The elements, the wildlife, other campers on the river and unforeseen circumstances forced campers and counselors to remain on guard at all times. But, adventures were adventures, and unexpected incidents occurred, which were handled as they arose. Some were fun, some were funny and some were dangerous, but all were memorable.
“My most vivid memory of camp was in my last year (1962) of the overnight canoe trip,” said Ilene Zacher, who began attending Camp Maqua in 1959 at the age of ten. “I was with all my cohorts paddling the AuSable. I think they had bussed us to Grayling. It was a backpack type of trip. We embarked upon the river, pitched our tents, prepared our food, hiked the woods and learned about the flora and fauna. It was mostly about survival skills. We had to dig our own latrines, which was interesting and a first for me. I was awestruck by the AuSable and the high cliffs. The worst part of the trip was a thunderstorm with lightning. Our counselor would not let us stop. We were on schedule and she was going to stick to our schedule. Of course, no one got hit by lightning, but I just remember how scary it was.”
Anne Obey, (camper and counselor from 1960-70) had memories of a “heinously awful lightning storm” that sent everyone running to some stranger’s cabin, thankful that no one was home to see the campers trespassing and the raccoons that ate their breakfast.
One of the autographs in Gretchen Jacques’ book mentioned that she was a good wood chopper on her 1957 canoe trip, and she always felt like she was in heaven on those trips. One day they were daring each other to dive off a bridge by the dam, and of course, they were not supposed to even be near the bridge, but she jumped and some dove and no one was hurt.
Food was hung from trees to keep the bears away, recalled Julie Bernard (1970-78) and Jennifer McLogan (1965-71), who claimed the highlight of each summer at camp was the canoe trip, and they were so afraid of the bears that she and friends clapped pots and pans to scare them off.
Barb Rehmus and Debra Osher shared a canoe trip in the sixties, where Debra climbed out of the canoe onto a log and ended up stuck there, as her canoe drifted far enough that she was unretrievable. When the next canoe came by, they picked her up. They also used to play “Miss it by an inch” to see how close they could come to the logs without hitting them.
Getting separated was a real thing and Geraldine Folkert (1942-47) recalled a nasty, rainy trip where they were picked up early. Somehow her group was separated from the other group. “One of the girls knew one of her friends had a cabin near the river, so on a lark we decided to call out her name. We yelled the girl’s name and she heard us. But, we knew we were in trouble when we got back to camp.”
Mary Obey (1957, 1965-66) had a three-day camping trip on the Rifle River in Lupton, where all the girls were terribly frightened. “There was an old house of some sort near our site and some men came at night and we were scared all night long that they would come and “get” us.”
What scary or dangerous things did you encounter on your canoe overnights?