Elanie Engibous (1961-63), decked out in her prescription sunglasses, loved the canoe trips down the AuSable River. “I can remember eating red licorice and making Kiltie laugh so hard she would pee in the boat and we would have to stop and clean it out! There was a “hi-low-eenie-meenie” song that we hollered to connect to each other,” laughed Elaine.
“We would spend the night and would be so sore from paddling, and then we would sleep on the ground, but loved it. We were always so hysterical. We would be gone from camp for three days and wonder what we missed, but it was clear when we heard the other girls describe the canoe trips that we had to go. It was awesome. We had the food up in the trees to keep the bears out and we would get so burnt on the rivers—some girls would even blister.”
“The canoe trip were another level of independence, “said Doris Engibous. “I remember coming around the bend in the river on one trip and we were young and we spotted older kids skinny-dipping. It was the first time I had seen breasts and genitalia out in the open!”
The famous boat call. Valerie Monto (1964-68) remembered it and also had several versions of the call and the answer; “high-low-eany-meany-i-ki-oo-chow-chow-pea-wa-wa” or “hi-lo-eenie-meenie-caw-caw-um-chaw-chaw-e-waw-waw”, followed by “eany-einy-ony-ony-you-ho” or “hecta-minika-anika-zanika-boom-de-ada-yoo-hoo”.
Jeanne Kiltie (1966-71) loved the three-day canoe trips. “No showers, but bathing in the river. I can remember one girl was sick and they had to come get us, but another trip it poured like crazy and we took our sleeping bags and all crammed into the bathroom and slept there! How crazy was that? And I can also remember them telling us all to prop our aluminum canoes against the tree with a tarp over us! It was lightning and we were under a metal boat! When I look back, I wonder sometimes,” she laughed. “Then there were the raccoons that broke into our food and counselors were all yelling for us to save it all. As an adult now in a boat, there is no tipping in my boat!”
Kim Moore became an expert canoeist at Maqua (1967-72) and felt like she knew what she was doing and felt very confident. She packed for trips as a kitchen aide, “even though I am left-brained and not very organized. Someone would inevitably come to my rescue to help me pack in an organized way. I would say, somebody help me and I think Cindy Knapp was the one.”
The second year Sue West (1976) took thirty girls on a canoe trip on the AuSable for five days with counselor Gail Savage. The girls had received a week of intensive canoe lessons before the trip. “We put in the water on a beautiful sunny day, but it poured down river a few miles. We slept in puddles that night. We went back on the river the next day, still soaking wet, but we had to stop and call camp to come get us. Our sleeping bags were like baggies holding the water in.”
“My whole life I dreamed of going back and drifting down the river again, so I took a vacation one year with a friend, and it was just the same dream I remembered,” said one of the sixties’ campers whose memories of the river still cause deep nostalgia.
Do you remember the boat call? What is the version you recall?