Middle School Session: The Story

For our campfire skit, we wrote a scary story to end our spooky trip. We wrote the story of our fearless soldiers; named Zara's Army.

Zara's Army

   Not long ago, on a trip much like this one, with campers very similar to this group, there was a gathering of ghost hunters. They spent five days traveling the lake in search of spirits and paranormals, lead by two guides and their fearless leader, Zara. The first night the group paddled until they reached camp. They were greeted with rain as they set up tents. When the rain stopped and they were able to get dry the filled their stomachs with popcorn and headed back into the tents to sleep. Little sleep was given that night, however. Just as darkness took the last light from the sky, the group of campers saw a dark figure circling their tent. They told themselves it was just a bear, but when they looked outside they saw a ghostly white man retreating into the woods.
   The next morning the army packed up camp and headed to the next site. On the way, they stopped to investigate some abandoned cars, but their monitors showed no sign of paranormal activity so they continued on.
   The second night the group had planned to spend the night at a site that has no background of being a spooky site. They walked into camp with the courage of having no spooky sitings. That was until one soldier ventured into the woods to gather more firewood. As he bent down to pick up a stick he soon found himself eye to eye with a coyote. The brave soldier held his ground and one the staredown with the coyote. The group ended their night with popcorn and scary stories around the campfire.
   To this day, the group still will not talk about day three.
   A true horror appeared on day four. While Nate was taking down the tent he stepped in bear poop. Shortly thereafter, our fearless leader took a wrong step, landing in poop... human poop.
   After the incident, the guides mysteriously went missing and Addie was put in charge. She lead the soldiers bravely, trained them well and fed them popcorn. However, no amount of training could prepare the soldiers for what was about to happen next.
   As the paddled to their final campsite a dark hooded figure emerged from the woods. The spirit cursed the group to sleep on rock and cacti. In the morning the spirit stole all their words, leaving them to communicate using only "Yo". They made it through the struggles and ventured on.
   Finishing with one last meal of popcorn the troop assembled and made it back to Basecamp. At Basecamp they were reunited with their leaders; only to inform them that they lost one of their members.

   Now we stand here, in remembrance of our fallen soldier; Woahgan, Your beauty line made the spirits too attracted to you. May this flattened soup spoon forever hold your memory.

Day 5: Campers are on Their Own

   After having a session full of sleeping in, today we actually woke up early. We had early morning swimming and popcorn marshmallow balls. After breakfast, we packed up and headed out. We took the long way back to hide Bridget from other groups. 

    Going around Oak Island to approach Basecamp we made a quick stop. The campers dropped Nate, Zara and I off at the back of Basecamp. Then Bridget changed back into the outfit she wore last night and lead our group from her kayak into Basecamp. After we heard that our group made it, Nate, Zara and I waited about twenty minutes, before we ran to the campers, wearing white sheets over us.

   The rest of the day was spent cleaning up. After dinner, Nate, Zara, myself and a few other guides tried the blueberry wine we attempted to make on trail. It did not really work, and just tasted like sweet blueberry juice. 

   Day 8 was filled with games to occupy the campers. I mostly was hidden away with Zara painting our Wilderness Award for our camper Addie. When we got to the closing campfire, we wrote a story for our skit and then presented our WA for Addie. On her paddle, we painted a ghost surrounded by popcorn with the quote "Addie is in Charge". Tomorrow, I will be riding the bus down with the campers. 

Night 4: The Hooded Figure

   Today was our latest day. We woke up and had breakfast at 11:00 a.m. Looking at the winds again, we knew that we would not be able to leave camp for a while so we decided today was a good day to make trip donuts. 

   The majority of the day was spent playing games. We did several rounds of Mafia as well as Zoomie Zoomie. 

   It wasn't until after dinner that the winds finally calmed and we were able to leave. We packed up camp at 8:00 p.m. and made our way to South Twin; our final destination.

   On the paddle over, my campers Keith and Isaac* told me that on our first night, the mysterious man and dark figure were actually them trying to scare the other campers.

   As the sunset, South Twin was in our sight. We paddled around the corner and waiting for us was Bridget. She had brought a wig and robe so when we approached South Twin this dark, hooded figure came out of the woods. The campers in the first canoe saw her and started to paddle backward; he was not having it.

   The campers realized it was a prank and we set up camp in bug-thirty. After camp was set up, the guides sat in our tent until the bugs were gone and then we ended the night with star-gazing.

*Names changed for privacy

Night 3: Wind Bound

   Again this morning when we woke up, the campers were all already up; and again, they had made more popcorn. For breakfast, was my favorite food to have on trail; toasted bagels. After breakfast, my co-guides and I decided that we should go to North Twin instead of Lily so that we can have an easy day tomorrow. With that decision made, we packed up camp and headed out.

   As we passed Lily, we told the story of the island and told our campers that we would not be staying there. As we passed Lily and turned around Falcon, the winds hit us. We struggled to make it to Porcupine and decided to sit there and wait out the winds.

   As we were waiting for the winds to die down we heard a clap of thunder, and again had to change our plans. Instead of going to North Twin tonight, we decided to stay at Porcupine. When we decided to start dinner, it began to rain and we were not able to cook dinner. We all went into our tents and ate Bay Bread. The guides read more Grimm's fairytales and the campers apparently were playing a game called Worm Wrestling. 

   Eventually, the rain stopped, close to sunset, and we were able to cook dinner just before bed. 

Night 2: Coyote Stare Down

   When we woke up this morning the campers had already been up for a while before the guides. They had made a snack of popcorn and our camper worker was starting to make breakfast. As we walked closer to the fire ring the campers bombarded us with stories about last night. Apparently, they had seen a dark figure around their tent in the middle of the night. They also saw a white man in the woods. They told us about what they saw as we ate chocolate chip pancakes. When we finished breakfast we headed out to the next campsite.
   On the paddle over, we passed the three abandoned cars in the Tug Channel. The story we tell campers about the car, true or not, is that there was a robbery in the town of Warroad in the middle of winter. The robbers stole money from the bank and started to drive to Canada. The island where the cars are now is where the robbers ran out of gas. They were forced to leave the money and the cars and run. The money is buried somewhere on that island and no one has been able to find it. The campers did not believe that story so we moved on.
   We got to our campsite in a short time so we decided to prank the campers and paddle past it. A move stolen from John. When the campers realized it was their campsite they told us they were never going to trust us again.
   We had them start to set up camp and collect firewood. When our camper Isaac* came out of the woods and told us he just stared down a coyote. Then, the coyotes howled at us and we all went into the woods to try and see them. I did not see any coyotes, but they did sound very close and they would howl back at us.
   With all our free time we spent the day swimming, catching crayfish and riding in the canoe-a-coaster. Created by Zara, the canoe-a-coaster involves someone sitting in a canoe as others roll the canoe underwater.
   When we caught enough crayfish we boiled them as a nice appetizer before dinner. After dinner, we sat around the fire telling scary stories and eating s'mores.

*Names changed for privacy

Night One: The Dark Figure and the White Man

   Today starts the spooky trip. We woke up this morning at Basecamp ready to go; however, the winds had a different idea. After breakfast, the winds were coming straight from the south, which would give us a headwind all day and leave us in wide-open water. Zara and I both had rough experiences with the wind in the south the last session and do not want to have another situation. Nate has also decided to join us on trail and agrees that going south is not a fun idea. We decided to go to Little Triscuit for our first night.
   The day was spent paddling up the tug and we arrived at our destination in the early afternoon. Just as we pulled up and finished setting up the tents a rainstorm hit hard. We took shelter in our tents, the guides read fairytales and the campers played games. When the storm passed we had beautiful weather to cook dinner.
   Our dinner tonight was supposed to be Mac & Cheese, but we realized that we forgot to pack the boxes of Mac & Cheese. We did, however, pack extra pasta noodles for another meal, crumbled beef by accident, cheese powder for popcorn, and couscous for our emergency meal. With those ingredients and a can of mixed vegetables, our camper worker was able to make a type of Mac & Cheese. We named the new meal Yellow One Pot or Cheeseburger pasta. 
   After dinner, we three guides collected blueberries in an attempt to make blueberry wine. We finished the evening with a snack of popcorn and headed to bed. In the tents, we read a few stories, including Grimm's fairytales and a story of The W.

Middle School Session: A Spooky Trip

   This week we have middle school session coming up. My co-guide this week is Zara, and we decided that if we ever guided together we would do a spooky-themed trip. Now we finally get to do it. Our plan for the trip consists of the following locations;
   Night One: Massacre Island. This island is the supposed location of a great massacre of voyageurs by the Dakota tribe. On the island, there is a giant cross marking the site of the massacre. The site of the cross is our campsite.
   Night Two: Little Triscuit. This site has had numerous reported sitings of a white figure in the woods. The last two sightings have both been by newer guides that do not know of the story.
   Night Three: Lily Island. Lily island does not have a set-in-stone sighting. However, guides will occasionally tell a story about a camper drowning there. The story we made followed this plot.
   In 1968, an all-female trip went around the lake. Going to islands with no names and exploring and naming them. On their last night, they stopped at the island that is now called Lily. After they finished cooking dinner they decided to go for a swim to wash off. While swimming their camper named Lily, quietly slipped under the water, none of the girls saw her go under and they assumed that she had just decided to go to bed early. The girls finished swimming and dried off. When they went into the tent Lily's sleeping bag had her clothes inside. This made it look like someone was in the sleeping bag and the group went to sleep with no knowledge of what happened. They woke up in the middle of the night to their sleeping bags all soaking wet; everyone except Lily's. Now to this day, guides and campers have seen a girl underneath the water as the pull up to the island. In the middle of the night, the spirit of Lily will crawl into girls sleeping bags in an attempt to get warm.
   Night Four: South Twin. This is the scariest location we have planned. South Twin has been the hotspot for W sightings. We won't tell the campers this during trail or possibly even after, but both Zara and I know why it is included in the spooky list. There are also two groups staying nearby and we have plans for them to come and scare our campers this night.
   Lastly, we have scary stories planned to tell and we will be bringing lots of popcorn to eat during story telling.