Photo courtesy of Bangor Daily News
Happy Campers • 1961, Camp Jordan
Virtual camping was the order of the day for this newspaper photo op from 1961. Counselor Willie Shubert, decked out in a stylish sport coat, instructs five studious campers how to start a fire at the beginning of yet another season. The electric logs could have been borrowed from an F.W. Woolworth Christmas display.
All summer long, boys at Camp Jordan, the photo’s setting, would be kindling real fires along with paddling Branch Lake’s spring-fed waters and learning YMCA values.
Over the years, Camp Jordan , founded in 1908, expanded with a triangle lodge, an infirmary, a conservation camp, and a leaders school. The first girl campers began arriving in 1974. Stephen and Tabitha King donated money to the camp, and counselor and chess wizard Bernard “Doc” Mann, age 101 and counting, still holds a soft spot in his heart for the place.
Maine is dotted with youth camps of every description, some dating to the late 19th century, others founded well into the next one. Mainecamps.org lists scores of them, ranging from Acadia Institute of Oceanography in Seal Harbor, founded in 1975 and serving students ages 12 to 18, to West End House Camp Inc. in Parsonsfield, dating to 1908.
Camping has built character for native and out-of-state kids, many of whom go on to send their own children to places like Camp Natarswi, a Girl Scout camp tucked inside Baxter State Park, or Fair Haven Camps, a Christian institution in Brooks.
Today’s campers often grow up to be tomorrow’s leaders. The 11-year-old boy in the picture, second from the left, hasn’t done badly in life: Mark Wellman grew up to become the publisher of Maine Ahead.
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