Hannah Maia Ā» The Guardian Ā»
This is an epic adventure, 40 days in the northern reaches of Quebec, travelling with traditional tools including wood-canvas canoes and fire irons for cooking over an open fire. It is a trip filled with unknowns for me, but there is one thing of which Iām sure: the 11 young women Iām travelling with, nine of whom are teenagers, will not see each other at their best. They are bug-bitten, cold and boob-deep in muskeg bog and have to carry an incredibly heavy canoe on their heads.
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At the heart of this story is a summer camp ā but not the kind most people know. This one is called Keewaydin, the second-oldest operating summer camp in North America. Its vision hasnāt changed since it was established in 1893: āa program focused on wilderness canoe tripping, with minimum time spent in base campā. In its first 105 years only boys got the chance to go tripping, but in the past two decades girls have joined the ranks. Iām interested in how something established more than a century ago to promote manliness and āroughing it in the woodsā can be relevant for teenage girls today. I wonder what kind of teenage girl would want to forgo lifeās luxuries to spend a summer in the wilderness ā but also know that, as a teenager, I probably would have been one of them.
