We Had Fun!
After years of sailing Lake Sakakawea in and around Douglas Bay (near Garrison), we know the exact location of Triangle Y Camp. Normally it wouldn’t be more than a subtle “guess the Y Camp is getting it tonight”, but it’s Sunday night, July 14th. What’s special about this night? The impending storm, with green, yellow, and even red colored precipitation bands is bearing down on Douglas Bay, and tonight Carter and Charlie Wilson, (bet you can figure out the relationship with the author) have moved in the Cheyenne Cabin for a week-long, well actually Sunday through Friday, stay.
Camp Director Mallory Gray, once a first-time camper at Triangle Y Camp, has taken the necessary precautions and moved the 140 campers and staff to the basement of the dining hall. “Yeah, we just moved them downstairs in the dining hall and put on a movie. We get calls from the McLean County Sherriff’s Department and of course we have precautions we take.”
When we asked Carter and Charlie about Sunday night, Carter said, “Oh yeah. It rained and there was lightning” and then both he and Charlie told the story of moving from the dining hall to their cabin in the middle of the night. They got wet and it was slippery according to Carter, but they made it and crawled into their bunks for night #1 at camp.
For Mallory, it was 2002 when she started as a camper. “I was a camper until 2006 according to Gray “I was an LIT (Leader in Training) in 2007, and a staff member from 2008 to 2012.”
The Triangle Y Camp is located in central North Dakota and draws from a broad area “we can have from 50 on some of our lighter weeks to 120 campers, and that’s pretty much the max we can handle” according to Gray. If you haven’t guessed, Carter and Charlie are my grandsons. Carter is 13 and Charlie is 10, and this is their first year at camp. They were in the Cheyenne cabin that overlooked the mouth of Douglas Bay. They didn’t know their geographic location on Lake Sakakawea, but when they took me to look at the climbing tower I told them that the tower was a prominent marker on the shoreline, one that we navigate from when we are sailing in the area.
Another highlight of the Triangle Y Camp is a tall rope swing that allows kids to swing out into the swimming area. The swimming area was developed in the 80’s when Lake Sakakawea experienced year of drought, and it was quite a distance from the Y Camp to the shoreline. A more manageable lake level has been maintained over the years, but the swimming area remained a part of the camp.
A Completely New
Experience
Mallory explains that the kids who are attending camp for the first time “have a completely new experience. You get to places like the dining hall and there are 150 people in there, so sometimes it’s just a matter of sitting back and taking it all in.” But once the new campers start to do activities and gain the experience at camp, it doesn’t take long for a new camper to be an experienced camper. “By the time Thursday rolls around and we do our closing ceremony, they are sad to leave” says Gray “and of course that make all of us sad because it means that another week is coming to an end.”
As a parent (and a grandparent for that matter) you are curious and eager to know how the week went for your camper. I am sure that there are kids who are like the energizer bunny and fill the car with stories about their week at Triangle Y Camp. It’s hard not to skip to the easiest to ask, and hardest to answer, question; Well, do you want to go back next year? Both of my grandsons were eager to return, but their enthusiasm fell short of doing backflips. I say that with a little tongue in cheek, because within an hour both were asleep and took at least 2-hour naps on their way back to West Fargo.
We also have to share that kids have to abandon anything that connects to the internet, including phones, games, watches…well, anything that interrupts conversation from staff and counselors. I thought back to my days at camp and how the counselors would sit us down on day 1 and have us write (in cursive by the way) a letter home. The phone at camp was for emergencies only, note that phone was singular. I think that establishing a routine is important, and getting kids out of their comfort zone is just as important.
So, thank you to the staff at Triangle Y Camp for taking good care of Carter and Charlie, and the hundreds of other kids at camp. We hope to see some of you next year. By the way, I have a younger grandson who told me…BePa (grandpa), I am going to camp like Carter and Charlie. This one is wired a bit different, so I may have to apologize in advance.
