My day started off in one of my favourite ways: getting invited to coach an early morning Arowhon A (high class style swimming) class. The gentle rain didn’t stop the dozen senior campers from getting out of bed to practice dive after dive and stroke after stroke. I was heartened and inspired, not just by their skills and drive, but also by how respectful, attentive, and appreciative they were to the suggestions I was offering, and how committed they were to taking it to heart. At the wake-up bell they had to be forced off the dock as they were all so focussed on perfecting their moves they did not want to stop practicing, and were begging to come back at general and after dinner. Simultaneously, there were 2 staff (a Jinters counsellor and LIT Director volunteering their time out of passion for the kids and cause) standing by the North Dock high fiving another 10 seniors as they ran by them doing laps of camp for their push trip training regime.  Watching both the Arowhon A and the trip training kids, I was equally impressed with their ambition and grit as with the enthusiastic encouragement and validation I heard them giving each other.

My day ended in a very different but equally rewarding way. At lunch, an 8 year old girl, who is new to camp and whose dad supervised me when I was a Section Head at camp, asked if she could meet me at Staff hour to talk. I was assuming she was going to either brag about her dad’s camp fame, or tell me about a problem she was having at camp, but when we sat down and I asked her what was up, she simply said “I’ve heard a lot about you and I just wanted to get to know you”.  We spent a lovely hour together chatting, a highlight of which was her telling me cheerfully that she had failed her anchor test this morning (to get off the anchored windsurf boards and get to go out on the lake) but had come back into the afternoon and passed and was really proud of herself and can’t wait to go windsurfing across the lake tomorrow. All this from a kid who barely comes up to my waist, is away from home for the first time, and in a different country. They say this generation of kids lacks resilience, but my experiences at camp show me otherwise daily.