Why I'm Never Going Canoeing With Small Children Again

     This story is about a wild adventure that happened while canoeing at Story Book Lodge in the Summer of 2014.  I just used it as my personal narrative for my college writing class and now I'm sharing it with everyone.  Happy Reading! ~ DJ Rollie D 

           It was July of 2014, and I was just finishing up my last week of counseling for the year at Story Book Lodge.  Story Book is a Christian Camp and it plays host to almost two thousand kids and then about twenty or thirty families over the course of eleven weeks each and every summer.  It was also where about thirty or forty counselors made their home at some point over the course of their vacations or breaks from work.  It was a beautiful place, surrounded by lots of beautiful trees and hills.  There was also the lake, a deep lake that was part of the Embarrass River Chain, which consisted of several lakes.  This lake was going to be the source of an adventure for me on this day, and I just didn’t quite know it yet.

            Over the course of the week my fellow counselor Dawson and I had been leading about twenty campers or so on canoeing and kayaking excursions.  The week had got off to an interesting start, with the rain moving in on Monday and then not stopping for half an hour while a camper and I moved to the boat shed for cover.  Then on Wednesday a couple campers had decided to tip over one of the canoes and we had to help play rescue for that.  I was pretty glad that this was the last time I’d have to lead out a group of kids for the week.

            A small kid named William had joined me in my canoe for the day.  William had been homesick all week and had thrown several tantrums because of that.  It was clear he wanted to go home, but the general rule at camp was that we didn’t like campers going home early at all as we wanted them to gain a general sense of independence away from their parents.  Some succeed while others fail, and William had failed.

            As we went out in the canoe we began to head North, where there was a larger bay before the next part of the river went up to the next lake.  It was a windy day so there were lots of ripples out in the water that were turning into waves.  I was always uncomfortable with canoes and should have known better than to lead this class, but I did it anyways because no one else had volunteered at the counselors meeting.

            Once we hit the bay, that’s when the real adventure began.

            The waves in the bay were going a completely different direction, northwest instead of north.  That and the wind combined began to put us off course, spinning us in circles the whole while.  Eventually I decided that I’d had enough and steered the canoe into the shoreline.  By now little William was freaking out because he thought we were lost and weren’t going to get home.  I tried my best to reassure him that we would make it back to camp with ease once I got the kayak off the shore, but he was not one to calm down and sit tight.

            I jumped out of the canoe because I needed to aim it away from a tree.  We started off again and despite my best efforts I couldn’t get the craft headed back towards camp.  William was getting increasingly louder and whinier, and so I decided to just ignore him and re-aim the canoe again.

            Then there was trouble.  I had told William to sit still in the middle of the canoe so it would balance out when I sat down, and he was trying his best.  But the boat was still shaking, and shaking bad.  Finally I needed to sit down, and when I did, the sheer weight of my body and the collision between my rear end and the seat combined with the shaking of William, tipped the canoe over to the right.  I didn’t go too far but William wound up falling out and into the water, which made him start screaming even more.  He wasn’t hurt, but I couldn’t get him to calm down at all now, and he absolutely refused to get back into the canoe.

            “I WANNA WAIT FOR DAWSON!” he screamed.  This did nothing to brighten my mood, as now I was stuck since I couldn’t leave the child behind on the shore.

            Luckily, another camper who was there volunteered to go get Dawson, and after about another half an hour of waiting, back Dawson came.  William got into the canoe, and I was left to bring a kayak back the quarter mile to camp.

            As we paddled back towards the camp I eventually managed to pass Dawson, mainly because William was doing nothing in the front seat to help him.  But soon I was flagged down by one of the Bible teachers for the week and an older counselor, who wanted to know if everything was alright.  I turned around behind me, and there was Dawson, still back where I had passed them.  It turned out that he had lost all of his arm strength and needed assistance.  So while my two fellow staff members worked to get the canoe situation taken care of, onward I went, but not for long.

           

            I began to feel the kayak tip over to the right, and I knew that wasn’t good at all.  I was going down into the lake whether I liked it or not.  Thankfully the water was quite welcoming since it was so warm and the air was so cold.  I quickly freed myself and snatched up the canoe so that I could continue my journey safely, which I did, shoving the canoe along while I did my best to stay afloat.  Thank goodness for life jackets.

            Eventually the other staff members, who safely had William with them, passed me up.  Dawson asked if I was alright and I gave my mumbled reply as I was quite tuckered out from the work it took to bring the kayak home.  I just kept going, telling myself that I knew I could make it to shore safely.

            And eventually I did, and the director was watching the whole thing.  He just chuckled a little bit before starting to head towards the evening prayer meeting.  I got out of the water and drained the kayak as everyone around me watched.  The cute girl I’d been talking to, my buddies, kids that were in the elementary grades at my school, everyone watched.  It was quite embarrassing, but either way, I was thrilled just to be home and on land again.

            The staff and my friends back home got quite a good laugh out of the whole situation, and I just kind of chuckled along with them, but one thing was for sure, and that was that I wasn’t going canoeing with a homesick camper ever again.