Three of the most formative summers of my life were spent as a camp counselor, working at Camp Ouareau, an all-girls bilingual summer camp in Québec. Many of my fondest memories and favourite stories took place there, and I’ve been instilled with the firm belief that every young adult should work at a summer camp at least once in their lives. It was difficult narrowing down a list of specific reasons why, but I think I’ve done it. Here are 6 reasons why everyone should head up to camp for a summer!

You Get Out of the City

There are few opportunities that allow you to live and work in the environment in the way that summer camp does. I never thought I would want to work in an environment distanced from the city, home, and my precious wifi. Not only am I glad I did, but I miss it! There’s something truly wonderful about being outdoors for the vast majority of the day, and not being attached at the hip to my phone. Though it’s not always perfect (mosquitos, torrential downpours, and 35°C heat with no air conditioning or fans were all par for the course), these imperfections contribute to the camp experience. Living out in the woods is truly magical.

You Meet Diverse and Interesting People

Summer camps attract staff members from all kinds of places. At Ouareau, I worked alongside women from around the world: Canadians and Québecoise, Mexicans, Americans, and British and Irish staff members made up our team. Meeting and working with so many interesting people teaches you a lot. I gained practical skills (such as kayaking and knife throwing), cultural experiences, (having our Mexican staff cook their traditional food for us), and perspectives on how other people see the world (during late-night chats underneath the stars). The relationships you form with your co-counselors are unlike anything else. Many of the friends I made at camp I’m still in touch with. A few of them have become lifelong friends!

You Will Challenge Yourself

Working at camp is not an easy job. Every problem you could possibly imagine can happen, including but not limited to

• You are on a camp-out on an island with your campers and realize that the tripping helper packed the counselors a tent without tent poles. So you have to sleep outside. And then you hear thunder rumbling in the sky.
• The archery instructor is on her day off and her assistant instructor is sick, but you like archery and can definitely teach it today right?
• It’s the night of the musical you directed, and you’re trying to assemble your cast for costuming and makeup, but there’s literally the biggest storm the camp has encountered in 30 years and the power is flickering in and out. A live power-line is down just outside the lodge, and everyone is freaking out, but the show must go on!!

Going through challenging experiences and discovering that you can overcome pretty much anything that this job throws at you is such an empowering feeling!

You Will Change Lives

Working at camp means that you’ll be working with kids, and working with kids comes with the opportunity to create a meaningful mentor relationship with them! Obviously not every kid is going to have their outlook on life changed because ~you~ were their counselor, but being a good camp counselor or activity head or friendly face to your campers can have an impact much greater than you anticipated.

As a pretty weird girl with a lot of esoteric interests, I learned my first year of camp that this quirkiness can be eye-opening for kids who aren’t used to someone embracing it so openly (and I would have been one of them! Being 12 is hard). After realizing this after my first summer, I continued to make it a goal of mine during my stint at camp to continue to encourage this self-acceptance for the campers that I worked with. I’m lucky enough to know that I was a special counselor for a lot of kids and teens during my time at camp, and I think that this was because I was encouraging of every camper to approach their weirdness in a positive way.

You Will Feel Like You’re At Camp Yourself

There are some things about camp that just don’t exist out in the real world. Although you’re on the job 24/7, a lot of what constitutes this job is having the time of your life. This may include:

• Making and sharing friendship bracelets with your coworkers and campers (and getting way to into it)
• Learning to do new camp activities – I dabbled in everything from kayaking to archery to pottery making during my time at camp.
• Hiking 3 hours up a mountain to stay in a chalet, or canoeing across a lake to camp out on an island during out-trips
• Doing a grocery run and having an amazing campfire cooking session and making everyone jealous
• Getting way too intensely involved in camp-wide games, including limbing 10 feet up a pine tree to hide from campers, or lurking in the bushes waiting to jump out and scare the older campers during Capture the Flag

Plus, on your days off you have the run of the camp. We were lucky enough to have access to any activity equipment in the interim periods when campers are not using them. For a change of scenery we could leave camp and hike up the road to the gas station to buy snacks. We could spend our breaks out on the docks swimming and reading magazines. Working at summer camp is the. best. job. and it really does let you feel like a kid again.

You Will Be a Part of Something Bigger

A lot of camps have history. Mine definitely does. Camp Ouareau is coming up on its 100 year anniversary in 2022! We have campers who have been there for over 10 years, and campers who have mothers or grandmothers who went to camp there! Many of the staff have grown up at camp and moved up to counselors. But at the same time, we have campers and staff who are spending their first year at Ouareau (and I was one of them). It’s amazing to be welcomed into a place with so much history and tradition. Knowing that you will be playing a role in the camp’s story is a very unique feeling, as special moments or events or relationships will contribute to the mythos of camp. I left camp confident that the two years I spent teaching drama will be one of those periods of “remember when this counselor was theatre head?”. Hearing the final show of the summer being heralded with a chanting chorus of “ONE MORE YEAR” definitely made me feel like I was part of something much bigger than myself. I felt like I was leaving a legacy.

There are just so many reasons why camp is an amazing place to work, and I feel like I’ve both gone in depth with it, but also only scratched the surface. I’ll probably inevitably end up writing about camp again, because it really does mean so much to me. If you want to learn more about Camp Ouareau, you can find them here.