In about an hour or two our quiet gathering on Spider Lake will begin to grow significantly. What is currently about a dozen or so grows by 15 as our trip leaders return from Wilderness First Responder and Wilderness Water Safety training. We'll also get about 10 staff rolling in to begin lifeguard training as well as several more members of our kitchen staff. Tomorrow an additional 15 or so will arrive. What was one table in our dining hall last night for dinner will become four.
Before we welcome all of these folks, we'd like to take a minute to throw in the first keylog of 2012. For those who don't know what a keylog is, during the summer, we have a Friday night service where, amongst other things, we take the opportunity to thank others. This is symbolized by throwing in a piece of wood that we call a keylog. The keylog is a tradition that many of the northwoods camp hold dearly. The area that we're located was well known for its role in the lumber industry. Lumberjacks would take down trees, float them in the river, down to the mill. At times, however, one log would get stuck, leading to a real logjam, stopping flow of logs down to the mill. One courageous lumberjack would have to go and log that started the jam. Unsticking the "key log" would fix the jam and get everything flowing downstream once again.
In recognition of our hard working crew that has spent the past several weeks getting camp ready, we throw in our first keylog of the summer. Tom Brokaw is our lead caretaker and he spends all year tirelessly working to make camp look amazing. He' was joined in the spring by Dorothy Briggs and Noah Lattin, our maintenance assistants. They're awesome! Greg Merckx, our driver, came up in May to help with the set-up process, and about a week or so ago, tripper Jason Mann came up early ahead of trip leader training. We've had others that have come in over the past week who have helped with the set-up, along with their other responsibility. This includes village directors Scott Goldberg and John Sheehan, Matt Sirles from the kitchen and new counselor Tyler Ray.
We can't believe how great camp looks ahead of our pre-camp orientation and we're truly thankful for all the hard work that has been put in to make it happen!
