Day Camps, Montreal

We also visited day camps in Montreal at the Bio Dome and the Montreal Botanic Gardens.

The Bio Dome (above right) is like a zoo and they run a range of activities around animal themes and conservation. The campers complete conservation projects and learn about eco systems and biodiversity.

At the Montreal Botanic Gardens campers also undertake projects around themes like geology, plants or insects.

They even have an opportunity to plant and tend their own veggie garden over the 7 week Summer program. They then harvest and take home the produce.

Base de Plein Air le P'tit Bonheur

This camp was founded by the Jesuits in 1962 and is on 1700 acres with 6 lakes (I am convinced it is illegal in Canada to open a camp without at least one beautiful lake.)

They use tee pee accommodation and log cabins and are in the process of trying to raise $24million over 5 years to upgrade the camp.

They have a range of programs focused on young people who have dropped out of school to try to get them to go back to school.

These campers spend 2 weeks at school learning skills like cooking or maintenance and then come to camp for 2 weeks to put those skills into practice.

Base de Plein Air Perce-Neige, Quebec

Our host at this camp was Yanik Villeneuve or Kuma (the Bear in Japanese). This camp was opened in 1977 and is owned and supported by the Canadian Tire Foundation (Canadian Tire is like Bunnings in Australia.)



This is part of the gang at left after our morning hike to the lookout.

They run a range of programs for people with a disability and disadvantaged groups, as well as school programs and Summer camp for 8-15yo.

The foundation is made up of the 94 stores in Quebec who each contribute a percentage of their profits to the foundation.

It would be great if we could get the level of involvement with the corporate sector that they have in Canada.

More about germs

In relation to my last post I found this little item for sale in my airline magazine:
"A personal germ eliminator" which apparently uses portable UVC light to kill 99.99% of germs. They recommend you use it to sterilise telephones, keyboards, bathroom services (I assume this is the dunny seat!), hotel pillows, kitchen utensils and more - now come on!

Kamp Kanawago, YMCA, Quebec

Our first camp visit in Quebec and thank you to Sean Day for delaying his reunion with his wife after a long Summer to show us around (our apologies to his wife for keeping him).

This was a camp on a beautiful setting. They have a significant focus on environmental sustainability. I was very excited to see the organic veggie garden at the entrance. Surely if they can have veggie gardens at camps in Canada with long frozen Winters, then we can have them in Australia where we can grow veggies all year round!

They also had a new toilet and shower block (above right) with composting toilets and the ability to recycle the waste water from the showers and basins via a natural filtering system (below right).

Their hot water is heated by timber from tree falls on their property and they have an extensive composting program.

Next year they plan to incorporate programs about this in their Summer Camp program - each camper will have at least 6 hours of environmental programs during a 12 day/11 night program.

I believe with an increasing focus on the environment and global warming this is the way for us to go - it would be fantastic if we good run programs which teach our campers about food miles and carbon footprints and healthy eating and where our food comes from.

We will continue to seek discussions with government in Australia about supporting these kinds of programs.

Farewell Circles and the Management of Risk

I had a bit of a sleepless night the other night thinking about the images I had seen of the Farewell Circle at Camp Wenonah. These were emotional and touching images of campers and staff who had clearly developed strong friendships over the Summer, saying goodbye to each other. Images of perfectly healthy, natural and human responses.



And yet I couldn't help but feel that the Farewell Circle would be an unlikely part of programs in Australia, or at the very least it would not involve the staff, because one of the ways we have responded to abuse of young people in Australia (and in many other places I am sure) has been to make it socially unacceptable for adults, particularly males, to hug children. The intention of this is, of course, to protect our children and this is a sensible and reasonable thing for a society to do. But I wonder if the solution causes other problems for young people.



I believe there are similar dynamics at play in other areas of society and not just in Australia of course. In an attempt to protect our children against injury we increasingly focus on the elimination of risk. Maybe, despite the evidence about the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle, this leads us to prefer our children watch television or play computer games in the lounge room where we can keep them 'safe' rather than be out riding bikes or climbing trees in what we perceive to be the dangerous outdoors.



But at what cost to their healthy development into adulthood, to their levels of resilience and to their long term physical and mental health?



Next time you see an advertisement for household disinfectant look closely at what they are really saying - and they are mostly not being too subtle about it either - germs are bad, if you really love your family then you will use our product in copiuos quantities to kill all the germs in your house.



But apart from this being a fruitless exercise, what impact is this having on our immune systems? On the environment? Is it coincidental that the more sterile our lives become the more we see allergies emerge?



I don't think there are simplistic answers to any of these questions. I am not advocating that we all just start hugging each other again, or that we let our kids run wild, or that we stop cleaning our houses. I believe it was simplistic solutions that got us into this mess. I think it went something like this:

1. Our children are at risk.

2. Hands up all those people who don't want to protect our kids.

3. Good, so everyone (except bad people who don't care about our kids) wants us to take all measures to protect kids.



I don't have the answers but I am troubled by many of the 'solutions' we have now and I think we need to keep examining these things in an effort to come up with better ways. I am convinced that these are not simple problems with simple answers. If they were then they would have been solved a long time ago and clearly they have not been. Logically this must mean they are in fact, like most issues, complex and nuanced - shades of grey rather than black and white.

But I am confident that if we continue to talk together and to look for better solutions then we will eventually find them.

Camp Walden, Ontario

Our final camp for Ontario was Camp Walden - our hosts Sol, Jen and Talia Birenbaum.

The activity at right is called the Whale Watch Board (I think) and involves a group of campers trying to balance the board without speaking. It is about two metres by three metres and looks a lot of fun.

This is a big camp and accommodates 500 campers and 250 staff in Summer. Most campers stay for the whole seven week program - this is at the upper end as far as camps we have visited so far.

At the end of a fantastic meal (a continuing theme so far) we were entertained by Dave Borins (sorry about the red eye Dave). Camp Walden has a very strong music program and Dave is a product of that program - keep your eye out for him he is destined for big things I am sure - and remember you heard it here.

Tomorrow we are off to Ottawa and then on to Quebec. Thank you to all those camp staff who have made us so welcome in Ontario (and Alberta and British Columbia before that).