Workplace 33 - Summer Camping

Woo! This one’s going to be long.

I spent a few months working for a summer camp in Canada. 

Camp Chief Hector is in the gorgeous Rocky Mountains and has been running for nearly a hundred years covering 1000 acres of forest/mountain/rivers. All the campers and staff (called councilors) sleep in teepees, lighting fires at night to keep warm and eating together in the giant lodge.

I was part of the horse staff, crazily. The camp has a herd of about 80 horses and there were about a dozen of us on the horse team to look after them all. Everyone else on the team had either grown up on ranches, worked with herds or done show jumping all their lives, meaning I had a lot to catch up on really quickly! Each day we were down at the barn at 7am to bring all the horses in, get them organised for the day into their lines, fed, any first aid that they needed and then we rode bikes the 2-3k’s to the lodge to quickly eat before racing back down to the barn to get the horses ready before the kids arrived. Then the groups would rock up and the other horse staff would teach them how to groom, saddle up and basic riding instructions – go, turn, stop. That sort of thing.

My responsibility over camp was for the littlest campers. We took campers from about 8 years old I think and so rather than teaching them to saddle up and groom and things like that, I would take the oldest, most docile horses and saddle them up and lead them down to the big flat riding corrals where the kids would meet me. I spent my days down there, getting kids on and off the horses and getting them to walk around the corral. We’d play games and I’d teach them a few basic things. If the kids were doing really well I’d sometimes get them to trot but the old horses weren’t big fans of that. Every so often you’d get a kid who was scared of horses or didn’t like being so high so the councilors for that group would walk along next to them or lead the horse for them. My horses ranged from a massive black guy with feet like dinner plates to some tiny miniature horses and a couple of really gorgeous old nags that had been at the camp forever and were so obedient. I could go on for a long time about my old horses, they were so funny. I was incredibly sad to leave them at the end of camp.

As well as supervising the little chiniquays (the group name for the youngest camp group), we would sometimes go on staff rides. These were the best. We’d each pick our favourite horse and we’d just go way out into the open valleys and fields and run around like a crazy wild herd. Most of the other staff had their regular rides as they were out on trail rides twice a day but I chose a different horse most opportunities til I found my favourite. 

He was a dappled grey that was donated to the herd while we were at camp, and while he wasn’t ready for trail rides or for campers to ride yet I loved him. And hated him. He was so feisty and head strong but he was also 

one of the fastest horses at the camp and so beautifully fun to gallop on. The only trouble was getting him to stop. Heading out from the barn and running around he was so responsive and easy. Until it was time to stop and head home. A more stubborn horse I have never ridden (this isn’t saying much but still he was a pain in the butt). He would try and go any direction except home, even leaving the herd and brushing against things to get me off. Several times I just gave up and had to lead him home, walking in front of him and dragging him forward. This might say a lot more about my riding skills than the horse but I still chose him to ride for the rest of the camp as the first part of any excursion made up for the second. 

Other riding things – every two weeks a camp group would graduate and there was a ceremony in the forest with all their leaders and stuff and they would be lead there by two silent horsemen (horsepeople). It was all very symbolic and traditional and I hated it. Every single time we did this, the horse that I was one would lose it’s mind. I had a horse bolt, a horse that wouldn’t go near a particular clump of trees we needed to go through, one night we were doing it in a thunderstorm – horses are particularly easy to spook, I got kicked… They were awful. By the end of it I was on the most docile of horses, normally used for the kids, and begging to not have to do it. (Even then this horse suddenly tried to bolt from a deer that appeared ages away) I was so scared that I was going to trample a group of kids. 

I got pretty good at horse first aid. As I was at the barn more than most of the staff who were out on trail rides, I was tasked with making sure the relevant horses got their medicine, wounds were washed out and treated, eye drops put in… a whole range of stuff. Horses do not take medicine well so it was tricky but interesting work. Also I got really fit. Carrying saddles, bales of hay and children all day, as well as pushing around horses and a million other chores means you get buff in no time. It was awesome.

Other than horsey stuff…

All of the councilors got a day and a half off every two weeks and, as a staff team of 200 young people, we would choose a venue to descend upon and party out all our hard work. Days off were chaotic and messy and fun. Most of the next day was spent being very quiet.

The horse staff and the higher ground (high ropes/climbing etc) staff were really close, whenever we had time off we always hung out together. Or at meals. Or when there was nothing going on at the barn. Or after chores were done. Pretty much all the time. We were the resources team and we were elite. Oooh yeeeeah.

A million other stories happened over the two and a half months that I was at Camp Hector but you’ll have to come and find me to hear about those. Basically working at a Summer Camp is an incredible experience and I’m so glad that I did it. Anyone can go and work at a summer camp, I went through a great company called NYQUEST who looked after my placement and application, even arranging transport to the camp. The average age of the councilors is about 20 but anyone can go and work there and it’s such an adventure. Get into it! =)

My Teepee, Wakanabi