Raymond – The Maine Mag

48 Hours in Sebago Lake

swassick — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 19:45:46 +0000

Friday
Evening
Lakefront living and local seafood

Mainers and visitors to our state tend to fall into two camps: ocean people and lake people. I have long been one of the former, so I am excited to be exploring unfamiliar territory this weekend. Pulling into the driveway at Sebago Lake Lodge and Cottages in Standish, I’m pleased to discover that even though the idyllic, old-fashioned resort is just a short distance from busy Route 302, it feels remote. My friend Connie (also an ocean person) and I check into our lakefront, white clapboard cottage, appropriately named the Lakehouse, and decide that the two rockers on the screened front porch overlooking the resort’s boat docks will make a perfect spot for coffee in the morning. The cottage has a full kitchen, and we’ve already stocked up on coffee, wine, and snacks at the Good Life Market in Raymond.

It’s a little early for dinner, so we stop for a drink at A La Mexicana, a lively Mexican restaurant housed in a shiny silver diner in Raymond. On stools at the counter we sip huge, delicious margaritas and nibble on warm tortilla chips with salsa, tempted to stay but also wanting to try the new taproom at Bob’s Seafood in Windham. The recently opened addition to the longtime seafood market has an industrial-rustic look, and our fried oyster platter and fish tacos are excellent.

Back at the lake, other guests have lit a fire in the big outdoor fireplace; they invite us to join them for s’mores. The full moon shining on the water and the call of the loons make it an especially memorable night.

Saturday
Morning
Breakfasting like locals and inspiring shopping

Steaming mugs of coffee in our hands, Connie and I watch early-morning boat traffic on the lake while we plan our day. The first stop, heartily recommended by my colleague, online editor Shelbi Wassick, is Chute’s Family Restaurant in Windham. The cheerful, homey place, owned by Maila Stevens for 35 years, is clearly a local favorite. Soon we’re tucking into an overflowing plate of Hobo Hash—hash browns, broccoli, and bacon—topped with two poached eggs, plus an order of Finnish French toast scented with cardamom and almond. All the breads are homemade, and the raspberry butter that comes with our French toast is a delicious bonus.

Well fueled for the day, we stop in next at Half Moon Home Decor and Design Studio. Owner Mindy Zink offers classes in painting furniture with Chalk Paint by Annie Sloan, which she stocks along with a charming mix of vintage and new items. Our next stop is My Sister’s Garage in Windham, where Jennifer and Sarah Tringali creatively display salvaged and repurposed furniture and home decor, as well as clothing and jewelry. We wander through the curated rooms finding lots of inspiration for our own homes.

Afternoon
Outdoor adventures and ice cream

Wanting to get outside, we check out Sebago Lake State Park, where families have set up camp for the day along the narrow beach. We drive up to the top of Hacker’s Hill Preserve in Casco, which has a 360-degree view of Sebago Lake and the White Mountains, including still-snowcapped Mount Washington. Owned by Loon Echo Land Trust, the 27-acre property is perfect for picnicking, but we are still stuffed from breakfast. Instead, we head to the lakeside campus of Saint Joseph’s College in Standish to take one of the bucolic trails down to the waterfront, where a circle of Adirondack chairs invites us to sit for a moment by the breeze-ruffled water. We think we just might be able to find a little room for ice cream, and The Mosquito in Raymond has been highly recommended. My lemon meringue pie in a sugar cone is delightful, and Connie is just as over the moon with her mint chocolate chip.

Evening
Party time on the lake

It’s the annual Maine Blues Festival weekend in fun-loving Naples, but we’ve managed to snag a reservation at Freedom Cafe and Pub, recommended by my colleague, director of finance and administration Melissa Olander, who lives near the lake. First, we take a seat at the upstairs bar for rum punches at Rick’s Cafe, a rollicking Naples hangout since 1985. From our perch on the restaurant’s second-floor porch, we watch the red and white Songo River Queen II, a replica of a Mississippi River paddle wheeler, pull away from her berth.

It’s an easy stroll to Freedom Cafe, where the post-and-beam bar is packed with festival attendees listening to a blues band. Owner Darryl Murray has kindly reserved us a table on the quieter back deck overlooking the water. We start with roasted Brussels sprouts drizzled with balsamic glaze; Connie opts for the lobster Cobb salad while I can’t resist a juicy cut of prime rib. We end another beautiful Sebago Lake night back at our cottage, sipping chilled rosé on the porch.

Sunday
Morning
A quiet paddle and a noteworthy brunch

With little boat traffic this morning, the lake is like glass, making it a good time to take the resort’s sit-on-top kayaks out for a paddle. We glide across to the other side of the basin and explore a quiet inlet ringed with high-end lake homes; the only sound is our paddles dipping in and out of the water.

It’s hard to leave Sebago Lake Lodge and Cottages, but we’re hungry for brunch. For most of the weekend, we have roamed the eastern side of the lake; now we’re headed to the quieter western side. Sportsman’s Kitchen and Keg in Sebago is tucked into Long Beach, a lakeside community of small cottages and camps. The Severino family owns both the restaurant, now in its second season, and Sebago West Shore Cottages. The cottages, located behind the restaurant, are arranged around a lawn with a firepit and corn hole. It’s started to drizzle, so we forgo a table on the front deck for a seat inside the warm and rustic restaurant. The breakfast pizza—scrambled eggs, a creamy blend of cheeses, spinach, and grape tomatoes—is excellent, as is the Sportsman’s Benedict, with lobster, spinach, tomato, and perfect hollandaise sauce. The rain is a good indicator that it’s time to head home, but having dipped a toe into the water of Sebago Lake, I’m leaving with the knowledge that there’s more to explore in this freshwater paradise.

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Bring the Family

swassick — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 18:09:46 +0000

Stately, calm, and looking very much at home in the shade of the towering lakeside pines, 78-year-old Pat Coughlan—patriarch of the family-run Kingsley Pines summer camp in the Sebago Lake region—gazes out over Panther Pond’s sparkling water and reminisces about founding the camp 35 years ago with his wife, Joyce. Since starting the camp, they’ve operated with a fundamental belief that camp experience, even of a week or two, can significantly impact childhood development and strengthen family bonds. “It’s a game-changing experience,” he says. Joyce saysthat, by giving kids the opportunity to spread their wings, they acquire skills, wisdom, and self-esteem in a safe and fun environment surrounded by role models. This philosophy is evident in every aspect of the camp’s operation.

For most of the summer Kingsley Pines is a coed sleepaway camp for kids, but its season finishes with two consecutive six-day family camp sessions, when about 25 families from across the country and abroad check in to cabins scattered among acres of tall pines along the sloping shores of Panther Pond.

Andrea King and I arrive at Kingsley Pines’s family camp on a brilliant blue-sky afternoon in late August with our daughters, ages 7 and 4. Kingsley Pines is very much a family affair. One of the Coughlans’ sons, Carter, who is also a pilot for Delta Air Lines, greets us; their other two sons and their sons’ wives all have hands-on roles at the camp as well.

The toll of an old iron bell resonates through the pines, signaling the commencement of the next set of activities. Each family member selects his or her activity schedule for the day, moving leisurely through the forest or along the lake shore from archery to sailing, ceramics to yoga, ziplining to painting, or just down to the beach or dock to read, swim, and socialize. On our way to a ukulele lesson, Andrea and I pass our kids, who, with a gaggle of new friends and counselors, are heading out canoeing. Our youngest smiles and waves as she skips by us, proud of her newly found independence.

Although activity and meal times are fixed, there’s a relaxed discipline to the place. The Coughlans maintain that the structured agenda strikes a unique balance with social freedom; one can do as much or as little as one likes—with or without the kids, who are under the supervision of camp counselors from around the world, many whom return year after year. (The child supervision continues through the daily late-afternoon adult happy hour on the porch of the camp’s timber-frame main lodge—a chance for parents to mingle and recount the activities and fun of the day.)

The camp’s grounds and compound are densely forested yet spacious. Giant pines loom everywhere, the gleaming lake beckons, trails and coves invite exploration, and a rope swing launches kids and adults alike off a cliff into the lake. A group sits quietly making stained-glass art at long tables in a low-roofed open structure. It’s a nature-based adventure paradise for kids, but I surmise that part of the appeal of the family camp experience is that parents get to unabashedly relive swaths of their childhood, whether having been a youth camper or not. Families regather at mealtimes, which are mostly held at a tree-shaded cluster of lakeside picnic tables. An adjacent mess hall offers an impressive variety of delicious and healthy foods, including a lobster dinner one evening. In between serving and clearing, the affable counselors sit and socialize with families during meals.

Every evening, families are treated to participatory entertainment, ranging from comedic skits to a game show extravaganza to a casino night. The camp counselors, who produce the entertainment, demonstrate their multiple talents. One night, we’re given a list of crime scenes and suspects and led through a Clue-style whodunit game, requiring scavenger-hunt-style investigation throughout the camp. The last evening brings a riotously fun carnival night, with staff dancing on stilts, arcade games, and even a dunk tank where comically dressed counselors are plunged into the water by laughing kids hurling baseballs.

Post-entertainment, large campfire pits are available to the various clusters of cabins. We gather firewood while the kids help start and stoke a roaring fire. Later the kids roast s’mores and run around in the forest with flashlights, hunting for firewood and playing spotlight tag. Families eventually drift to their cabins, the last to leave puts out the fire, and save the occasional call of a loon, quiet descends upon Kingsley Pines. The wakeup bell will sound at 7:45 a.m., signaling the start to another day of activities, new friendships, and being unplugged at this pondside getaway.

The post Bring the Family appeared first on The Maine Mag.

Tapping for Gold

swassick — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 16:22:43 +0000

By late March, it’s not unusual to hear even the most winter-loving Mainer bemoan the relentless snow, ice, and cold weather. While days may be warm and sunny, most nights the temperatures drop back below freezing, and winter boots are still required footwear. But spring’s slow arrival has a sweet silver lining: It prompts the flow of sap that will be boiled into maple syrup and celebrated at sugarhouses large and small during Maine Maple Sunday, held on the fourth Sunday in March.

Maine is the third-largest producer of maple syrup in the country, behind Vermont and New York. In 2017 the state produced 709,000 gallons of maple syrup, valued at nearly $24 million, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Maine Maple Producers Association, which organizes Maine Maple Sunday, lists some 180 members, including Dewey and Sharon Lloy, who started their maple sugaring operation in 1999 as an addition to their thriving Christmas tree farm, Balsam Ridge, in Raymond.

On Maine Maple Sunday 2018, photographer Sean Thomas and I find Dewey Lloy in the cozy sugarhouse, his cheeks pink from the billows of sweetly scented steam rising from the oil-fired evaporator. He is explaining how the operation works, as families file through, parents lifting snow-suited little ones up to see the clear sap being converted into maple syrup (it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make a single gallon of syrup). Its proximity to greater Portland means that Balsam Ridge usually draws a substantial crowd. “Winter’s been long, and I think people want to see a little spring; this is a sign of it,” says Lloy.

Next door in the shop, Sharon and her crew hand out samples of maple baked beans, maple cotton candy, and paper cups of vanilla ice cream drizzled with maple syrup. This includes the couple’s three daughters, ages 29, 26, and 22, who have been involved in the operation from an early age. “A big part of what appeals to us about Maine Maple Sunday is the strong sense of family—working with our family and having families come and participate,” says Dewey. Outside, visitors can watch a blacksmith working at his forge and a woodcarver in leather chaps using a chainsaw to carve a bear from a tree stump. A free-standing gift shop sells jugs of syrup, maple candy, maple sugar, and other packaged items. The Lloys also provide space in their garage for the Raymond Lions Club to host a pancake breakfast; the $8 fee, which supports the club’s community programs, includes pancakes, bacon or sausage, coffee, juice, and of course, generous lashings of Balsam Ridge maple syrup. Thomas and I perch at a picnic table just outside the garage and dig in to our hearty plates, eager to enjoy it all before it gets cold. With full bellies, we trek out into the snow-covered sugar bush (sugar maple grove) crisscrossed with a web of blue tubing that connects the Lloys’ 1,000 tree taps to the pump house, where a vaccuum system helps pull the sap into a tank. When the level in the tank get high enough, it triggers a pump that sends the sap to the sugarhouse. In the woods, it’s quiet enough to hear the trickle of a melting stream and, if I bend my ear close to a tapped tree, the drip, drip of the sap.

During this year’s Maine Maple Sunday, scheduled for March 24, with events on March 23 as well, a similar scene will be found at sugarhouses from as far south as Wells and as far north as Eagle Lake, 17 miles from the Canadian border. Bob’s Sugarhouse in Dover-Foxcroft will be one of several producers offering the old-school treat of sugar on snow; Chase Farm in Wells conducts tours of their sugar bush in a wagon pulled by Belgian draft horses; while other farms list horse-or tractor-drawn sleigh rides among their activities. Still, other maple syrup producers offer full breakfast and lunch buffets. All are examples of hardworking Mainers continuing a practice started centuries ago by Native Americans who boiled sap into syrup by dropping red-hot rocks into bark buckets and used the result as an all-purpose flavoring. “We have a pretty strong sense that sugaring was done on the farm generations before us,” says Dewey. “We found little huts out on the ridge that are lined with bricks and have fire marks on them.” Today’s technology makes the process easier, but it still takes a mix of temperature, time, and tenacity to keep Maine’s sweet spring tradition flowing, and going strong.

Maine Maple Sunday: March 23-24

Nearly 100 members of the Maine Maple Producers Association are participating in the 36th annual Maine Maple Sunday. The association’s website has a detailed map of the participating producers. Held on the fourth Sunday in March, the event has expanded to include Saturday at some sugarhouses, but check individual websites or call to confirm. Be sure to dress warmly and wear boots— farms can be muddy places. For more information, visit mainemapleproducers.com.

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The Perfect Maine Summer | Lakes

swassick — Thu, 31 May 2018 14:34:21 +0000

With over 6,000 lakes in the state of Maine, there are no shortage of inland waters that are worth the trip. Explore these lakes and find much more than just a place to swim.

Lake St. George

In the small town of Liberty, Lake St. George is one of Maine’s best-kept secrets—a lake with water so clear, the bottom of it is still visible 20 feet down. There’s a rope swing hidden on the south side of the lake, and kayakers can finagle their way up the rocks to jump into the transparent waters. Although the water tends to stay on the cooler side throughout the summer, the kayaking, swimming, and fishing are one-of-a-kind. There’s a campground on the northwest side, and a unique beach lies on the southwest shore, made up entirely of exposed granite bedrock. —Emma Simard

Kezar Lake

Nestled in the foothills of the White Mountains in Lovell, Kezar Lake spans over seven miles and is often cited as one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. The lake’s clean and clear water is not only ideal for swimming, but it is also a fishing destination filled with the likes of bass, lake trout, and salmon. Visitors can experience the beauty of both large and small inhabitants. Moose are often found grazing in the shallows among the water lilies, while loons can be seen bopping in and out of the water throughout the day. —Danielle Devine

Moosehead Lake

Maine’s largest lake, covering more than 74,000 acres, Moosehead is best known for its brook trout, landlocked salmon, and lake trout. Anglers can rent a boat and hire a registered Maine guide for insight and expertise—or brave it on their own. For those not interested in fishing, grab a kayak and explore one of the 80 islands within Moosehead Lake. Other popular activities in the region include moose safaris, historical tours, and scenic flights over the lake. —Emma Simard

Sebago Lake

At 316 feet deep, Sebago Lake is the deepest lake in the state and the second largest by area. The lake, which has 105 miles of shoreline, borders the towns of Casco, Naples, Raymond, Sebago, Standish, and Windham. Sebago Lake State Park is located on the lake’s north end; it has two public boat launches and a campground with 250 sites. With its deep waters, Sebago Lake is a popular fishing spot, particularly for trout. There are also several beaches along the lake, as well as a number of sandbars within it. —Kate Gardner

Belgrade Lakes

Why settle for one lake when you can have seven? The Belgrade Lakes region, a half-hour west of Waterville and north of Augusta, has water access at multiple points. There are town beaches in Rome, Belgrade, and Oakland. Most provide ideal sandy shorelines, floating docks, shaded picnic areas, playgrounds, and public restrooms. The more sporting types can try their luck at fishing some of the state’s most legendary waters, famous for landlocked salmon and northern pike. —Joel Kuschke

Flagstaff Lake

Flagstaff Lake, located in western Maine north of Sugarloaf, is the state’s largest man-made lake at more than 17,000 acres. It is also unusually shallow—only 48 feet at its deepest point. The outskirts of the lake, which borders the Bigelow Preserve, are mostly marshy and require swimmers to wade out deeper. This makes the lake a more popular spot for kayaking and canoeing. Flagstaff Lake has an interesting history in that entire villages are located below its surface. When the Long Falls Dam was built in 1950, the lake submerged Flagstaff Plantation, Dead River Plantation, and Bigelow Township. —Kate Gardner

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Visiting the World of Wohelo

swassick — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 17:24:03 +0000

A summer day with the young girls who become strong women at the end of a dirt road on a lake in Maine.

On Sebago Lake in Raymond there is some C.S. Lewis-style magic going on. A wardrobe appears in the form of a long dirt road offering—if you’re lucky—entrance into a world called Wohelo, where girls rule and it is always summer. This enchanted place is just 45 minutes from my home in Portland, and just a few miles from a busy road of antique shops, Dunkin’ Donuts, and marine supply stores. Its physical nearness to the world I live in only adds to the shock of arrival, to the sense that I must have passed through some magical portal to get here. I park my car and follow the sound of a bugle being played by a red-headed girl in blue. As she plays on, other girls in blue and white emerge, laughing, talking, singing, filing down the steps leading to a large building overlooking the lake. I tap one girl on the shoulder and ask her where I might find Quincy Van Winkle. She points, and I turn around.

“You made it,” says one of the camp’s directors smiling, offering a tanned hand. It is all I can do not to ask, “Where am I?” I know, logically, that I made it to Sebago Wohelo—I see the wooden signs tacked to trees, the brown cabins, the bugle, the girls aged 12 through 16 (nearby Little Wohelo, run by Quincy’s sister in-law Heidi Van Winkle Gorton, is home to campers aged 6 through 12). But Wohelo is like camp squared, it’s so beautiful. I revel in the dappled light, the steep pitch of the boulder- crusted, pine-needle-coated land, and the rise of the water, trimmed out in blue hills. The weather could not be more perfect— cloudless skies, a balmy 74 degrees. It is one o’clock, lunchtime, and Van Winkle and I follow the procession into the dining hall.

The sounds in the dining hall are familiar— that cafeteria clatter of silverware, the dull buzz of dozens of simultaneous conversations—but the water views through the many-paned windows are out of this world. I take a seat beside Quincy and her husband, Mark Van Winkle, the camp’s owner and one of three directors (the others being Quincy and Wohelo alum Jennie Walsh), and find myself immersed in a series of rituals: grace, the passing of many plates, clapping, the singing in unison of songs with sweet, sometimes odd, lyrics about gratitude and friendship. It doesn’t take a keen observer to note that the melodies and lyrics take on special meaning to the girls who have memorized them; what I’m hearing is the sound of belonging. When the singing is over, leaders are named and awards are bestowed in accordance with the three-tiered program of nautical accomplishment called, in ascending order, water bug, water baby, and (my favorite) water witch. Afterwards, counselors stand to make announcements like, “The kiln is hot!” and, “It’s not too late to sign up for the talent show!”

Wohelo is governed by a code of ethics and set of rules and behaviors that become second nature for those who live within them, but which seem spectacular to someone who has the special privilege of dropping in. Amidst the excited energy, the Van Winkles explain what’s going on and why, from the camp’s emphasis on table manners to the development of life-long skills and appreciation for the outdoors. Most traditions are over a century old, and can be traced back to when the Wohelo Camps were founded in 1907 by Mark and his sister Heidi’s great grandparents, Dr. Luther Halsey Gulick and Charlotte Vetter Gulick.

I could write a book about the Gulicks— others have, and Dr. Gulick himself wrote several—but suffice it to say that these two were pioneering advocates of what was at the beginning of the twentieth century a cutting-edge concept: physical education. The couple cofounded the organization Camp Fire Girls, and Dr. Gulick was the president of the American Physical Education Association, president of the Playground Association of America, and the creator of the YMCA’s original logo representing mind, body, and spirit. Charlotte Vetter Gulick gave Wohelo—which stands for work, health, and love—its name. The Gulicks were also the founders of boys’ camp Timanous, now situated on nearby Panther Pond and owned and operated by the Suitor family. Amazingly, Wohelo has stayed in the Gulick/Van Winkle family all this time.

After lunch the girls return to their cabins for an hour of rest and relaxation, and counselor Laura Douglas is kind enough to let me join her and her campers in their cabin, Ursa Major. As we carefully make our way along the steep, rocky terrain, Douglas pulls bashful, dark-haired Jessie—a third-generation camper—into a side hug and congratulates her on being elected to the Grand Count Committee, which means she has been elected by her peers to run the final council fire. Jessie grins and looks up adoringly at Douglas. All of Douglas’s twelve-year-old campers are clearly smitten with her. She was their age when she came to Wohelo for the first time. The twenty-one-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia, is kind, calming, and comfortable in her own skin. During our chat on the cabin’s back porch Douglas tells me about the role Wohelo has played in her life so far, and what she hopes to offer her campers. “At Wohelo I learned how to be myself and not be ashamed about that,” she says. “As counselors we try to bring the weird out in campers, because at school they’re not focusing on your personality and the good in you. Everyone has a place here.”

Making our way inside the cabin I dodge shoes hanging from the rafters—something to do with a prank recently played on Douglas and her sixteen-year-old assistant counselors, known in the Wohelo vernacular as TGs, or “trusted girls.” The group is already arranged in a circle, ready to talk camp. “This is the dream cabin,” Jessie says, referring to how well the girls get along. A spunky girl called Maddie chimes in: “Someone would have to spend like a million dollars to recreate this cabin. Because we’re all pretty crazy.” Then, in an onslaught of speeches peppered with likes and laughs the girls tell me about the best friends they’ve made at Wohelo, the skills they’ve acquired, and all that they’ve learned to live without—including cell phones and electricity.

As magical as this place is, these girls have not lost sight of the world on the other end of the dirt road; they have an acute understanding of the specialness of this experience and how it changes them not just for the summer but throughout the school year, year after year. “You bring this whole different look on life when you go home,” says Jossie, one of the TGs. “Camp really teaches you to look around and appreciate what’s around you. When I go home I’m talking about what the leaves are doing and noticing that there is a storm coming.” One girl is especially shy and shrinks from my questions. “Christina is a great sail racer,” says Jessie, causing Christina to blush with pride. “Yeah,” says Maddie. “She soloed today.”

That afternoon I roam the grounds, noting girls bent over looms in the crafts cabin and journaling on rocks. I see sailors riding the strong winds, occasionally capsizing, throwing their weight onto centerboards and righting their vessels with studied technique and impressive strength. Later I will learn that Wohelo is known for its sailing program, which is no surprise given the ideal conditions in the protected deepwater cove and the large fleet of 420 sailboats on hand. On the docks, I watch young women swimming laps in an effort to reach whichever personal goals are on the horizon. Wohelo’s award system incentivizes hard work and self-discipline, and leads campers to attempt and master a wide range of activities. As Irene, a camper from Spain, puts it, “We’re all at different levels. Everyone is being pushed to be a better them. We’re all helping each other out.”

Just as I am starting to settle in, to begin to recognize camp songs and phrases like “water queen” (a title bestowed upon the best of the best divers), I leave the world of Sebago Wohelo for Little Wohelo, which is only half a mile away but imbued with its own distinct kind of magic. For one thing, the landscape is different, the cabins arranged in a semicircle around a wide-open field filled with kids—ages six through twelve—running and playing in the setting sun during a rare unscheduled hour after dinner. For another thing, there are goats, Zinnia and Rupee, who get into all kinds of hilarious trouble while on the prowl for unguarded peanut butter sandwiches and macaroni salads. Despite the age-based differences in programming, and Little Wohelo’s special emphasis on qualities like thoughtfulness, cooperation, and enthusiasm, the core principles remain the same from one Wohelo to the other. “Girls come here to become strong women,” says Heidi Gorton, summing up the camp’s mission. “They come here to test themselves in ways they can’t at home.

By the time I get back to Sebago Wohelo, the wind has picked up. The sky is pink, the water is the color of dirty coins, and the air starts to fill with the smell of ozone. It is going to rain. As they did when I first arrived, campers emerge from over boulders and behind tree trunks, only this time even the chattiest girls from Ursa Major are quiet and have a look of solemnity about them. At first I wonder if the weather brought on this change of mood, but then I see that Douglas and the other three head counselors are dressed in leather and beads. It is time for the council fire to start, which means my time in the world of Wohelo is coming to a close.

The girls sing while they process around the patch of blacktop that serves as the dance studio during the day. Their voices are hushed by the wind, the lyrics difficult to understand, but the older women seated on either side of me are mouthing the words. They are alumnae, I realize. I do some rough math in my head. One hundred and nine summers. Seven weeks in every summer. Wohelo has seen something like 762 council fires. The sky starts spitting, and we collectively hold our breaths as Mark Van Winkle runs the spindle across the old bow drill to make fire by friction, as his parents and grandparents and great-grandparents did before him. Douglas and the other head counselors stand around the pile of wood chips to block the wind. Finally the flames catch with a puff of smoke, and the rain lets up, leaving the fire to burn while the ceremony continues in a series of songs and announcements, rituals that bring smiles to the solemn faces of campers and alumnae.

At a certain point, Quincy Van Winkle gives me a sign that it is time to leave—the rest of the ceremony is for Wohelo girls and women only. It is nearly dark by the time I reach my car. Reluctantly and with caution I bumble down the unlit dirt road, back to where I came from, hoping that someday I’ll return to this magical place or—even better—that my daughter will.

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