The wind through the pines. Lake waters lapping the shore. Campfires crackling, voices raised in harmony—all supply the soundtrack to Maine summers.

By Gwen Thompson

One gray, blustery spring day an opera-singer friend of mine, her parents, and I converge

on the Jersey shore the morning after her performance of the Bach B Minor Mass in a nearby town, determined to enjoy a stroll on the boardwalk before the clouds burst. “We’ll be fine, as long as we don’t walk backwards in the rain wearing a yellow slicker,” I say as we set off. “At Wohelo, where I went to camp, that was the only rule—”

“You went to Wohelo?” My friend’s dad halts. “I went to Timanous!”

Wohelo’s brother camp. “Then you must know ‘Old Chief Timanous!’” 

We burst into all three verses of this hymn to the founder of both camps—including the two-part harmony on the refrain—smack in the middle of the boardwalk as my friend and her mom look on in astonishment.

“How did I not know your dad went to Timanous?” I ask Katharine.

“How did I not know my dad could sing? I’ve never heard him sing before!” 

“The Sounds of Camp”

In the world music class I took in college, we learned about African tribes that don’t have any way to say “I can’t sing” in the Western sense, because in their culture this would be tantamount to saying “I can’t talk.” Sleepaway camp is much the same. “Singing and camp are synonymous,” says Abby Golden Shapiro, who spent six summers at Camp Vega in Fayette. “Every woman I’ve met who went to girls’ camp talks about singing camp songs. It’s part of the culture of being a camper.”

“I can’t imagine camp without singing,” says Andrea Price Stevens of Wohelo, where a camp chorus performs weekly and we all sang constantly as part of daily life, with songs for every occasion and for every activity—from keeping a steady pace paddling to timing how long we had to tread water to pass the swim test. We sang to raise team spirit at morning crew practice, out of sheer exuberance sailing in good wind, and whenever we gathered together at mealtimes or around the campfire. “There are cheers, welcome songs, thank-you songs, and sad goodbye songs.” 

Read the full story in the digital magazine above.