Dear Moose Families

It is our pleasure to write this first weekly letter home from Moosilauke during the second session of summer 2024–our 120th year!  Along with chronicling the day-to-day happenings at camp we will also use the intro section to write about issues related to boys.

On the closing day of the first session,  Sabina and Bill talked on the beach with parents about the summer, and also about what they have learned about how boys learn and grow and become their best selves from over three decades of running Moosilauke.  Among other points, we discussed: 

• Michael Thompson’s comment that on a deep level boys weigh everything they do by “does this make me look weak?”
• The fact that parents (and camp directors) can’t give kids self esteem, resilience, and well-being.  Instead, boys have to earn it, and they earn it via positive risk taking that involves encountering and overcoming failure.  So to be his best self your son can’t just do what he is already good at.
• Given this, it is very important for boys to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable”–and parents to get comfortable with their kids being uncomfortable.  (Bill wrote in depth on this topic in the blog titled “Why Your Child Needs a Little Stress and Mess.”) 
• We then made the related points that boys will only risk failure if they are in a supportive culture, that especially in the teen years, peer culture is the most powerful influence on kids, so a key role for parents is to place their kids in the most authentic and supportive peer cultures they can find.
• We closed our talk with the fact that all of this informs our laser-like focus on the following: filling the lives of our campers with positive risk taking; balancing structure and choice with all our programming; and doing everything we can to curate a kind and inclusive culture where boys are known and held to a high standard.

Enough philosophy!  Time for a daily recap of life at Moose from July 25 through July 30, 2024.

On Opening Day of the Second Session, we welcomed 142 campers from around the country and world.  (This summer at Moose we will have campers from 20 states and 6 countries.)  As always, it was so great to meet new campers and parents and to give high fives and hugs to returners.  After the campers unpacked in their cabins, checked in with the nurses, had their photo taken, and set up their lockers, they enjoyed free play including pick-up lawn games, basketball, board games, volleyball, and ping pong.  After the bus arrived from NYC/CT the camp convened at the office for the traditional game of “Bill Says.”  It was then time for campus tours, before we had our traditional first night meal of “Moose Burgers,” french fries, salad bar, and Whoopie pies for dessert.  After dinner, the campers gathered by age group for a round of “name games” and getting-to-know-you activities. Each cabin then met together to discuss their guidelines for living together as a group during their time with us at Camp. All the campers then walked to the different activity areas where our counselors introduced themselves in fun and wacky ways.    

On Friday, we had our first traditional Moosilauke day.  There were assigned activities by age group for the first two class periods of the morning, and choice sign-ups for the final two periods of the day.  Also on Friday, we jumped right into inter-camp competition with a 12s baseball game at Moose.  The oldest campers, the Senior A1s and Senior A2s (fifteen-and-fourteen-year-olds) spent the afternoon swimming and jumping in the natural waterslides of Baker Cliffs, followed by a delicious ice cream treat at Moose Scoops.  In the evening, there was kickball, tennis baseball, hockey, dodgeball, World Cup soccer, Frisbee golf, and tubing. 

Saturday was another beautiful day.  Intercamp competition continued with a 15s Pickleball tournament and a 13s basketball tournament at a neighboring camp.  A group of Senior Bs (thirteen-year-olds) ventured out on a mountain biking trip in the morning on the roads and trails surrounding camp.  An all-ages group headed to the 70 miles of machine groomed trails at Green Woodlands trails for some mountain biking fun in the afternoon.  In the evening, it was movie night on both junior and senior hills with homemade popcorn provided by the CITs.  Those not watching the movie had their choice of basketball, tennis, Pickleball, lawn games, board and card games, crossnet, tubing, and trivia on the beach. 

Sunday was the Camp’s first “Lazy Sunday” of the Second Session.  It started with an amazing brunch that included fried eggs, cheese omelettes, sausage and bacon, danish, and cinnamon buns.  After brunch there was free play until a camp-wide swim at noon. After lunch, it was our traditional camp-wide Capture the Flag fest.  The teams were “Ping Pong” vs. “Table Tennis.”  The Counselors-in-Training did an excellent job organizing the event and fun was had by all.  The Junior Hill campers then took a swim in the lake to clean up, while the Senior Hill campers headed up for showers.   In the evening, there was a cookout and social at our neighboring girls’ camp.

Monday was a big tripping day.  A group of Senior A2s (fourteen-year-olds) departed early for a 2-night, 3-day hiking overnight adventure in the Presidential Range.  The intrepid campers hiked about 17 miles in total and submitted Mt. Adam, Mt. Jefferson,  and Mt. Washington.  The Inter As (twelve-year-olds) departed after breakfast to hike Mt. Moosilauke and stay at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, run by Dartmouth College.  The campers, who did a round trip hike of almost 8 miles, loved the views–and the “5-course meal” at the Lodge for dinner that included salad, homemade vegetable soup, rice and beans, grilled chicken, “crusty” homemade bread, and cinnamon brownie sundaes for dessert.  

A group of Inter Bs (eleven-year-olds) left Monday for a canoeing overnight trip to Cliff Island on Newfound Lake.  The group paddled a mile to the island campsite, where they set up camp, ate a packed lunch, then went swimming and fishing.  They cooked their dinner over a campfire in the evening before sleeping in their tents.  A group of Junior As (ten-year-olds) spent the afternoon and evening at our Pioneer Camp on the Baker River.  They swam, jumped and fished at Baker Cliffs, cooked their food over a campfire, and then slept in a huge tent on our tent platform.

Finally, there was an all-ages climbing trip to the Rumney crags and a Senior B (thirteen-year-olds) bike trip around the lake.  Inter-camp competition continued with a 13s lacrosse tournament and 11s basketball tournament at Moose.  

Tuesday, a second group of Inter Bs (eleven-year-olds) had their turn on the Cliff Island canoe adventure.  Another group of Senior Bs (thirteen-year-olds) ventured out on a mountain biking adventure.  The Junior Bs (eight-and-nine-year-olds) hiked out to our lakeside wilderness site, the Point, for an overnight.  They swam, fished, and cooked S’mores over a campfire before sleeping in our log cabin and on our new tent platform.  Intercamp competition continued with a 12s basketball tournament at a neighboring camp and a 14s soccer tournament at Moose.  In the evening, there was tubing, fishing, open swim, lawn games, dodgeball, “benchball,” and tennis.

Meal highlights for the week included egg/sausage/cheese breakfast sandwiches, chicken patties and Philadelphia cheese steak sandwiches for lunch, and homemade deep dish pizza and “Kenny Cookout” (with bratwurst and grilled chicken) for dinner.

A final note about one of the great traditions at Moose: post meal announcement and community time.  After every meal, counselors and campers alike take center stage in front of over 200 people in our historic Moose Mess Hall (built in 1904).  At breakfast you can count on hearing staff announcements about impending trips and sports competitions, and camper game recaps from previous events.  Bill will usually share Moose history trivia and Kenny will regale the community with pro sports scores and ESPN-like commentary.  At other meals Bill will do speed math problems, interview campers and staff, and host “Moose Got Talent” segments where campers get up and dance, sing, and tell jokes and riddles.  Without a doubt, a highlight of community time is when Todd does his “Trick of the Day.”  And of course it would not be Moosilauke without the plethora of chants and songs that organically arise at every meal.

That’s a wrap for the first 6 days.  We will provide more updates throughout the session.  Feel free to reach out to Bill or Sabina if you have any questions.  Thank you for sharing your boys with us.

Happy Summer!

Bill, Sabina, Ken, Ingrid, Todd, Preston, Jake, Quinn, and Charlotte