A PLACE TO BELONG
Camp Kirk in the Kawarthas feels like family to kids with learning disabilities,
A welcome midday dump of rain has brought brief relief from a scorching stretch of summertime weather at Camp Kirk, and the six boys of Cabin 4 are splayed out on their bunks, spending their post-lunch quiet hour plotting.
It’s the birthday of one of their counsellors. “Big” Ben Gray has just turned 26, and the boys need to lure him away after dinner for a special surprise, perhaps a trip to town for ice cream.
How about saying Hunter fell in the toilet? Ben, it is agreed, would definitely want to see that.
Or, how about the promise of a “long boring walk” or fishing?
No, it should be a kidnapping, with the campers wearing disguises and spiriting Ben out of the dining hall and into waiting camp vehicles, says Liam Littell, 14, a return camper from Arizona.
Another camper pipes up: “I think what we should actually do, though, is get chloroform or something that makes you sleep and actually proper kidnap him and then we wake him up wherever we are, and he’s like, ‘What?’ ”
Saner heads will prevail, and the plot will go down later that night — without the use of chemicals — at Camp Kirk, a residential camp near Kirkfield in the Kawarthas, which offers kids with varying types and degrees of learning disabilities a chance to enjoy the wilds of Ontario for 10 days to two weeks.
On this week in mid-July, it’s all boys, ranging in age from around nine to 15. Four days into their two-week session, strong bonds between them and staff have already formed.
Later, after dinner and before the kidnapping of Ben, the 30-some campers, plus leaders and counsellors-in-training and staff, will engage in an old camp tradition of jumping up on their chairs and bellowing out John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” ... “to a place where I belong.”
For the returning campers, it is like coming home.
“It’s a very open, very kid-friendly camp, where over the course of the session you really become a family, particularly for special-needs kids,” says Logan Littell, 16, Liam’s older brother, who is in his fifth year at camp and a leaderin-training.
“The counsellors and other staff really make sure that the special-needs kids get what they need and really help them get through tough times,” says Logan.
“They are absolutely amazing and when you’re feeling down they definitely try and help get you back up on your feet and they definitely try their best to keep you engaged, to have a good time here at camp.”
Good times include cooling off in the swimming pool, pottery making, hugging Henry, the camp director’s dog, catching and releasing painted turtles in the swamp, beach days at Balsam Lake Provincial Park, music sessions, and braving a go at the “Bucky Swing” — a towering, gut-wrenching challenge that involves being clipped into a harness, pulled to a great height and released to soar over lush greenery.
Bucky, if you must know, is the beaver who lives in the swamp, along with the leeches, including ones named “Skinny Boy” and “The Blob.”
Back home, says Logan, he is not fully accepted in school. “But here you’re accepted for whoever you are. At some points, you kind of get bullied or just kind of left out at school, but here, you’re never left out.”
Kids and teens ages 6 to 16 are eligible to attend camp. The staff-to-camper ratio is high, usually 32 to 36. The camp focuses on individual strengths, not differences, something that is evident over the course of a day.
The highlight for many campers are the extended canoe trips into the Haliburton Highlands and Algonquin Park.
Before the kidnapping of Ben, the boys of Cabin 4 spent the afternoon learning how to paddle and rescue a tipped canoe, albeit on land, due to a storm outside.
They learned that a paddle is not a lightsabre, nor is it an axe. And that the camper in the “princess seat” — the middle of the canoe — must not be a princess, and must paddle.
The next day, after the kidnapping, the boys of Cabin 4 head off on a three-day canoe trip, making memories that will last a lifetime. You can help make those memories possible by donating to the Toronto Star Fresh Air Fund.