The sun smiled on us for our big celebration, with over eighty former campers, staff, residents, and their families, plus volunteers from the Plainfield Township Historical Commission. The guests enjoyed guided tours around the lodge, property walkabouts, and visits to three huts. The archives were on loan from the Bay City Historical Museum and were viewed in the Craft Hut. The laughter, singing, camaraderie, and renewed friendships put smiles on all of our faces! Cousins, sisters, and friends made plans to attend together, enjoying the boat rides, dinner under a tent, and singing all day long, plus the campfire with Beanie (Barb Haggart), Shelley Harris, and Cindy Knapp Baker. Cindy led songs during dinner, Beanie organized a trivia quiz, and the nine hours of festivities passed too quickly. Girls found their names in the huts, viewed the Buddy Board inside the boat house, and shared their photo albums. The evening ended with the wishing boat ceremony–
It was a magical day!
Buildings and Property
Planning for the Centennial at Camp Maqua!
The end of Michigan’s season for us is always bittersweet. We head to sunny Florida, but the autumn leaves are so beautiful, especially around the boathouse and on Loon Lake. Our last boat ride before storing the boat for the winter was stunning. Calm lake, blue skies, baby loon growing, and foliage on display in all its glory.
The excitement of ending was the planning for our big 100-year anniversary next June 15, 2024. I have visions of the first campers arriving at the lodge, with the newness of each hut, meeting their counselors for the first time. But, I know campers and staff can envision your own realities and memories! Do you remember all the planning it took to prepare your trunks with the right items from the suggested list in your flyers? For the staff, there were days and weeks of planning for the activities for the summer; food acquisition, and preparation; medical and nature supplies; beachfront maintenance, etc.
Our committee managed to get all the details ready for tents, chairs, tables, food, entertainment, souvenirs, and volunteers to work the various stations on the day of the tours, walkabouts, and archival displays. But, we need your help to make this successful! The numbers need to be in by January for ordering purposes and for us to be able to plan for food. Your tickets are our guarantee that our planning will run smoothly on the day. Hopefully, 100 happy campers will not be disappointed with our efforts for a successful day.
There will be golf carts to ferry everyone from their cars to the lodge, and for those with disabilities–to and from the lakefront or Chapel Hill. The Plainfield Township Historical Commission will manage the check-in, tours in the main rooms of the lodge, and the display in the Craft Hut. The residents will be on hand to greet everyone and listen to your wonderful memories! We are as excited as campers on their first visit! Sending greetings from our families–The Starks, R., and B. Baker, Engel, Smith, West,Gorman, Clancey, Kirila, Braun, and Fidler families welcome you! (Photo credits Keegan Cooley)
End of Summer
The leaves are turning, but we won’t be here to see the brilliant fall foliage as we head to Florida for the winter the long way. (Down the east coast from Maine, hopefully with peak color.) What a wonderful summer with just the right amount of sun and rain, company, and downtime.
Our partner in the lodge and business passed away this summer. Bill’s Uncle Aaron Starks was a man of faith who raised three great children with his wife, Blanche. He will be missed by all who loved him and was instrumental in many restoration projects of the lodge and our golf course.
We were blessed to have three of our four children and families visit this summer, who enjoyed the lake activities, cart rides, and tourist trips. Hopefully, next summer is Covid-free, so our young ones from California can fly again. Somehow bonfires without the kids roasting marshmallows or catching fireflies are not the same when they aren’t there.
The saddest part of our summer was the loss of the giant sycamore tree that stood mighty and tall by the west side of the lodge. Rotting from the inside, we had to remove it before it fell. We grieved to see it come down, with all the history it must have seen. It was well over 100 years old, and the rings left on the stump had stories to tell. Several families preserved some of the enormous rounds for tables to 
remember the tree.
The second saddest event was the complete implosion of hut #6, which sat on the property next to Dutton. It had been moved across the road and used as storage by the Fidler family. For years the door opened into a hut of treasured names and dates. Now, the shingled roof sits inside the hut, resembling a fairy forest of algae and moss.
The Maqua Association held its annual meeting by the campfire. Lydia Engel displayed the new Maqua flag, and we had a flag-raising ceremony before our pot-luck with plans to order a new American flag to replace the existing one. The deck by the boathouse is also under repair by Kim Gorman, Bill Baker, and Thom Engel, to prevent further rotting of the wood. The deck is over twenty years old and is our favorite gathering spot for all things Maqua.
My granddaughters Ainsley and Addison, and Mom Stephanie Baker, assisted me with a Camp Maqua summer display in the Plainfield Township Hall museum. We gathered memorabilia from the lodge for the tableau, featured in the local paper with a previous article written about the camp. I also visited the Greater Bay Region YWCA to meet the new director with the desire to house some of their archives for our 100-year celebration of Camp Maqua on the Loon Lake property in 2024. (Stay tuned for details!)
I am unsure of the steps to register Camp Maqua and its buildings on the historic Michigan register, but it is my winter research project. It is my hope that there will be grants to help with our building preservation. If there are any campers or staff that have experience with this, please email me at walkbake@gmail.com.
A Piece Of History
For the girls’ who camped at Maqua, the boys’ camp across the lake was a constant lure of excitement. The stories were legend of attempts to meet the boys in the middle of the lake, and to conjure pranks between the two camps was as fun as the socials that were held for the counselors.
Camp Mahn-go-tah-see was a YMCA camp with headquarters in Oakland County, which operated from 1929-1987. Just as Camp Maqua fell into financial difficulties, the boys’ camp was not exempt, and they sold the camp to the Michigan District LMS. (Lutheran Church). Two new buildings were added in 1996, and in 1997 a task force was appointed to study the camp’s future.
My two daughters attended day camp in the 90s, and my oldest daughter experienced a week there camping in a bunkhouse by the beach. Her memories of the dining hall, a large wooden structure with tall ceilings and a stone fireplace, remain in her memory. Endurance swimming, riflery, archery, and other activities were similar to what the girls of Camp Maqua experienced during their sessions.
On warm summer mornings, the sounds of marching bands practicing on the large open field could be heard around the lake. Many summer concerts were shared at the end of their sessions, as residents boated over to watch their accomplishments on the field. It was a sad day when the children’s camp closed in 2000, and we heard no more music from the high school marching bands from around the state.
Renamed the Loon Lake Lutheran Retreat Center in 2000, it continued to be rented by various organizations, high schools, and individual families until the next sale to a private investment group in 2018. Currently, developers and builders Kandi and Darin Eyth are busy with the sales of lots and homebuilding, with a low density ensuring pristine Loon Lake will remain quiet with very little boat traffic. Seven of the fifteen lots have been sold at this time.
My husband and I had the opportunity to view their beautiful home and enjoyed a cart ride around the old camp. The sad old cabins and dining hall are barely standing, but the property remains beautiful. The Eyth’s have incorporated many of the old signs, relics, and artifacts into their new home and the floors and walls showcase the repurposed wood of the old buildings. Their view from the camp’s property is wonderful, built with huge windows to take advantage of the view.
As we carted and walked over the bridges, sat on the bluff overlooking the lake, and peeked into old buildings, they talked of their plans. We passed an old sign with a bible passage from the original camping days, enclosed in a wooden structure. When I heard they did not know what to do with it, I jumped at the chance to house it at Camp Maqua, and it now graces our wall on the sports porch. I am thrilled to be the new owner, and they are happy it has a new home. My happiness also extends to the knowledge that a young couple has an appreciation for the history of Camp Mahn-go-tah-see and a vision for the utilization of the property for the future.
Open The Doors and Windows!
Summer is here, spreading a fine layer of pine pollen on my newly cleaned surfaces, as I attempt to clean the lodge porches. Eight weeks post-op for a radial head replacement on my elbow after a fall, I am cleaning and opening up as a one-armed bandit.
Weeding the perennial garden is daunting, but two days of rain made my single-arm weeding easier. Peonies, Irises, Geraniums, and Social Garlic are in bloom. Lupine and baby Irises flank the campcraft hut. It used to be so much easier to lift myself off the ground in my younger years when weeding and I bemoan the aching bones.
This season my hubby is scraping and painting hut one next to the lodge. The screen door, main door, and trim will get a fresh coat of white paint to offset the olive green siding of the other buildings on our property. This is the first summer of total retirement for him, as we sold Wicker Hills Golf Course to his cousin Judy Stuckey and husband Mike from Texas. (Daughter of our ex-partners Blanche and Aaron Starks.)
My goals this summer include assisting members of the Hale Historical Commission with a summer exhibit with a great portion of the Camp Maqua memorabilia and artifacts donated by me from the lodge. My other goal is lofty—attempting to bring back the donated photos, albums, camp sentimental saves, and news clippings back from the Greater Bay Region YWCA archives. When the offices moved a few years ago, the accessible archives were moved to a vault with no public access.
Ex-camper Laura Taylor recently visited Camp Maqua. As a long-time resident of the Bay area with numerous connections, she promised to help me with my endeavor. If there are any contacts in alumni land with connections to this project, please email me at walkbake@gmail.com.
We’re expecting three of our four children and their families this summer. No family will be present for the ever-delightful 4th of July parade on the lake, but we expect a sunny day for the fun of participation and joy of those who go over the top decorating their boats. Photos to follow!
Happy 2021 after a year of isolation and changes. Throw open the doors and windows on the world and in your place of happiness!
Camp Envy–Opening Up
THE ROADSIDE PORCH ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE LODGE
I wish for the magic of an energetic crew to appear to help me dust the cobwebs, tear down the screen tarps that protect our wood floors from winter snow and mop the winter dirt off the porches of the lodge. The pollen from the pine trees coat the porches and furniture in pale yellow dust 1/4′ thick. I tip the bootstrap benches over and vacuum the spider webs and laugh as I see wads of chewing gum older than me clinging to the old wood. It takes hours to clean the screens, furniture, and floors.
In days of old, there was a volunteer crew. Either the YWCA committee members, staff or volunteers from different organizations assisted the caretakers with the opening of camp. It had to be a huge undertaking to open a camp for the season, with so many outbuildings and acres of property. My offspring will discover how much work is involved when they start taking over from their aging parents, (As they have grown into adulthood, they have taken on a new sense of ownership and offer to help when in residence. This summer, they labored at the beach with the weeds, raking, gardening, and general repairs.)
Many years I paid to have the place opened up and cleaned before our arrival. With four young kids and slivers of a break that fit into the time slot between the end of the school year and the beginning of the next one, summers seemed to fly. By the time our family of six arrived, I just wanted to unpack, be on vacation and relax. Other years I have just done the work myself, especially when we have had construction and I knew cleaning was a lost cause.
The perennial garden has to be weeded, and if I get up in June instead of May, the weeds have taken root and the acorns have sprouted into baby trees that are difficult to uproot. It is a rock garden of sorts, with Michigan stones and pieces of the old sidewalk that trailed to the door by the kitchen between both porches. Irises, peonies, lilies and other summer flowers grow under the two planter boxes that house red geraniums. They appear happy from my tall paned kitchen windows, and it is a garden that needs only a modicum of care to keep it lovely.
The bunkhouse next to the lodge, which is in use all summer with relatives and friends, needs the spiders and ants eliminated, so our guests don’t get a fright in the night. I even turn over the mattresses to make sure no nests or webs are hiding. The boathouse and craft hut get a good sweep and thorough cleaning to ready for guests who enjoy the rustic camping style. Since the new stairway went up to hut nine, it is now a favorite spot to camp, but needs all new screens. The lower boathouse, catch-all for anything beachfront, gets its yearly organization and sweeping, too. The craft hut still contains a few cots with the original mattresses, but most of the campers have their favorite inflatable beds. Usually, the chipmunks and mice have dragged in pieces of nesting material that we sweep out, which has also included pieces of our mattresses.
Our association of residents takes the maintenance of the Maqua property very seriously, plowing the roads in the winter and grading them in the summer. When the potholes jar our senses, fill dirt and stone are brought in. When tree limbs look precarious on our trails, the men get their chainsaws out and make our world safer. When the corral fence planks rot, new ones are nailed up. When the biffy needs new plumbing or cleaning, someone volunteers. If the dock is dipping and splintering, the crew goes into action for repairs or replacement. The beach sand is refurbished when needed, the campfire pit is cleaned out periodically and one resident is appreciated for his Paul Bunyon skills by keeping our firewood piled high for campfires.
It took a village when the camp was a real camp and it takes a village now! Thankfully, the next generation, with their happy memories of this magical place so ingrained in their childhood, return with grandchildren for all of us to love and create new memories. And, they are young and strong and able and we don’t mind watching the babies in the water while they take over some of the maintenance and repairs and heavy lifting, and they do! The circle of life at Maqua continues in familiar traditions.
THE ROADSIDE PORCH ON THE WEST SIDE UNDER RENOVATION