Camp Wabikon Staff
After going to Camp Wabikon in Temagami, ON for five years as a camper and one year as a counselor in training (CIT), I worked there for three years in a variety of roles. My first summer on staff, I worked as a counselor, my second summer, as a canoe tripper, and finally, I worked as one of the co-directors of the camp's counselor in training program. These years of work taught me about myself as a leader, and allowed me to begin to choose the kind of leader I wanted to me.
In my first summer on staff, in 2017, I was a counselor of 14 year olds, taking care of them and living in their cabin. I also lead the camp's crocheting activity, and taught kids from the ages of eight to 15 how to crochet.
In my second summer on staff, in 2018, I worked as a canoe tripper. I lead two to five day long canoe trips for kids aged eight through 16. On trip, we only had a GPS spot to connect with camp headquarters in emergency situations, and no cell service, so all decisions were ultimately up to the canoe tripper. This made the ability to navigate through confusing series' of islands and adapt safely to the conditions of the environment and the people on the trip completely necessary. Additionally, there were many forest fires in the area the summer that I was leading canoe trips, adding another frightening and complex factor to trip leading, as we had to adjust our cooking practices and keep track of where camping bans were in place. From these trip leading experiences, I learned that I have the ability to stay very calm in emergency situations and adapt my leadership style according to necessity. While I am often coaching or delegating in my leadership style while guiding a trip, I can switch to a more directive approach easily in high stress situations, when there isn't time flexibility or when explaining the situation fully isn't helpful, as it can slow the process and often make people worse at following directions due to panic.
In my third and final summer on staff, in 2019, my best friend at camp and I were the co-directors of the camp's counselor in training program, a six week program for 16 year olds that teaches them about leadership, trains them in necessary skills such as life guarding in preparation for being counselors, gives them lots of unique experiences, and evaluates them as potential counselors. In order to lead this program, we had to plan what we wanted to accomplish down to each day and activity, guide the CITs through each day, evaluate and review their progress, and also be the counselors of rowdy 16 year olds. We often had to work from 7am to after midnight, as after a long day of leading the program, we would then have to work on planning for the next few days or week. This was definitely one of the most challenging jobs I've ever held, partly because of the almost continuous work and partly because of complex dynamics of leadership between ourselves, our CITs, and the camp directors, one of whom had twins in our program. It was also a very rewarding job, however, because when things went well with the CITs, we had total responsibility for the success of the program.