A few newsletters back we asked former staff, campers, volunteers if they would recount some memories for us that could be utilized during our 100th anniversary year in 2021. Here is an excerpt from Will Tranter who was a camper in the 1940s!
I am now eighty-one years old and first attended Camp Kawartha in 1947 when it was an all boys camp. It was the summer between grade 5 and 6 when my parents learned about the camp through the Peterborough YMCA and decided it would be a great summer experience for me.
In early August of 1947, my parents drove out from where we lived in Peterborough and dropped me off for my 2 weeks of adventure. One of the first people I met when I was being dropped off was the camp director, Cooki Munroe. Cooki was a manual training (woodworking) teacher at Central School in Peterborough and it just so happened that I ended up dating his niece later on in high school.
My days at the camp where filled with water sports and games. I officially learned how to tie my own knots, paddle a war canoe and swim with more confidence. The layout of the camp hasn’t changed much, except there are a few more buildings on the property.
One of my most vivid memories of the camp was at a campfire by the water. Each night a cabin was responsible for the evenings entertainment and this was usually in the form of songs or skits. This particular evening one of the campers from the group in charge of entertainment told the campers that he had been taught a fire trick by an old first nation friend that he would perform later that evening. He proceeded to explained he would swallow some gasoline and have fire come shooting out of his mouth. True to his word, he proceeded to shoot a fireball out of his mouth like a dragon. We were in awe! Rules and safety protocols were vastly different than they are today…. to say the least.
On another occasion we did a day excursion hiking from the camp to McCracken’s Landing along a trail close to the water. (This was prior to Birchview Road being put in.) For a 10-year-old at the time it felt as if we where hiking in the wild west and playing out a scene of cowboys and Indians along the way. We were told by the counsellors that at the half way point we would receive an ice cream cone and candies from the Choates Supply Store at the Landing…enough to motivate any 10-year-old boy.
Camp Kawartha was really the starting point of my love for Clear and Stony Lake. It was approximately 16 years later I purchased a small island further down the Lake as a vacation residence. Although I call myself a lake resident, I hadn’t given much though in recent years to the Camp and my experiences. It was just last summer that my grandchildren, both age 4 & 5 at the time, attended the day camp helping trigger some of my fond memories and experiences as a camper.
Thanks for sharing Will. That fire trick is definitely not something anyone would try nowadays! Wow, what a different world 70+ years ago.
If you have memories you could share, through saved letters home, stories, photos or film, please reach out to Susan at philanthropy@campkawartha.ca
