By Dylan McDonough
On Tuesday, November 6th, I went to Camp Roger where the theme for the day was “Survivors”. It was very rainy and mucky. The temperature was in the 30s Fahrenheit. The gagaball pit (which they call Joe Ball at Camp Roger) had a big puddle of dirty, sludgy mud.
We started the day by reading a devotional about odd animals that God created. This one was about leeches. To most people, myself included, leeches are super gross. Leeches have suckers on their mouth and body. They live in swampy areas, and dark and moist places so they can hide easily. They’re usually black. In their saliva they have a painkiller. So when they grip and suck their prey’s blood, the victim doesn’t feel it. Sometimes leeches can be like worry. Worry grabs onto you and slows you down. That was the key lesson of this devotional.
I may have mentioned our mascot “The Lion of Destiny” before. He is a small stuffed animal who almost always goes with Hannah on the adventures she leads. She makes him talk and be part of our group. He lost an eye the day before this Camp Roger day! This was a big deal to us. Someone from the last group said he’ll make him an eye patch.
On our first adventure, we went with Hannah to the lake. We learned about what food you can eat in the wilderness. Fish are hard to catch with your bare hands and it would waste your energy. That would cause you to need even more food! Pine needles from a white pine tree (Michigan’s state tree) in a clump of five are edible. Eating wild berries can be poisonous. If berries are left alone by animals, you should probably let them be too. We started to collect bait to fish with. We were paired off into groups of two. The fishing poles were long sticks with string attached on the end. The string had a hook on the end. We tried fishing a while. We used bugs as bait. Asher, Avery and I didn’t catch anything. Afterwards, we went back for snack time.
On our second adventure, the Blazing Bobcats went with Julia. Our team headed down to a clearing. There was a pot overflowing with steam above a fire. We were going to make white pine tea! But before that, we would learn to make our own mini fire. We learned about tinder. This is very small twigs, dry grass, and
dead pine needles. Then we learned about kindling. Kindling is small twigs that are easy to break. Kindling is a bigger in size than tinder. Our small group learned to make a trench fire. We dug a small trench, then put kindling over it. On top of the kindling, we put the tinder. Even bigger sticks would then be put in a teepee shape. Doritos and Fritos can burn well. Also, pocket lint and duct tape are good for starting a fire. We finally had the tea. The tea tasted good to me, but not everyone liked it. Then we came back for lunch.
Mary Jo was the leader for our third adventure. There was a 10 gallon bucket full of acorns. If a squirrel found this bucket, it would have a feast! For this game, red squirrels bury three acorns at a time while brown or black squirrels bury one at a time. We took one or three acorns depending on what type of squirrel we were. Squirrels bury their acorns before the winter so they have food to eat. I couldn’t find my acorns after I buried them. I would be a dead squirrel now.
Then we went up to Girl’s Hill or Mount Girl. Girl’s Hill (and Boy’s Hill) have three cabins formed into a rough circle around a clearing. We learned about migrating geese. God gave them the instinct to fly south. We played a game where we pretend to be geese migrating. We took a card from every cabin. It told us what to do. For example, one card said to take two steps forward and one step back continuously until you reach the next cabin. Another card I got said I had hit a radio tower and died. When you die you go to the sideline. Some cards say pick one or two people from the sideline. I ended up migrated five times! Squawk!
Our last stop was at Ridge Hall. We saw all of the real stuffed animals like bears, foxes, eagles and bobcats. On a table there were animal furs, snake skins, logs bitten by beavers, bones and small dead animals! It was really cool.
This Camp Roger, despite the rain, was fantastic! I love being out in the woods. Now I can survive anywhere by the knowledge I learned. Be on the lookout for the next Camp Roger Report!
