This is an excerpt from a Canadian Camping magazine, June 1956.
Something Happens Amid Laughter and Song
Carolyn M. Schmidt, Institute of Child Study, Toronto
As if by magic, summer days flash by and soon it is time to return home. The counsellor watches these same children leave, their camping days over for another year – but are they really the same children? On closer inspection, that one over there, leaning on her paddle, has a look of assurance, where once there was shy hesitance; this one’s eyes sparkle with a new lustre, the result of happy experience and shared pleasures. A few still stand alone, but even their solitude has changed from bewilderment to confidence; very often behind it lie dreams and aspirations to be fulfilled another summer. Each group has enlarged now and the individual children in it have altered, although they themselves may not even realize this. Each has learned something from being at camp; some a little, some a great deal. Among the changes wrought may be improved outlook, a better adjustment to group living, or a growth in knowledge and stature due to leadership training and the assumption of responsibility. Whatever the changes may be, these campers return home different children, physically and mentally healthier as a result of their camping experience.The question now arises what has brought about these changes and how have these new learnings been acquired: Primarily, the atmosphere in a camping situation is the essential factor. In a good camp, children feel free from strain and tension. When they are tired it is a healthy tiredness. They live, laugh, play and work together in both large and small groups, yet learn to respect each other’s individuality. The activities of school and city-life find little place in the naturalness and simplicity of the outdoors. Children can relax and be their best selves. At camp, children strive for accomplishment, be it the dog-paddle or a swan dive; sailing in a boat alone, or just helping to hoist sails; learning the basic canoing strokes or striving to attain the perfection of an expert. In tis setting, their days are well-spent in wholesome play and purposeful activity in a relaxed atmosphere.
There are dozens of opportunities in a camping situation for participation in such group activities as council-fires, cabin entertainment nights, sing-songs, musicales and dramatic productions. Nevertheless creativity and originality have many outlets, too: in the craft shop, on sketching expeditions, making up skits, and improvising costumes for a masquerade or play. Even the simplest contribution can add something to camp life, however small and insignificant it may seem. Perhaps it may be only a contagious laugh, an encouraging smile for someone who needs it, or an enthusiasm that is catching.
The effect of camping on behaviour adjustment and social development can be considerable. Through experiences in harmonious living, campers learn to accept their share of responsibility, to cooperate with others, and to grow in unselfishness. The child learns to do things in a group, and out of consideration for the group. Some learn too, the satisfaction of momentary solitude and of just sitting and thinking for a while; still others learn for the first time what it is to have fun for fun’s sake. The counsellor is always at hand to instruct and encourage the campers in every undertaking. An uncertain child frequently develops confidence in the realization that there is someone who has faith in his ability, and begins to feel that he ‘belongs’ in camp.
Many children who find themselves at camp and away from their families, gain in self reliance and in learning to make decisions for themselves; at the same time, interests are broadened and judgment acquired. Throughout the camper’s day many decisions must be made to be punctual or late, to be tidy or untidy, to persevere or to take a defeatist attitude; to concentrate exclusively on one activity or to develop various skills; to participate in an activity or to be an onlooker. Through their choices, they experience success or failure, satisfaction or dissatisfaction, depending on their own attitudes. Often the help and encouragement of fellow-campers and a counsellor’s friendly interest can stimulate desirable choices and attitudes. Of course, being away from family in this new way of living requires a degree of emotional, physical and social maturity. The child may miss the whole value of camp life if he is sent before he is ready.
Life in the outdoors offers much to those who are eager to learn. Campers discover how comfortable a bed on the ground can be. They experience the joys of cooking on an open fire; they make toast over the coals and blend voices in companionship as their paddles carry them from lake to lake on canoe trips. They feel the thrill of trundling across a portage and perhaps meeting a deer or a porcupine on the way. Theirs is the opportunity to gain knowledge about a multitude of things; to pick out the patterns in the star-filled sky as they lie under it; how to identify plants and the various species of pine, birch and cedar – and which to use when building a fire; about the animals, birds and fish – the wildlife whose presence is ever apparent in most camps’ surroundings. Through this direct contact with Nature’s wonders, not a few are imbued with a genuine and lasting aesthetic appreciation.
The enduring effects left with each camper differ in themselves, almost as much as the hundreds of children who have gone to camp. But from the experience of many campers of past and present generations some significant thins, in addition to the physical skills, are retained by nearly every one: – a sincere love of our special Canadian heritage, The Outdoors; memories of winding waterways and windswept lakes, quiet forest glens and mist-shrouded hills of dawn, the flaming sky of sunset; and possibly the most beloved of all – the camp-fire. To some of us, every fire we light brings to mind days filled with activity in rain or shine, days spent in happy comradeship and echoing with laughter and song.