Summer Camp Changed My Life

I was running from the cabin to the outhouse in my pyjamas.

I was about 8 years old. Maybe 7. I remember the sharp feeling of the twigs and roots on my feet. Who knows why I didn't put on shoes, but such is the remarkable experience of summer camp as a child. Everything leaves you pretty much in awe, as if you are living for the first time.

Granted, some children hate it and go home in an explosion of tears. I cried when I had to leave. For days.

That morning, in about 1976, I remember being keenly aware that I was alone...in the woods. I had slipped out before the 10 others were awake, including the counsellor, because I just really had to pee.

I had probably never been fully alone before, where nobody actually knew were I was. Today that would be a "liability issue". But back then, our neighbourhood was run by the familiar bellowing of a mother out the front door. If the child being sought was out of "range" the kid half way would relay that "Billy" needed to get his butt home.

Back to liability, we'll come back later to the ACTUAL liability issue at camp that also changed my life and made me afraid of the dark for...well...ever. (so far). And yet, I camp.

Back to that crisp morning scampering down a path to the outhouse, I believe that was the day I changed. Outdoors became my new home.

That sense of freedom is exactly why, almost 50 years later, I am constructing a digital nomad life to simply be...OUTSIDE.

At RKY Camp in Kingston, Ontario, I learned two of the most important things that would impact my life.

First, I am an only child so at camp I experienced community living for the first time.

It was glorious. The pure excitement of "which bunk" is memorable. Your place/identity, in the plywood covered room, was determined by your place in the room. If you were, say an only child, you might pick the back corner to be as far away from the counsellor's open bedroom as possible. Independence comes with not having siblings.

Some might not want the bunk by the door because of the axe-wielding child-specific killer roaming the woods. He was pretty real to me at that age because I did think people could escape jails for the criminally insane. I heard that around the campfire so, clearly, fact.

Other kids eye a bunk where they can be surrounded by people. I never trusted those kids. Centre of attention and all. (Yes, I was a TV anchor and realize the irony)

So, community. Check. Ability to push your own limits, alone in a crowd, absolutely. I did swimming badges, sailed a tiny boat alone, partnered with one other kid canoeing across a lake for hours, competed in archery and did countless other things alone in a crowd.

The second life changing moment RKY Camp provided was the liability issue, also called "Vigil".

Here was the plan: Take children who volunteer for the ultimate task for "Vigil". I didn't even know what it was but I was IN. If it can't or shouldn't be done, I'm your gal!

Now, take those wee sprogs and put them on an island alone overnight with a sleeping bag, matches and a tea pot. No tent.

I'm not making this up.

I was so terrified that I sat on a rock right beside the water shaking all night -- because, obviously, the child-specific murderer was in the woods on my very island. Unfortunate coincidence

So, I survived. Clearly. And no, they don't do that anymore at RKY. I verified it when I sent my daughter there. She loved it so much that she became a camp counsellor, specializing in those canoe "outtrips". She also likes solitude.

Last summer, at 54 years old, I slept outside, in a tent, alone for the first time.

I have been afraid of being alone in the woods, in the dark, for my entire life and it limited my adventures. That said, I have managed to do lots of other cool stuff, in daylight or with others in woods at night.

But I wanted to hit the road and do full-time #vanlife, right? So, how was that going to jive with the dark..and my desire to camp on government land in remote mountain regions not known for street lights?

Answer: Suck it up. Dreams take work

The nomad life guy, Bob, of the phenomenally successful youtube channel, Cheap RV Living, was instrumental is educating me about affording full-time travel, which can be much cheaper than a bricks and sticks home.

More on affordability in another post, but I reflect on the needs of camper version of me versus the life I had been living.

I NEEDED to let my spirit run free. I've always said I was a "water and woods" person.

Instead, what I did was box myself in for a long time. Once the next gen RKY camper was old enough we were off! We drove over the Alps by accident. That day wasn't great...but it sure was memorable! "We're not lost. We're just on another adventure" is tattoed on my leg. Those are the words I said to my daughter on the high mountain road in an RV.

I was lying. We were lost on driving on cliff edges.

Summer camp me gets to make a surprise appearance in my late 50s. I'm glad to have her back. Maybe she could have helped me do better with the cycle of buy stuff, get a bigger house, buy more stuff, sell stuff to downsize....