What's Happening at Camp: S'mores, Fishing Boating!

It’s S’mores week at Sewataro! Campcraft Head, Tom, had the wood fire already blazing when we visited during the 1st period on Thursday. The Choctaw with their Tribe Leader, Josh, and Tribe Assistant, Max, sat on logs surrounding the fire while Tom explained the two methods of marshmallow roasting and how the tribe would proceed. The “impatient” method is to place your marshmallow directly into the hottest part of the fire, causing it to flame and form a charred crust, which can later be discarded if one wishes. The “patient” method calls for holding the marshmallow far enough from the flame and slowly rotating the stick to achieve a golden brown. Sebi, first to roast, went for the first method, quickly setting his mallow aflame; Lukas and Jacob went the more patient route, waiting until their mallows browned to tawny perfection before pulling them out. We asked Will to rate his satisfaction with his own technique, and he gave it a 6, explaining that he had burnt the shell more than he’d have liked. Once the hot mallows melded with the dark chocolate between two graham crackers, however, no one seemed to mind a less than perfect roasting technique. Yummy! All tribes had s’mores this week.

From Campcraft, we sauntered down to the second pond where both the Sioux and the Cherokee were fishing. The Cherokee is a Fox tribe led ably by Sarah and her two tribe assistants, Ana and Elizabeth. Given their relative inexperience in the art of fishing, the girls needed a bit of assistance from fishing counselors Tom and Josh in casting, but they held their rods confidently and expectantly. While the girls had a number of strikes, only a couple were reeled in. Apparently all the big fish had made their way over to the other side of the pond where the Sioux, a Bear tribe, were landing some real beauties. Taking these large bass off their lines kept not only Dan the Fisherman busy but their tribe counselors, Liz and Christina, as well. In general, the number of large bass being caught this summer has made for tons of excitement at Fishing.

Fishing isn’t the only activity at the big pond. Head boating counselor, Kate, and her assistant, Sophie, already had most of the Pawnee, a Bear tribe of girls, in their choice of canoes or kayaks. Most chose the kayaks and were soon playing a game of Capture the Flag, which entails trying to maneuver behind the other kayaks or canoes and snatching their flag. It’s an ingenious way of improving the girls’ boating skills while playing a fun game. The Pawnee loved it.

We could go on. Senior camp was at Free Swim and having a blast jumping on and off the raft under the watchful eye of WSI Kelly. The Tuskies were playing Red Sticks against Blue Sticks at Street Hockey with Sports counselor Alex on the Blue and tribe counselor Mikey on the Red. Lots of fast action punctuated by a left hand shot for a goal by Charley.

The air was dry, the sun was out. It was a beautiful day to see Sewataro in action.