sailboats on the lake and it was incredible. In each boat, campers were sailing. We are now two weeks into the session so all the campers in the class know how to sail
Hello from camp. New this session we are going to get a number of perspectives from camp. This is blog is from one of our wonderful staff members. I hope you enjoy her blog. Get your white t-shirts out cause it’s Biffer time! One of Birch Trail’s most popular evening programs could not come soon enough. Campers sprint back to their cabins to change into their swimsuits and white t-shirts to be back in no time for biffer! Campers ran around the air strip attempting to complete as many missions as possible to earn tally marks! The more tally marks
Our second session at camp has been incredible so far. Campers are making new friendships, trying new activities and having so much fun. We wanted to try and new spin on things this session and we are going to have some guest blog posts. The first is from a camper named Natalia. Birch Trail There have been many instances when I have lost track of time and felt uplifted. I often ask myself why. I lose track of time at Birch Trail, the sleepaway camp I go to each summer. I started going to sleepaway camp when I was
Last night’s evening program was so much fun (and not just because M-2 asked me to be a surprise guest in their dance). At Birch Trail, fun is everywhere, but it’s not even close to the most important part of our program. Growth and practice are what makes an evening program great. For this evening program, each cabin choses a song, choses a costume and then creates a dance routine. The campers came up with amazing dances, and there is always positive encouragement and wild applause. What really mattered though, was what happened before the dancing. That was the preparation
