Fair Havens

Have you seen that Hallmark Commercial where Grandma records her voice reading a book the the grandchildren... I wish I had a book with my Grandma's voice recorded on it.. I miss her lots.....

I was originally going to post about Fair Havens' but she is really what made Fair Haven's the amazing childhood memory. Here's a Video from the camp so you can get a feel for it!

Fair Havens is a campground about 5 hours from where I grew up, in Beaverton, ON. We used to spend 2 weeks there as a family every summer, and sometime Michael and I got to spend even more time there. On our way up, we always stopped in Shomburg and shopped at this same store, and ate Caesar salads at the same restaurant with extra pickles on the side.  We also always picked up KFC in the town right before the camp to eat when we first got there!

Man just talking about it makes me want to go back there!

We always camped in the same section of the campground and my grandparents had a camper that permanently lived in the same spot. We had about 3 or 4 lots that were "ours" whenever we were there. It was wonderful to be able to walk over a few feet and be in the love of our grandparents. You can walk, or bike all over the whole campground. One of my cousin's also biked right into a dumpster causing her to need stitches in her lip.

First I should explain our relationship with our maternal grandparents... We often were dropped off at our grandparents house in the morning before school and picked up by them and hung out there until my parents got off work. We would then beg to stay over at their house instead of going home! There was a special jar of bubble gum that was always in the cupboard! There was a bowl of mints always in Grandpa's room. There were always sheets available for us to make forts in the living room! There were cool games and this cool video machine thing that told stories.....

This picture was taken on the beach where many a sandcastles were built!

Camp is a wonderful experience because every summer you get to be reunited with friends. We had some great friends that made waiting for the weeks of camp agonizing! Every age goes to Chapel every day. The adults go to Chapel too while the kids are in their programs .... there were the TimbuckTwo's (toddlers), and I don't remember the rest of any of the age group names, but each class was always fun! I went through all of them in my life.

This is the children's chapel... I remember it being bigger.. but I was little.

"While you are being challenged and fed in Chapel, your children are connected to God's Word through songs, crafts, bible stories and games. All children are nurtured by experienced, motivated and enthusiastic staff members who have been chosen for their care and love of children.  Programming reflects the appropriate developmental levels of each age as it focuses on their emotional, spiritual, social, physical and cognitive growth. Children will experience joy, security and value as they meet new friends, explore God's creation and share within their group's various activities."

I remember this song, sung in that building above; Heaven is In My Heart!

 My brother and I even went to a teen winter camp one year! It was fun to see our beloved place covered in snow!  I remember we used to play on the playground equipment until the bell rang and then we would RUN all the way into the kids chapel building.

Guest Blogger:
This is my cousin Markie's rememberings of Fair Haven's.
"Most of the stuff I remember was playing around in the canoes (right side up or upside down), catching turtles, fishing, riding the bikes around. The odd game of tackle what every we were already playing (its amazing how many games are made better by adding tackle to them. Tackle spoons was interesting). I remember going over to locks and doing some canoe trips on the big lake up there.

Its amazing how much you forget. Kind of sad. I'll let you know if more stuff pops up. And I still remember Terry getting hury by a younger girl. Ha ha."
Every week you could sign up for 2 skills classes. The skills classes were M-F after Chapel. The Skills classes I took the most were: Swimming, Crafts, Canoeing, and Drama. Here are the descriptions of the classes:

Active Sports: Get active in developing your technical and team-work abilities as you participate in a variety of team sports including basketball, volleyball, and soccer. Our instructors look forward to sharing their skills, drills, and thrills, with hopefully few spills!

Archery: At archery, 'aim is the name of the game'. Our instructors are here to show you the highs and lows of a well-aimed bow. This skill has no 'drawbacks'. Through games and skill development you will be sure to experience improvement and enjoyment all week long!

Creative Art: Enjoy an array of crafts and creative arts as our instructors help you use your artistic gifts to create a satisfying piece. Our instructors will lead you in traditional camp crafts and other projects for aspiring artists. Go wild with colour and showcase your creativity.

Canoeing (ORCKA): Our helpful and certified instructors anxiously wait to share their love of paddling with you. We offer ORCKA courses each week and hope to help you achieve your goals in both tandem and solo canoeing. Key aspects of paddling, from safety and equipment to technique, will be taught according to the provincially recongnized ORCKA program.

Climbing (High Ropes / Mt. Moriah): Climb "on belay" in the heights of the Fair Glen forest on our exciting High Ropes elements or challenge yourself on our 8.5m (32') three-sided climbing tower, Mt. Moriah. This skill is suitable for both the beginner and the 'rock jock'. Like Abraham on Mt. Moriah, our instructors will challenge you to trust, stretch, and conquer fear, while securely anchored to mountain-rated ropes and gear.

Drama: Learn new methods of communication and present yourself "dramatically" through games, skits, and improvisation. Our instructors will encourage you to view 'the whole world as a stage' and challenge you to let God be your director!Golf: Join our instructors in improving your game on our 9-hole golf course! You will have opportunity to work on your driving, chipping, and putting in a variety of games and drills. Our instructors will guide you through their enjoyment of the game in your development as a golfer and a person.

Swimming (Red Cross Swim): Learn proper skills and safety under our qualified instructors. Our classes are offered for 
beginner through experienced swimmers. Our instructors look forward to helping you in your attempt in achieving your next level. Join us for a great week to improve your skills and be water-safe.

Wilderness Adventures: Try this adventure and you will come away with new skills but more importantly a new appreciation for God's creation and divine power. Our instructors will lead you in a vast array of outdoor activities, basic survival techniques, and games that help you enjoy the wildness of God's creation.
There also used to be a mud pit that we could jump in and roll around in... that was fun. 

Did I mention that not only did my grandparents live there, but a lot of my aunts and uncles and cousin's would all come too! They usually parked their tents on my Grandparent's site or the one next to it.

Some good memories I have from my years there are:

"shampoo in hair, passing out, canoe trip, crawfishing, golfing with gramps, scar on back, Tuck Shop, Bookstore - bible/cover...., Christy Miller Series, Riverside Inn, sandcastle contests, bmx track, shuffleboard, Lawn Bowling, Tennis & Badminton, Playground, Campfires & Fun Nights, Walking Trails - finding turtles, Kirkfield Liftlock Cruise's, Ceramics, storms/tornado's"

(as I typed each word above, my heart swelled with fond memories... some words are words used on a semi-regular basis, but with Fair Haven's as their context they bring tears to my eyeball sockets)

shampoo in hair - My Grandmother used to put shampoo on top of our (Jacqi, Mark & Terry) dry heads to ensure that we would actually go to the bathroom facilities to shower!

passing out - I stayed an extra week one summer, and at one of the concerts, I passed out. We were sitting on the left side, closer to the the front than back of the chapel. I fell straight back, not collapsing, and not shutting my eyes... my Grandpa who as standing next to me had no idea what was going on. Steph did, but she was far away...I was carried outside and when I came back to consciousness, I was surrounded by vacationing nurses and firefighters. The concert had stopped and they were praying for me!

canoe trip - One summer we took a canoe trip with the whole family, aunt Steph, Uncle Paul, Mark & Terry etc. We portaged between several lakes, and cliff jumped! 

crawfishing - we used to walk down this path, next to the playground, around the corner, past the milkpods and bumble bees to the base of the liftlock. There is a lot of cray fish (they look like little lobsters) and we used to catch them with our bare hands.

This was near the golf course & pool. You could buy worms there, rent golf stuff... etc

golfing with gramps - There is a golf course on the camp ground. The summer I took the golf skills class, my Grandpa asked me to golf a round with him. That's a special  moment.

scar on back - One summer, I was sitting on the step of our motor home and my mom opened the screen door, digging a large hole in my back. I still to this day have a huge scar. I remember laying on my stomach on the grass reading a book/creating the idea of "Amplified" while the blood was soaked up by tea towel. (if you refer to the map below that happened on site 141)

Tuck Shop

Tuck Shop - how fun does that place sound?? It's the building in the middle of the camp.  I don't remember all that they sold, but I remember nacho's and ice cream!!

Bookstore - Bible/cover.... - In the basement of the Tuck Shop, there was a bookstore. I loved the bookstore. I bought my first Christy Miller Series 7th book in the series, I started out of order. But therein began my obsession with Robin Jones Gunn's books! I also bought the jean Bible cover that I used for a lot of years!

Riverside Inn - This building was the "mess hall" so to speak, but I don't remember eating there... I don't remember why I was there, but I think maybe there was a room in the basement that we had youth classes in when I got older?  I do know that is where my mom worked when she was a teen though, and had one of her first crushes!

sandcastle contests - In the afternoons there were often events that you didn't have to register for... one of them being sand castle contests. I remember trekking down there with Grandma lots of times, and there were always prizes. I don't know if we ever won or not but it didn't matter, those were great times!

BMX track - To the left of the beach there was a BMX track. I think now it is a baseball diamond, but when we were kids we had sooo much fun riding our bikes fast and on angles so steep we were almost horizontal! I will never forget the fun we had there!

shuffleboard - Ahh Shuffleboard, the course was near the Tuck Shop, but out of the way under the trees. A leisurely afternoon... something fun to do with Gramps.  If I remember correctly Gramps did some leisurely

Lawn Bowling as well.  I remember playing some version of Flamingo Frisbee in the field next to the pool with the youth, which I believe you had to catch and throw the Frisbee like Ultimate, but you could only be on 1 leg.

Tennis & Badminton - The Tennis Courts were sometimes in our backyard depending on where our camp site was that week. We loved going out there and playing... that is really one of the only places that I've played. Any other time in life I've played, it takes me back to these memories!

Playground - The playground was also practically in our backyard. I remember one summer, I stubbed my pinky toe on my left foot on the bench in Grandma's camper, and she made me put on my running shoes to go to the playground, even though I was pretty sure my toe was broken and it was so swollen I had to shove it into my shoe. I used to love to hang from the monkey bars there.


Campfires -  an essential to any camp story. We used to invite our friends families over to the fire with us, we used to eat Pie Iron's with Cherry Pie filling. Yum! Grandma used to eat all the burnt/caught on fire marshmellow's. Grandma always went in early "because of the Misqita's" (aka Misquito's). 

Guest Blogger:
Mom says - remember the time the neighbour put cayanne pepper out to get rid of the skunk and it spray him and then walked right thru our campfire spot - we all just sat frozen while he passed through

Walking Trails - finding turtles -I remember Steph used to love to go on walks, around the lake looking for turtles.  That was always fun. It was also fun to look for golf balls in the shallow waters.

Kirkfield Liftlock Cruise's - I mentioned the locks earlier. There were cruises you could take through the locks. There was this little cruise boat, that you could pay to ride on that took off at the beach dock, and went around the camp and through the locks. Have you ever been in locks? These big doors open and the boat drives in.... then the boat sits there while the water from the upper lake fills in between the 2 sets of doors. Then once it's filled all the way up the doors in front of the boat open and you continue on in the upper lake. I remember spending a lot of time at the locks. I don't even remember the rest of the boat ride at all! I do remember Uncle Paul having his boat there near the locks and traveling out into the lake and jumping off and swimming with the fish! I kicked one once. There are 5 Hydrolic Locks like this in the world, 3 of them are in Europe... The other one is in Peterborough, ON which is where my brother went to College.

Ceramics -I mentioned the bookstore, there was this room off the bookstore where you could paint your own ceramics. Grandma did many ceramics, and I think Steph made a couple squirrel ceramics (mom lets me know that it was Michael who made the squirrels). I made a bunny, and a Christmas Night Light, my mom did a Wreath. I think maybe even Mark made a pirate mug if I remember correctly. That was a fun activity!

storms/tornado's - I remember several summers we had scary storms or tornado warnings. The bathrooms were the only storm shelters we could go to. That was fun. There was one storm, back when we had a pop-up camper, not a motor home and I had to go to the bathroom really badly late at night. My mom said instead of walking all the way over to the bathrooms, that we could go knock on the neighbours trailer. They let us in and I remember being in awe of their trailer. They had everything, even a big screen TV, you stepped down into their living room and I think they even had a fake fireplace. I could be exaggerating the truth but to a kid, in a pop-up trailer, theirs' was soo cool. Oddly enough I don't remember what the bathroom looked like!

Grandpa's shed - Being that Grandma and Gramp's trailer was permanent they had features on their site that were cool. They had a stone patio, and a shed. Gramps stored all kinds of cool things in there, like fishing poles and a lawn mower. I don't know why I think that it is so cool, but it set them apart from everyone else. Their site was actually in the middle of this oval circle - closest to all the action! Half of the outside of the Oval were all permanent camper's, and I think my grandparent's might have been one of the only if not the only one in the middle that was permanent. They were almost directly in the middle... never mind I've found a site map. They lived at #139, shown in the red box and we camped at all of the purple ones... which ever of those 4 were available.  

This is most of the camp. The red box is zoomed in below and where I spend most of my time!

The Red Box is the Grandparents site, the purple ones are the ones we camped on most frequently!

Fair Glen is the Youth camp part of Fair Haven's but a lot of the Skills Classes take place there, such as drama, crafts, archery etc.

There is this one family that we used to see every summer that had foster kids. One of the little boys had that disease that if you get bruised you could die.... he wore a blue helmet whenever he played! We loved their family! There were the Cox's that lived there every summer, they were great friends of my Grandparents! My favourite friend name was Leslie, my mom is helping me look into her last name so I can look her up on facebook!
Did I mention my mom worked there when she was a teen?

I think that's all for now, but if you want to check out this wonderful place, go here:
http://www.fairhavens.org/ministries/familycamp/program/schedule/