• First Summer at Nominingue Cindy Warren Mother and daughter of a CN Camper
• Five-Day Trip in Papineau-Labelle Justin De Meulemeester 14 years old
• Sept Jours au Parc de la Vérendrye Antoine Ipperciel   14 ans
• Enrolment and Early-Bird Discount - Inscription et rabais pour inscription hâtive
• The Fall Schedule at Nominingue - L'horaire de l'automne à Nominingue
• Alumni Association News / Nouvelles de l'association des anciens
• Tumpline Submissions - Soumissions pour cette lettre de nouvelles

First Summer at Nominingue Cindy Warren Mother and daughter of a CN Camper

I have just spent the last three hours talking to Jonah about Nominingue, and I am thrilled with how much he loved it. He has actually changed - matured I think. The first thing he said when we saw him was that there was no way to describe how much he loved it there. His favourite part was canoe tripping which he just called the Trip. He loved how peaceful it was on the lake, and said they paddled right beside loons. He learned to cook on the trip, and portage gigantic packs. He said the lakes were completely empty until they reached Lac Jean-Peré. It was their last day and they were way ahead of schedule. They thought they would go farther, so they could slack off on the last morning before they headed to camp. When they reached Jean-Péré, there were tons of canoes and the campsites were full. It took them two hours to find somewhere to set up and by the time they were settled, they were behind schedule. Every morning, his canoe would be the first on the water, and every morning he would forget his water bottle. They would yell to the last canoe to bring it. The last day when they arrived at trip stores, Jonah put it down on the dock and someone swiped it.  He wants to get his leaders next year, and to do that he needs to go on a 10 day trip. He absolutely loved the whole 7 day experience, even when it was raining.

He took Orienteering, Nature, French - He said it was really embarrassing because he realized on the third day, that for three days he had been speaking to the French kids in English, but with a French accent. He said he was even pausing like he was translating. It was a very funny story! - tennis, and campcraft. He said campcraft was boring because he knew it all from camping with us. He loved orienteering. The first day they gave him a compass, map and whistle, and Laurent told him the JCs would tell him what to do because he was busy setting up night orienteering and couldn't stay. Jonah was the only kid there. The counsellors told him to find four flags on the map. He was terrified. He tried to tell them he didn't know how to read a map or use a compass and they told him he would figure it out, and he did! The second day, they told him he had to find 10 flags and he did that, and earned his 1st feather. There was one day when he got completely lost. He had to find a fallen tree in the woods and tell them what kind of tree it was ("it was a birch of course") and he had to find a huge boulder. He finally found a path, that wasn't on the map, followed it a bit and suddenly the boulder was right there. He learned how to use the compass on that run. The counsellors told him he should get his second feather for that, and they would speak to Laurent about it. They told him Laurent said no, he hadn't made it out in enough time. Then they had night orienteering for the whole camp. His team came in second. When he got his shield, he had the second orienteering feather. He went to shake Laurent's hand and to say goodbye, and asked Laurent why he got the second feather.  Laurent said he had been watching him during night orienteering and realized how good he was. Jonah was really proud of that.

His favourite game was "Socks" where they put down a bunch of floor to floor mats in the intermediate lodge, and every one played counsellors against campers, little guys against little guys, little guys against big guys, and the whole point of the game was to get someone's socks off. Once they lost both socks they were dead. Jonah said it was hilarious.  They played "Prison Break" in the dark at night, which sounds a lot like Spot.

I told him this overwhelming love of camp will fade over the winter and by next summer he'll be saying "I don't know if I want to go back." He said "Are you kidding? Next year will be amazing. I'll be getting my Leaders, and the year after that, I will be a Counsellor-in-Training."

Anyway, I thought you would want to know how much he loved it at Nominingue. It is great to hear him talking about it like he belongs there. It introduced him to a whole world of experience. As he said, he did a lot of things he would never have dreamed he could do, and he did them all in three weeks. He said it made him grow as a person, which is a remarkably perceptive thing for a 14 year old to realize.

He got over his fear of spiders, learned to love everything he ate, and made some really great friends. He grew two inches in three weeks...

Five-Day Trip in Papineau-Labelle Justin De Meulemeester 14 years old

Day 2 Lac des Sept-Frères

I woke up in the morning at seven o'clock, to the screams of Sam! The first thing I did was go to get our hanging pack and the food barrels from the spot we had chosen last night. We had to do this because the pack had a food scent, so we hung it 200 m. from the campsite so the animals couldn't get our food and wouldn't attack us. Once that was done, I had to put my wet clothes on, which is extremely uncomfortable. Luckily, while I was changing, we had already built a fire with the wood we had collected yesterday, which let me warm up. After the fire was built, we immediately put the grill on it and started making fried oatmeal with oats, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, a frying pan, water and a pot. I loved it! However, breakfast was not done; we still got to eat scrambled eggs. After breakfast, we packed all of our bags and put them in the canoes. We made sure not to leave anything behind before carefully getting into the boats. Like yesterday, I was the bow man. We paddled for a bit before starting our portages. Today, we had many portages so we decided to take it slowly. We had a total of 2.8 km of portaging, which is more than our paddling distance. We decided to eat lunch at a campsite halfway through. We ate Kraft Dinner, but the bag had a hole in it, so we didn't get to eat it all. Luckily, Ben gave us way too much food and we all got to eat a full pannican. After lunch and our portages, we found a nice campsite where we collected wood, set up our tents and ate dinner, which was spaghetti. We hung up our packs for the night and went to sleep.

Day 3

Besides the fact that it was raining, today was a good day. We started the day with pancakes, which Sam cooked on his personal new frying pan, without forgetting the fried oatmeal we ate with it. Personally, I don't enjoy pancakes because they are too thick (I like crêpes better), but the ones we ate on this trip were different and not too thick, which was good. Usually, everything on trip tastes good! After breakfast, I put my wet clothes on and I cleaned all the pots with the trip kit. After this, we disassembled the tents and put them in a pack. We filled the water bottles with water that we later purified. Once this was done, we got into the canoes and we started paddling. We didn`t have too many portages today beside a 1.4 km portage that was along a road. I got to suck on a caramel that Sam gave me, which took my mind off the pack I was carrying. We had one more small portage of 60 m. that we had to do before stopping for lunch at a nice little campsite. After finishing, we decided to keep moving although it was raining. However, it thundered, so we had to wait 20 minutes on an unknown beach. After this, we paddled to a very nice campsite which had tons of wood. All the campers enjoyed this because we didn`t have to search for long. We then started making couscous, salami, onions and carrots. We also exchanged jokes and Pete and I created a new one: "What did the tree say to the pannican during the forest fire." "Stop panickin`!"  It was time to go to sleep in our dry clothes...

Sept Jours au Parc de la Vérendrye Antoine Ipperciel   14 ans

Jour 2 

Vers 7h50, je me suis réveillé par le crépitement des vagues et par le chant des oiseaux. Je regarde mes camarades et constate que je suis le seul réveillé. Je tombe donc dans une serre de pensées profondes : Que pourrai-je faire pour vraiment impressionner les  moniteurs? Qu`est-ce que je pourrais faire de plus? Finalement, après une dizaine de minutes, j'entends la porte de la tente des moniteurs se « dézipper », ce qui fût un signe pour moi de sortir de la tente et d'enfiler mes chaussures mouillées de la veille. Ensuite, j'allume un feu. Mon copain, William, va chercher de l'eau. J'installe la grille sur le feu et commence à cuire le bacon et les oeufs. Une fois terminé, nous défaisons les tentes, remplissons les sacs et nous nous rendons vers les canots. Nous les mettons à l'eau et reprenons note route. Nous achevons le lac Cawatose. Nous sommes ensuite allés sur un portage qui, lui non plus, n'était pas trop fatiguant. Je me dépêche de sortir de canot et de prendre mon sac afin de partir le premier, pour donner une belle impression aux moniteurs. Comme le portage précédent, j'arrive le premier et reviens sur mes pas afin de m'assurer que tout le monde est bien. Quelques minutes plus tard, nous reprîmes notre chemin sur le lac Camitogama. Il était plus petit cette fois. En outre, le vent venait de l'est, ce qui fût un vent en croisé pour nous. Le lac fût achevé très rapidement. Pour conclure la journée, nous sommes allés sur un grand lac du nom de « Carrière. »

Un vent soufflant sur notre dos nous aida à traverser la moitié du lac Carrière. Rendu là notre site était en vu. Bien qu'il ne restait qu'environ un kilomètre, ce fût très pénible car mes avant-bras brûlaient de douleur. Finalement, arrivés au campement, j'ai remarqué que tous mes efforts n'étaient pas perdu : le lieu était magnifique| C'était une très belle plage qui s'étendait sur plus de 200 mètres. Je fis les tentes avec Will pendant que mes deux autres compagnons allaient trouver du bois pour le feu. Will et moi allâmes chercher du bois aussitôt que cette tâche fût accomplie. Ensuite Will et moi avons commencé à couper le fromage et des tranches de pepperoni, car nous devions préparer des sandwichs pour le dîner. Tout le monde avait très faim, car c'était environ 15h00. Le dîner ne fût pas très remplissant, mais au moins, nous avions quelque chose dans l'estomac. Les prochaines heures furent longues, car il n'y avait rien à faire. Pour essayer de faire quelque chose de constructif, je suis allé prendre du bois. Par contre, tous les autres étaient couchés! Donc, après une demi-heure, je les ai rejoints. J'ai donc pris une sieste d'environ une heure. À mon réveil. Je remarquai que Will et Emmett étaient réveillés eux-aussi. Nous avons discuté pendant environ une heure, avant d'appeler les autres pour commencer le souper. Encore une fois, ce fût Will et moi qui l'avions préparé. Cette fois, le repas était très remplissant. Tout le monde a mangé à sa faim. Environ une heure plus tard, les paupières de tous étaient lourdes. Nous avons donc décidés d'aller nous coucher. Cette nuit là, j'ai revu toute la journée dans ma tête pour essayer de trouver ce que je pourrais améliorer et ce que j'ai fait de bien pour que demain soit encore mieux qu'aujourd'hui.

Enrolment and Early-Bird Discount - Inscription et rabais pour inscription hâtive

2013 boys' camp enrolment was launched on November 1st. So far, a number of campers have enrolled, both new and returning campers, for the LIT program, for the one-week program and for a variety of other programs. Don't forget...if you want to take advantage of the early-bird rebates, you must enrol before December 15th. Enrolment for family camp has also now begun online.

Les inscriptions pour le camp de garçons 2013 ont débuté le 1er novembre. Jusqu'à présent plusieurs inscriptions ont été reçues pour campeurs de tout âge et pour des sessions de toute longueur - pour le « LIT », pour une semaine, pour 26 jours, etc. N'oubliez pas que si vous voulez bénéficier du tarif réduit pour inscription hâtive, vous devriez compléter l'inscription de votre fils avant le 15 décembre 2012. Les inscriptions débutent aussi sur internet pour notre camp familial.

The Fall Schedule at Nominingue - L'horaire de l'automne à Nominingue

After the campers leave Nominingue at the end of August, the pace changes up at camp, but the work doesn't end. There is a predictable routine to the fall. In September, the tents are checked and decisions are made concerning repairs and replacement. A crew is hired to remove the beds and mattresses, and then to strike the tents. Dry weather is the critical factor in ensuring that this work is completed in a timely fashion. Once the tents have been put away, the next job is to float the docks around the point into "Bloodsucker Bay" for the winter. This fall, the good weather continued through September. The tin roof on both the main lodge and the theatre received a new coat of silver paint. The next task involved removing the old shingles on the intermediate lodge and replacing them with new siding. The old chimney, which had survived since the 1930s, proved to be beyond repair and had to be removed during this process. On rainy days, the kitchen was re-plastered, in preparation for re-painting in the spring. Each fall, the woodshed is re-stocked with wood from trees that have been cut over the course of the year. With the colder weather in November, the work moves indoors, with tent and trip pack repairs. With snow in the air, the wood is prepared for the canoe repairs which will occupy the staff most of the winter.

Après le départ des campeurs à la fin du mois d'août, le rythme de la vie au camp change, mais le travail continue! La routine se répète à chaque année...au début septembre, nous vérifions toutes les tentes pour trier les tentes qui seront réparées ou remplacées. Nous engageons une gang pour ranger les lits et matelas, et de défaire les tentes. La tâche suivante est de ranger tous les quais pour l'hiver. Nous flottons plusieurs quais dans la « baie des sangsues », où ils seront protégés contre le mouvement de glace au printemps. Cette année, le beau temps a duré tout le mois de septembre. Les toits de tôle du théâtre et du « main lodge » furent peinturés en argent. La tâche suivante était de remplacer les tuiles extérieures du « intermediate lodge » avec du canexel. Ce travail fût retardé par la découverte que la vieille cheminée, qui datait des années 1930, était pourrie et devait être enlevée. Durant les journées pluvieuses, le mur et le plafond de la cuisine ont reçus du nouveau plâtre, en attente d'une nouvelle couche de peinture au printemps. Et finalement, nous remplissions l'abri de bois de foyer. Avec l'arrivée du temps froid au mois de novembre, le travail continua à l'intérieur avec la réparation de tente et de sacs à dos. Le bois pour les côtes, les planches, les sièges et les bords de canot sera coupé et préparé pour la réparation de canots, ce qui occupera Michel et Martin tout l'hiver.

Alumni Association News / Nouvelles de l'association des anciens

The next Ottawa social will be on Thursday December 13th @ the Royal Oak on Wellington at 8:00 pm.

The next Montreal social will be held on Friday November 30th, 2012 at the Reservoir at 9 rue Duluth Est in Montreal at 8 pm. 

Any changes or updates will be posted on Facebook on the Nominingue Socials Group page at http://www.facebook.com/groups/NominingueSocials/.

Tumpline Submissions - Soumissions pour cette lettre de nouvelles

We are looking for submissions for our newsletters from campers, staff and parents... from this summer, as well as from recent and less recent alumni. These submissions may be general memories of camp experiences or specific memories about a canoe trip, about a favourite program or a funny experience. Please send your submissions to grant@nominingue.com. You may submit your stories and memories in English, French or Spanish.

Nous sommes à la recherche de textes de campeurs, parents et de moniteurs de l'été 2012... et de souvenirs de nos anciens campeurs et moniteurs des années récentes et moins récentes. Vos textes peuvent décrire vos expériences en générale ou une excursion de canot, un programme favori ou une expérience drôle. SVP envoyez votre texte par courriel à grant@nominingue.com. Votre texte peut être écrit en français, en anglais ou en espagnol. 

Camp Nominingue | Tel. 450-458-1551 | Toll-free 866-910-1551 (Canada & US)
Email: info@nominingue.com | Web: www.nominingue.com

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Winter address: 112, rue Lippée, Les Coteaux, QC J7X 1J4
Summer address: 1889, chemin des Mésanges, Nominingue, QC J0W 1R0