It’s a popular plot device in many summer camp movies for young campers to get up to mischief, especially if it exacts some slapstick-style vengeance on not-so-friendly campers or camp leaders.
While summer flicks can offer an exaggerated version of life at summer camp, 17-year-old Blake Pickard admits camp life sometimes does include some shenanigans.
“Yea, pranks have happened,” he says with a laugh.
Although certainly not to the extent that they occur in movies, friendly pranks are a small part of sleep-away summer camp. More so, though, camp is about having fun, making friends and trying new activities, notes Pickard.
The North Vancouver teen attended his first overnight camp when he was 14, and says he was a bit nervous at the time since it was his first time being away from home on his own.
“It went well,” he recalls, noting he felt a bit homesick at first but all the activities soon took his mind off it.
Recently, Pickard started attending Camp Latona on Gambier Island after a friend recommended he try it.
“I liked that it was a relatively small camp, you got to know everybody, and all the games and activities and everything they had there,” he says.
After attending as a camper first, Pickard then went to a leadership camp there, which involved various activities, including tubing, high ropes and swimming, “but at the same time we were trying to take more of a leadership role in the camp,” explains Pickard.
After finishing the leadership program, Pickard became a junior counsellor.
“I’ve always been good with kids and it was definitely a fun job being able to go away for a week and do all these different activities,” he says of why he wanted to become a camp leader.
He is now a counsellor in training (counsellors have to be at least 18 years old), but won’t be able to attend camp this summer because he has been tapped to play football for UBC next year and will be busy preparing.
It’s not too surprising that Pickard’s favourite activities at camp have been the games played in the forest, such as Capture the Flag and Predator and Prey.
“Games like that were really fun when you’re just running through the forest covered in sweat and paint,” he says.
Campfire songs are part of almost every night at Camp Latona, and on the last night campers head out on a bit of a field trip for which they hike or canoe to a different area and camp outside rather than sleep in cabins.
During the regular camp week, kids are divided into cabins based on their age, and Pickard says cabin mates tend to work together during the week and become close friends.
“You get to know a lot of really great kids,” he says.
Outside of camp, Pickard keeps in touch with many of his fellow campers, especially ones from the outdoor leadership program. He says it’s not difficult making new friends at camp, especially if you keep an open mind.
His advice to new campers: “If they try new things, they make new friends and it all works out better.”
This story originally appeared in the North Shore News Summer Camps special section, which highlights local camps and campers.
