After a couple of seasons as a Mohawk camper (Ute, Senior) in the 1950s, when I got to high school I was pondering what to do for a summer job. A man came up to me on the front steps of the Torrington (now the Northwestern CT) YMCA and asked me how I planned to spend my summer. I mumbled an indecisive answer, and then the man said, “Why don’t you work at Camp Mohawk?”
The man was Tom Q. Moore, who was beginning his first year as Executive Director at Mohawk. That began my seven years as a summer staff member at Camp. For six of those seasons, I was on the maintenance staff in July and for all seven seasons was a CIT, Counselor and then a Unit Leader, respectively, for boys’ camp in August.
Being on the “male staff” at a girls’ camp was nirvana for a teenage boy. Although cleaning the Lighthouse, working in the kitchen, mowing, dumping trash etc., weren’t glamorous tasks, being outdoors in the Berkshires at camp with 200 girls and young women was (as we later said in the Army) good duty for the dozen or so of us guys working at Mohawk in July.
“Mr. Moore,” the Camp Director, assigned me and taught me how to prepare the special campfire for the Daughters/Sons of Mohawk ceremonies, which were held at the end of each two-week session during camp. The “magic fire,” which lit upon command, was located at the Daughters/Sons ring out in the woods away from the main camp area.
The fire-making process: I would soak 6-10 cut fire logs in kerosene in the early afternoon, take them along with more firewood out to the ceremonial campfire. Before assembling the logs, I would take some twine and string it through a pipe that ran from inside the fireplace then underground to the periphery of the campfire seating area, about 12 feet away. The other end of the twine was tied to a twig which I hid in the seating area. The logs were set into the fireplace in a square “tower” usually with some smaller kindling pieces between the logs. I then placed a paper plate at the bottom of the log tower and put a few tablespoons of a special mixture on the plate. Then a small, capped bottle of a chemical liquid was tied onto the end of the twine and put on the plate. I would uncap the liquid bottle immediately prior to the ceremony.
When the campers assembled at the campfire site, I took my seat where I had placed the twig tied to the twine. When the cue was called for firelight, I would gently tug the twine spilling the liquid and thus spark a small chemical fireball that ignited the kerosene on the logs and, voila! Instant fire! “Oohs” and “aahs” abounded!
[Editors’ note: For several decades, Camp Mohawk was a girls’ camp in July and a boys’ camp in August. In 1968, Camp Mohawk became a girls’ camp for the entire summer and was the sister camp to Camp Hi-Rock, which was all boys.]
Parker Prout is a former camper, staff member, Trustee and fire starter. Thank you to Parker Prout for his contribution to this edition of The Ivy Twines. If you’d like to be a guest contributor on a future edition, please reach out to Cathy Horne at cahorne@gmail.com.
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