Our blog post today comes from Wes Baker, who is 10 years old. Next summer will be his third at Camp Deerhorn, after having come to Father Son camp with his dad and brother. Following is an essay Wes wrote about Deerhorn last spring. Many thanks to his parents for sharing it with us!
Sometimes people ask “What makes Camp Deerhorn more special than other summer camps? It’s just a normal summer camp, right?” But I say no. It is a fun summer camp in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. Camp Deerhorn is a really fun camp. Three awesome things about Camp Deerhorn are the really fun activities, the awesome, friendly, and nice staff, and the awesome camp grounds.
Camp Deerhorn is an awesome summer camp because of the awesome activities. One activity is biking. In biking, you can go in the woods that take up about half of camp. In the trails there are trees, roots, bushes, shrubs, rocks, pebbles, branches, and boulders that make biking at Camp Deerhorn fun. Another fun and unique thing about Camp Deerhorn’s biking woods is that there is a bike trail for every team. There is Chippewa Cascade, Apache Avalanche, Iroquois Inferno, and Navajo Nightmare. Camp Deerhorn is an awesome summer camp because of the awesome biking trails. Another awesome thing about Camp Deerhorn is that you can do archery. Camp’s archery range is fun because their bows all have levels, for example my favorite bows are too easy to pull back but medium bows are the best for me to shoot with because they are easy to pull back but not too easy.
Another reason Camp Deerhorn is an awesome summer camp is because you can go sailing. Not a lot of camps have sailing lessons. Another reason I like Deerhorn’s sailing is because Fourth Lake is a very calm lake and it is really good for sailing because there aren’t a lot of waves. My last reason Camp Deerhorn has awesome activities is because you can do a ton of different unique games that other camps don’t have. My favorite game (along with a majority of the campers) is “Scalp.” Scalp is a game in which you take two shirts and tuck them in on either side of your body, then you run around and try to pull one of the other team’s flags. Another game you can play is koogee ball. In koogee ball you throw a tennis ball on the roof of koogee 7, then somebody comes up and jumps, while you are in the air you have to catch and release the tennis ball before you hit the ground. If you don’t release in time or the ball doesn’t hit the roof, you’re out and you wait until there is only one person left, this person is the winner. Other games we play at Camp Deerhorn are “Indian Ball”, “Sprout Ball”, “Star Wars”, “Klepton”, “World Cup”, and many more fun-filled games.
Camp Deerhorn is also fun because there is a really nice and funny staff. They make tournaments. I think this is nice because there are so many kids at Camp Deerhorn that there is always a challenge for you. They do tournaments for ping-pong, tetherball, and tennis. They also play games with you like sproutball, World Cup, Klepton, Star Wars, Koogee Ball, Rafter Ball, Scalp, soccer, and this is one reason why I think Camp Deerhorn is an awesome summer camp. They also do a counselor show. I like the counselor show because right when you start to miss your family on the second to last or last day, they make you want to stay longer. An example of this is all the team leaders were sad that it was their last day at camp when they could still be campers, and the next year they would have to work as counselors, but that night the counselors did the counselor show and made them all feel better. At the counselor show they did things like “Ew!” remixes or super secret handshakes and made us all laugh.
Another reason I think Camp Deerhorn is awesome is because of the camp grounds. I think Camp Deerhorn has an awesome campground because of the pier. I like the pier because it is on a shallow lake so the pier is really close to the bottom of the water. Another reason I like Camp Deerhorn’s grounds is because in the lodge you can play rafter ball. Rafter ball is a game where you try to throw a tennis ball over one rafter and hit a rafter on the other side. One special koogee also has a different smooth roof made for a special game called koogee ball.
This next reason I will state is my last reason because it is the most special. There are dogs around the camp! I don’t just mean any random small boring dog that just lies on the ground. I am talking about a three year old Golden Retriever named Koda, a Mastiff/Newfoundland/St. Bernard mix named Rooster who is 3, a yellow lab sock eater and dumpster diver named Iz who is 5, a one year old dog named Skatie and a puppy named Gunner.
As you can see, Camp Deerhorn is an awesome summer camp. I think this because of the awesome activities, the nice and funny staff, and the awesome camp grounds. Because this is true, doesn’t this also mean Camp Deerhorn is an awesome place for dads too? I think this because my dad has come to Father Son Camp with me for the past two years and he had so much fun that I think he was more sad than my brother and I were when we couldn’t go to Father Son Camp in 2015. If Camp Deerhorn is an awesome summer camp for kids, isn’t it an awesome place for dads too?
