A Traditional Sunday at Rockbrook

Sundays bring us a calm way to spend time together at Rockbrook and get ready for the coming week of activities and special closing events. We began our morning with a late breakfast of doughnuts in pajamas-a favorite around Rockbrook! From there, campers tidied up and get dressed in their traditional camp whities: white polo, white shorts and red tie. We have a very special way to tie our tie called a friendship knot that has been passed down through generations of Rockbrook campers.

All smiles in camp whities

Hi-Ups leading flag raising

After our flag raising ceremony led by the Hi-Ups, our Junior and Middler campers led us in the final chapel of 2011. It’s theme of “It’s a Small World” meant a lot to our campers. Many spoke about how they have found true friends at Rockbrook who have reappeared in their lives at another point. Others spoke about the awesome part of meeting new international friends while at camp. We are always surprised each year by the number of international campers who attend Rockbrook. Just this session we have girls from Russia, Belgium, Mexico, Guatemala, and Germany. You never know who you might meet at Rockbrook!

From there, campers spent time preparing for another longtime camp tradition: The Miss RBC Pageant. Here at Rockbrook, the silliest and most creative take home the crown. From dances, to songs, to skits and more, campers do an all-cabin talent followed by a question and answer round for each cabin’s representative.

Cabin Half Pint's dance routine

Junior 6's fun theatrics

This evening campers will enjoy a relaxing movie night of watching Tangled in the gym. As we prepare for the final days of 3rd Session, each camper will have time to reflect upon her camp time as well as savor those last few days of summer. What a fun weekend it has been here at Rockbrook!

We Love Roasting Marshmallows

Getting excited for camp? We sure are! There are so many reasons, but seeing this picture really gets us looking forward to campfires and roasting marshmallows. It’s such a great classic summer camp experience… searching the forest for just the right roasting stick (the right length, thickness and stiffness, etc.), gathering around the fire, and carefully holding the marshmallow near the coals or over the flame to turn it that ideal shade of brown/black. Golden brown or charred to a crisp?

Did you know that marshmallows originally were made from extracting a substance from the root of the marshmallow plant, Althaea officinalis, and were primarily used as a remedy for sore throats? Later, candy makers in France began whipping it with sugar and egg whites to make a yummy dessert, and then in the 1940s marshmallows were mass produced and distributed as we know them today.

Around here, it seems like a bag of marshmallows goes on every overnight backpacking trip. We’ll definitely be doing some roasting! Can’t wait!

The Camp Fire Girls

Do you know about the “Camp Fire Girls” of America? This is a drawing taken from the inside cover of their handbook (the 1947 edition), The Book of the Camp Fire Girls.  The history of this organization is really cool.  Founded in 1910 in Vermont, it’s as old or older than the girls scouts in America.  It later became coed, and has since changed its name to “Camp Fire USA,” but it originally sought to help girls gain important skills for living a “well rounded life—a vivid, intense life of joy and service.”

As you can see from the drawing this included all kinds of skills. Some, like boating, camp craft, nature lore, gardening, dramatics, dancing and art, are still part of the camp experience at Rockbrook. Others are more specialized, like aviation, science and business. Click on the drawing to see a larger version. It’s really great.

The Camp Fire Girls valued spirituality, beauty, service, knowledge, trustworthiness, health, work and happiness, and provided opportunities for girls to form, as Luther Gulick the founder put it, “habits making for health and vigor, the out-of-door habit, and the out-of-door spirit.”  It’s neat to realize that this was “in the air” when the first summer camps were forming in America, and how Rockbrook too shares these ambitions.  Camp really is a place to grow… in some really important ways!

The Best Girls Summer Camp

What makes the best girls summer camp? It’s funny, but you see that claim now and then. “We’re the best girls camp ever!” or “Welcome to the best girls camp in North Carolina.” Most of this can be considered akin to team spirit, the folks from a camp expressing how much they love their particular camp, how proud they are of it, and how they know their camp really is excellent.

Of course, in reality, you can’t say objectively which girls camp is the best. Here in western North Carolina, there are so many great girls camps, each with dedicated and experienced directors, outstanding counselors, beautiful facilities and diverse fun activities. These camps also have very strong supporters, families who have found the camp perfect for their children. You will certainly find happy enthusiastic campers at all of these camps.

So is there really a best girls camp? Only to the extent that a camp is right for you. The subtle differences between camps, their particular strengths or emphases, will probably make you feel more at home at one girls camp or another. To put it differently, there are of course differences between camps but they do not distinguish which camp is “best.” That is something that follows from how much you love your camp, and that’s what makes it best.

So yes, for many reasons, generations of girls believe Rockbrook is the best girls summer camp. They believe it because they’ve experienced it and love it as their own.

Camp From the Past!

Here’s a great early photo collage of Rockbrook girls from the 1926 camp catalog. Kells Hogan, the director of Deep Woods Camp for Boys, brought it over to us after finding it among his mother’s artifacts. She attended camp in her youth.  We love how the photos show the real spirit of adventure the girls had back then.  It looks like there was plenty of dressing up going on too!

Recognize those waterfalls?

The Rockbrook Camp Bell

Here’s something that all the girls who attend Rockbrook will easily recognize— the camp bell! This is the bell we ring to signal the whole camp when it’s time to change activity periods, come to meals, and of course, wake up in the morning. It has such a clear tone and is easily heard throughout the entire camp, even up on Castle Rock.

It’s actually a very old bell, older than the camp itself by more than 20 years, which means it’s well over 100 years old. For as long as anyone around here can remember it’s been perched up in the big oak tree at the front of the dining hall, ready to be rung by pulling on the rope that leads to the dining hall porch. It’s one of those very familiar parts of camp that everybody loves.

Exploring Rockbrook Camp's Past

Here are two more vintage postcards showing the historic character of camp. Like the others we’ve posted, the Albertype Company produced these postcards in the 1930s. The first is a view of Vesper Rock looking out across the camp lake, and in the background you can see the Lakeview Lodge. The second card is even cooler because it shows what the Carrier’s (Rockbrook’s original owners) waterwheel looked like. It was dismantled many years ago leaving only the stone foundation which you can just barely spot down in the woods below the lake.  Wouldn’t it be cool to rebuild it?  Maybe someday we will!

P.S. Want to see more historic photos of camp, including another view of the waterwheel?  Check out these.

Remembering Camp in the 1930s

Here’s something cool. Back in the early 1900s, the Albertype Company of Brooklyn, NY produced a number of postcards documenting scenes all around the country. Rockbrook Camp was apparently a favorite subject because we’ve found several cards from the 1930s highlighting scenes of camp. They are just excellent archival documents showing what camp was like in the early years.

Here we see a scene of the old horseback riding barn and paddling canoes on the French Broad River as it passes by camp.  Don’t you just love them?!