the green spot blog

 Behind the serving of food, the cleaning of facilities, the facilitating of activities, the running of games, and everything else we do in the sight of our guest groups and campers, there is a rich tapestry of stories and sagas which populate the private lives of Camp Evergreen staff members. Our time off from camp comprises tales which run the gamut of emotion and expression—exhilaration, desperation, tribulation, celebration, and most everything in between. The tale I share here is perhaps one of the more tragic ones, but one that is necessary to understand the full spectrum of the camp staff experience. This is the story of Johnstone and Potts. The story starts—like most good stories do—on a table at the back of an open garage. Upon this table sits an array of trinkets and knickknacks, amongst which we find two wooden ducks. The day is May 17, 2014, and it’s a good day for hitting up garage sales—the weather looks to be sunny and pleasant, but not sweltering. Th...

I love our German Adventure Days. It's a time we carve out in our schedule to take our German volunteers on some kind of adventure as a way to say thank you or honour them for their service here at camp. It's like when we take them to the Coast . Horseshoe Canyon Yesterday we adventured to Drumheller which is one of my favourite places to go in Alberta. I love the Badlands and the Royal Tyrrell Museum. I also love learning new things - I get all these questions...like why is the museum called what it is? I know the Tyrrell part but why Royal...well - our Queen apparently visited the museum and it was renamed to the "Royal Tyrrell Museum". Who knew that our Queen dug dinosaurs! Some pretty impressive acrobatics from Hanna, Mirjana, Miriam and Daniel! We started out at Horseshoe Canyon which is the most amazing starting place. You can't see the canyon...even when you park facing it - it isn't until you get out that you see how cool it is. A collective ...

Pardon the pun in the title - I just couldn't help myself. You may wonder what is so punny about the title so allow me to explain. Monday was one of our favourite days of the year - it was Seniors Day at Camp Evergreen! Yes, yes - we spend a lot of time talking about how summer camp is one of our most favourite too but if our staff could pick a single day to be their favourite in spring - I bet that they would choose Seniors Day. The day is quite wonderful - especially because we eat so much good food! Fresh baked cookies in the morning, full table service for lunch, and then fresh baked cinnamon buns (the size of your head) in the afternoon. Now if that doesn't make your mouth water just thinking about it - I don't know what will. After coffee and cookies in the morning - we tour around the camp a little, showing our cabins to folks who haven't seen all of the new ones and the spots where some of our old cabins used to reside. No matter how many times I ...

As of yesterday we were 100 campers ahead of last years numbers at this time.  100 campers!  That's a lot of campers.  Last year we had nearly 800 campers join us for summer and we're on track to pass that number this summer. Let's think about our campers for a minute.  Most campers are pretty excited to come to camp.  They start packing a week or two before camp starts.  They make sure their flashlight has new batteries.  Mom makes sure they have sunscreen.  Sunday morning of registration they are most likely the first ones up and the first ones in the car ready to go.  They are excited to come to camp! I can remember being a camper many, many years ago.  In fact if you scroll down our blog posts you can read about it a few blogs ago.  The one thing that stands out in my mind to this day is my counselor Phil.  We have a bit of a problem here at Camp Evergreen.  It's a good problem to have because it encourage...