Kids Camp Report

My eyes open, I rub them and see nothing but green. The early morning light lights up my entire tent. Oh yeah, and it's...raining. We have already had a mud fight, or two. My cold weather clothes have already been soaked and I have washed my shoes and feet about one hundred times and this is ...the first day.

It is late morning and I am sitting by the fire pit. Typically at camp most people would be up by now, but some of us are staying dry in our partially dry tents. The counsellors talk about their poor sleeps, bad backs and their campers’ strange sleeping arrangements. We wait as the campers crawl out of their tents. Even though Jodi is with her newborn baby Nathan, she has a proxy to yell "Frühsport". Gunni leads us in the morning exercises while Martin trumpets us awake.

We always wash our hands and sing for our meals and we really do have: 

"hunger hunger hunger haben hunger hunger hunger haben..."

But Margaret and Sandra deliver the food and we are always fine for another little while before we need food again. During the day we do fun crafts and games with Michelle. Andrea was sports director. All activities are done with a raincoat on our backs covered in mud but most importantly smiles on our faces. Great thanks as always to all of the adults who help in every way. Setting up tents, taking soggy sleeping bags to the laundromat, organizing and being first aid.

Savannah MacDonald

Canoe Trip Report

This year on the canoe trip, we canoed down the Grand River once again, for two days. It was the same route that we took last year, except instead of twenty something canoes, we only had nine. We had awesome, sunny weather, and as usual, lots and lots of wild, zany fun.  Since there were less people, it was slightly easier – we actually spent the last day pretty much just drifting down river. This year we were led by Bernd von Cube, Margie Noszenko, Gunni von Krause and Isabel Soos. We only had a slight run when it came to bad things – raining mornings, sunburns, cold nights and stuff getting wet in our bags. But the good things (along with our young hooligan-ish ways) outnumbered the bad things. Some perks of the trip:

• Getting to catch up with everyone. For some reason, we all get along super duper well and love spending time with each other – however we only get to see each other so much during the year. So when we are together, there are plenty of hugs, hilarious stories and what’s going on in life.
• Linking seven of the canoes together, and just floating down the river. Somehow, a bunch of us began to link our canoes together and then just drift down the river – at one time we had seven or eight of the nine together. We also realized, in a group of two, that linked canoes are harder to tip – this was good to know because we had all our stuff with us.
• Singing the B52’s song “Rock Lobster” every time a couple of us went over a rock. That cracked us up. At the May dance in the spring, we all realized that we have a mutual, undying love for rock   music of generations past. So, all the way down the river we would sing anything we could think of, from the B52’s, to Billy Joel, to the Beatles.
• Making all of us laugh until we cried, whether it was one person eating a worm (which was quite gross, I must admit) to launching water balloons over one of our portage sites, to someone stealing another person’s pillows, while they were napping in a canoe, to watching our canoe float upstream without our paddle even in the water.

It was a lot of fun all around, and I can’t wait to go back and see everyone next year.

Zoe MacDonald

Bei meinem dreiwöchigen Aufenthalt in Kanada hatte ich sehr viel Spaß. Ich habe viele neue Eindrücke gewonnen. Der perfekte Abschluss von diesen wunderschönen drei Wochen war die Kanufahrt. Die Kanutour war sehr aufregend. Das Wetter war sehr schön und alle hatten Spaß. Ich habe dort viele Sachen gesehen die man in Deutschland nicht sehen kann. Dazu gehören die Schildkröten: Frei lebende Schildkröten sieht man bei uns nur im Park. Die Leute auf der Kanutour waren alle sehr nett und es gab keine Probleme. Das Wasser war so klar, dass man den Boden sehen konnte. Wir machten jeden Abend schöne Lagerfeuer und aßen gegrillte Sachen. Ich würde jederzeit noch eine Kanutour machen und bedanke mich bei allen für diese schöne vier Tage. KANADA IST COOL!

Constantin Hilpisch

Last summer I was a part of the Baltic youth canoe trip, 3 fun filled days paddling and drifting down the Grand River. On the second day after a day of paddling and a lot less sleep than we needed, we tied our canoes together and began the long drift down the river. It would be hard to find a better way to spend a summer day than sitting with 3 friends drifting lazily with garbage bags of pillows and sleeping bags to lie on. I had a lot of fun on that trip and I hope that it can become a long lasting tradition.

Christoph Neuland

I'd like to thank the many people who helped make the canoe trip possible. I won’t list names, because I don't want to leave anyone out, but you all know who you are. Without you, trips like this wouldn't be possible, and staying in touch with everyone would be very difficult. Now, where to begin? I only have happy memories from the trip, and I can't pick out a specific one. It just wouldn't be fair to the other ones to leave anything out. But when I think of that trip three words come to mind; Water, friends and fun.

And that pretty much sums up the essence of the trip. That's what I'll cherish from this. Years from now I might not remember details, like Axel's Hypnosis, being pushed and pulled by an unseen beaver god or drifting down the river in a huge raft made from canoes. But I will remember what's important; that for a few days in August, I was paddling down the river spending time with friends. So thank you all for making this trip memorable, and I'll see you all next year!

Mitchell Loewen

What a wonderful experience. Kids, canoes, and three dear friends. I was looking forward to the adventure. This year’s tour was a repeat of the 2008 anniversary trip, along the Grand River from Cambridge to just south of Brantford, but limited only to the juniors. We managed to assemble everyone on Friday night in Brant Conservation Authority – setting up tents in the dark is fun, especially when you have Margie Noszenko around. What an amazing lady; she can set up an unknown tent with her eyes closed. She sleeps quietly too, making for the best of tent companions! Saturday was a long day for everyone. Up early, we ate, cleaned, packed and hopped onto the bus for a ride up the river.

Everyone was launched into the Grand and off they went. Only one exception; my paddles and lifejackets were left in one of the tour company vans which was heading off in another direction. It turned out to be a treat as Gunni and I were dropped off down the river to lounge under a shady tree, to set up lunch and reminisce while we waited for an hour for the others to catch up.

The rest of the weekend went off without a hitch. Good weather, food in abundance – a grateful shout out to Jodi for great menu planning! - and a group of young people who impress easily. Everyone stepped in to help do the chores of dishwashing, tent setting up/packing and fire building with only the smallest bit of encouragement needed. The portages were a joy with everyone going back repeatedly to help lug stuff until everything had been transported around the dams. Even late at night, when all were tired, everyone was dragged along to participate in a game of German Spotlight. It was great all being part of the same group.

Thank you to Bernd, Jodi and Gunni for pulling this together. I was proud to be a part of this trip and hold up a tradition in Jodi’s absence. Hey Jodi – you are on for next year.  No excuses!

Isabel Soos

The canoe trip this past summer was a great experience, that we will all remember for a long time. The first morning, we hopped onto a bus, and drove to the launch point. We were assigned canoes, and canoe partners, and we rowed out one by one. We seemed to go pretty quickly at first, but after the first hour and a half, we were all beat. The views were really beautiful and any picture you took was amazing. All along the river, the whole day, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and there were thick, blooming trees everywhere you looked. When we were about twenty metres from the camp, there were rapids that dropped the elevation by a metre or so, and there was no way we could avoid them. We hit about 4 rocks and just as we thought we were clear, we hit a really big rock, which knocked us off course and the current pushed us the wrong way, so we ended up going down the rapids backwards. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe!

We also had fun swimming, playing “German spotlight” (accept getting attacked by fire ants) and flinging apple cores across the river with Gunni’s 3-man slingshot. It was nice to get to know everyone a little bit better and I am already looking forward to next years’ canoe trip.

Kurt Grantham