B-B-B-Bancroft

Bancroft Ontario....it already sounds fantastic, right?

I love Bancroft for a few reasons though. Here's my list

1)Mineral Captital of Canada AND Most Talented Town?! WHOA. Bancroft is raking in the accomplishments
I guarantee you it more than fufills BOTH titles.

Bancroft even hosts the Bancroft Rockhound GEM-boree every summer where, yes, hundreds of people gather to look at and purchase....rocks and gems. My personal favorite rock/gem to buy? The Rock Person.

2) Bancroft is not only home to the most talented people and rocks, it is also home to a special place in my heart, Moose FM radio. Some may have even heard my voice, promoting a little thing called Can-Aqua Day Camp on there during the long summer days of 2007. The Moose plays amazing tunes day and night while also keeping you in the loop of who got parking tickets that day. First name basis only. I think they only have about 1 mix tape though because the songs do get repetitive. Shockingly their website is fairly extensive. They even release mix tapes cleverly named "Moose Trax". They're up to number 5 now!

3) Moose Tracks. Not the CD, the ice cream. I don't care how often you tell me that you know the best ice cream place. Unless it's Kawartha Dairy, you are wrong.
Moose Track is possibly the best flavour ever, Vanilla ice cream chocolate ribbon and Reese Peanut Butter Cups... don't even pretend you don't like it.


4) Cardiff. Not exactly Bancroft, but a good 15 minutes down the road there is a small, town about the size of an intersection...but it packs quite the punch.

There is a place in Cardiff, not far the general store that is the reason for my frequent visits to Bancroft.






Camp!
For some camp is just a place they go to once maybe twice in their life for a few days or weeks during the summer. Not for me!
Camp is what I waited for all year. It was and still is one of the best places I've ever been too!

I'll be honest, I didn't like camp my first year in 1994. At the age of 7 I was the youngest camper at camp. I was in the Robins. For any Can-Aquaers - there was no Pelicans cabin and the Doves were older than the Robins.
My sister had already been to camp the summer before and knew what was going on, so my parents decided I was going too.

Everyone in my cabin that year in '94 was at least 9 years old and already knew each other. It was a pretty lonely two weeks. I can remember standing at the sink outside brushing my teeth just WAITING for my parents to drive into the parking lot to pick me up and eventually they did.

I don't remember being asked if I wanted to go back, I just did. I went back and camp was a completely different place. What had changed since the year before? probably nothing, but I was 8 and there were more 8 year olds, including my friend Marge.

Camp became the best place imaginable! Recess 24/7 for two whole weeks! I loved it.

There were always times when I missed my parents, but you get over it pretty quickly. How can you miss your parents when you've got Air Bands to prepare for!?

Camp changed as I worked my way up through the system. No longer was it a place I spent two weeks during the summer. It was quickly becoming, as lame as it sounds, a second home. Tears were shed when I had to go home in August, not when I got to camp in July.

I became an LIT, JRC and staff until I was spending my entire summer there, from early May - end of August.

You never realize the lessons you've learned at camp until later. I don't mean lessons like, how to steer a canoe or how to start a gimp bracelet but lessons that help out and keeo you goin' in everyday life, like the things you use to describe yourself on your resume.
I won't go into a long and complicated list of the lessons learned at camp, we'd be here for years. I can go on and on about the positive impact camp has on everyone, young and old, but I won't do that here. I'll save it for another time. For now you can just have a look at the Embracing Ideals on the camp website.

I wen to camp every year from 1994 until my last year at camp in 2007. I've been back to visit everyone summer (and winter!) since. You only realize how lucky you are to go have gone to camp, when you go back and visit.

Not physically being at camp does not mean that camp is gone and done with. Now camp isn't so much a place but it's a way of living. I honestly have no clue where I would be today if I had not gone to camp. Sure I would have probably learned some pretty valuable things at home during my summer, but it would have been different and I for sure wouldn't be surrounded by the amazing people I have in my life now!

Where else would I have met these guys:


Or this great team:


I love camp a lot and I know I haven't really done it justice on this blog. It's hard to write a few all encompassing sentences to describe something so huge, so I'll give it a go with some pictures.







Want to help send a kid to camp? http://kidsincamp.com/