The Bell

         The Laketrails bell came from the old Catholic church in Warroad.  It was originally bolted down to some timbers, but those rotted over the years. It was put on a cement stand in the summer of 1967 when they were mixing the cement to pour the floor of the mess hall. This is where it still stands today.
        The bell is an important part of Laketrails. It greets people as they come to the island, calls campers and staff to meals, sends canoe trips off on adventures and welcomes the voyageurs back.  The last thing you hear as you leave the island on a boat back to Young's Bay is the bell... reminding you to come back again some day!
       It is probably one of the top things photographed on the island, who doesn't have a "sunset bell" shot?
 

'94 Camper Workers: Josh Hutchins, Steve Siewe, Amy Noble and Beth Miesle

Lucy,  Jim (Moose) Musielewicz and Sarah McLarnan  '98

Fr. Bill Mehrkens, Camp Director Jeff Odendahl and 2002 Laketrails Staff

Camper Guide Award

Chris Hoffman's Camper Guide Paddle

Clint Robins' Camper Guide Award

    The Camper Guide award is considered an advanced wilderness award. Prerequisites for this award are both the Wilderness Award and the Pilot License.  This award is achieved through successful leadership in planning, packing and guiding a canoe trip under the supervision of a member of the camp staff.  We all recognize the lasting impact good guides have on campers.  Fr. Jerry wrote, "The guides aim on the trail is to instill in campers a love and respect for the wilderness while having a whale of a time living it!"

Below, Camp Director Mark Harren, guides Jackie Noble and Mark Lindell give Ed Halvorson his Laketrails Camper Guide award in 1991.

K.P.

Annie Dingle    

Outdoor KP behind old Mess Hall

      Ah, KP...  Who doesn't have fond memories of doing KP at Laketrails?  Many will remember starting a fire out back of the Mess Hall to heat the water, singing camp songs and swatting flies.  Today we have running hot water and boom boxes,  but a few flies still find their way to the KP crew.

Voyageurs in Aluminum Canoes

                                              By John O'Toole  (1953)

     It is the spirit that will continue to cast it's magic spell on the singing around the evening campfire.  It will add the salt of friendship to the coining of nicknames, the kidding, and the sharing of camp work.
    Whether he lugs a heavy pack or carries a canoe on a portage to one of the many rock-walled lakes in the Aulneau Peninsula, each boy will quietly grow into manhood.
   As he lays awake under the stars on Falcon Island and listens to a timber wolf complaining to the moon or to a moose sloshing through a bog, he will know that with all its surging, unpredictable power, nature can still be his friend.  He will live with men who live with God.

       (from a book compiled by Jack Conway)

Oh, You Can't Get to Heaven...

                                 Oh, you can't get to heaven on the Laketrails bus,
                                 'Cause the Lord don't want something He can't trust...

       Singing has been an big part of the Laketrails experience since the beginning.  Many of the original songs are still being sung 60 years later.  Next summer at the  60th Reunion ~August 17 - 19, 2012,  Souvenir Song Books will be available for purchase in the Duck's Nest.  What are some of your favorite Laketrails songs?

                                           I start getting restless whenever I see
                                           An eagle on the wind, I long for the day
                                           I can get underway, and paddle along as I sing...

       

AWARDS at LAKETRAILS

Laketrails offers campers the opportunity for four awards.  These awards are not awards of competition but of achievement.  Awards began the first year of the camp, with Cy Kaiser and Ed Minarik earning the first Laketrails "Pilots Awards."  It has been a tradition for awards to be given at the closing campfire of each session with a patch symbolizing the award. The first two awards are:

WILDERNESS AWARD:

   This award is given to a camper who expresses real skill, ability and helpfulness on a canoe trip.  Some  of the skills needed include canoeing, tenting, cooking, fire building, care of equipment, and some knowledge of the natural world of the wilderness such as trees, wildlife and rocks.  Often it is said, the individual earning this award is "the kind of person I would like to have with me if I were lost in the wilderness."

Wilderness Award paddles hanging in the lodge.

PILOT AWARD:
   The pilot award/license is the Laketrails first and fundamental award in boating, including canoeing, sailing and power boating.  In this we follow the U.S. Coast Guard and State of Minnesota requirements for boat operation and water safety.  Beyond these requirements, we have developed our own system of boating education.  Included in this program is: boat care, motor care, knots, gasoline handling, terminology, boat types, paddle process, docking, mooring, rough water, navigation and water safety.

Larry Schmitz awarding Devin Alsleben his Pilot Award in June 2011.

Laketrails is a land of HOPE

Another part of of the Laketrails Idea:
  "LAKETRAILS IS A LAND OF HOPE"
    Our world is often so filled with pain, sorrow, sickness, disappointment, depression, injustice, and violence that we are in danger of feeling hopeless in the face of the problems.  This is especially when we need some of the experiences that the Laketrails adventure can offer----

beauty

love

success

fun

friendship

faith

and a better vision for life.

Enjoy a Wilderness Adventure

  In 1951, before Laketrails had it's first campers, the Laketrails Idea began to take form.  The Laketrails Idea: A Vision Quest and a Way of Life, is the foundational document of the camp.  There are 12 different parts to this document, today's focus is "Enjoy a Wilderness Adventure."

 Adventure is the best single word that describes the Laketrails program of activities, especially the canoe trip.  A canoe trip is an adventure in exploring, navigating, learning to tame a canoe, becoming aware of wild animals and fascinating birds, learning to fish, build a fire, cook a meal on the shore, and to open one's vision to the beauty and wonder of the world.  Adventure means learning new things, making new friends, seeing new country, and building a new vision for the future.  A big part of the adventure is learning to discover oneself better and to enjoy the success of accepting and succeeding in a new and real challenge, a challenge in new skills new knowledge, new relationships, and possibly new freedom to be oneself.  The adventure may be a new hope for living and a deeper faith in the goodness and beauty of life itself.

You Can Tell a Girl From Laketrails...

   In 1954, Laketrails Girls Camp began on Blackbird Island with the Sisters of St. Joseph as senior staff.  This summer session was sometimes referred to as,  "Baketrails Lace Camp."  The next summer, the girls were moved to Base Camp on Oak Point. They quickly proved they were able to handle the wilderness and canoe trips as well as the boys.




         As the song goes..."You can tell her by her manners,  By her appetite and such,  You can tell a girl from Laketrails,  But you cannot tell her much!"

Laketrails - it's a family thing!

After almost 60 years, Laketrails has become family to many people.  It was really a "family event" during our Middle School session this summer.  We had several second and third generation campers and staff on the island.  Families represented were:  Ditzler,  Doyle,  Flicker, Harren,  Krantz,  Lindell,  Lindquist,  Magnan,  McGarry,  McKeever, McLeod,  Miller,  Odendahl,  Thibert and Wollack.   Of course, there are scores of other families that have also sent their children and grandchildren to experience the wonders of Laketrails throughout the years!

First Campers

Where did the first campers come from? 
  Mostly from Crookston, but a few from here and there.  I advertised in our Northland Diocese that we were starting this camp for teenagers.  I had almost a year to work on this stuff.  Of course, we only had 48 kids the first summer, and not all at the same time.

The first canoe trip...we have come a long way!

How did you know where to send a canoe trip?
  Well, I had this friend that had a cruiser.  I arranged for him to take us on a cruise around Falcon Island.
It was the first time for the staff and I to see that area.  So, our first canoe trip went around Falcon Island.

This summer Laketrails canoe trips have headed for Arrow Lake, Blueberry Inlet, Shoal Lake, around the Aulneau Peninsula,  O'Dell Lake and many more.

Purchasing Land

The sand bar that once connected Oak Island to Oak Point

Did you buy the land right away?
     (Fr. Bill)    No, I went to Chicago where the Booth Fishery head quarters is located.  We made up a contract, and they let us rent the place for $100 a summer.  We did this for three summers, then we bought it.  Their property was 149 acres, and we paid $3,000 for it.  But the point it self, where the camp would be located is 17 acres.  We decided that not only would it be called Laketrails, but that it would be Laketrails Base Camp.  It would be the base for heading out onto the trails of the water.


Where did you get the equipment for Laketrails?

Fr. Bill and Fr. Jerry on Laketrails dock

   I borrowed $5,000 from the Diocese, which has been paid off a long time ago. Also, the Diocese of Fargo, why I don't know, loaned us $2,000.  So with $7,000 we were rich!  I was able to buy two boats, I had a small outboard motor of my own for the little boat.  For the bigger boat we bought a "great big" 25 horse Johnson motor.  That is the biggest Johnson made in those days. We got three big army tents, and a few small ones from Camp Columbus. They had grown, and now had cabins.  All the rest of the stuff I begged for from all over.  Dishes, pots and pans, silverware, sleeping nets...  We also bought five canoes.  Four Grummans and a second hand canoe, all 17 footers.  So we had two sugar beet trucks loaded when we moved up there our first summer in 1952.

Friendly neighbors

What did you do first to get Laketrails started?
  Got the bishop's permission. Bishop Schenk as a Diocesan project, it would be a church camp.  He gave me permission right away.  Fr. Jerry and I took a trip for the weekend to Lake of the Woods, it was the first trip there for either of us.  We didn't know where anything was. We went on a Friday night to Warroad and found out there was a passenger boat leaving the next morning at 8:00.  So we got out to Oak Island that day and met Al Hanson, who owed the Bay Store.  We talked about possibilities and if he had a boat we could use for the weekend.  I already new boating at this time, and we wanted to do some exploring around looking for a place to start this camp.
        We only had to make two stops.  We got a little information and went to Little Oak Island.  We looked it over and thought it was pretty isolated and that transportation difficulties would come up a lot.  We also knew that Oak Point was owned by Booth Fisheries at that time and was available.  It had been vacant for about 7 years, because commercial fishing rules had changed and they were no longer catching their own fish up there. So we stopped there and pulled up to a beautiful sand bar connecting Oak Point to Oak Island.  There were bear tracks in the sand.  We got out and looked around at the old buildings.  We walked into this one big old building, that we found out was historically the mess hall for the Booth Fishery's fishermen.  It was about the only thing usable.  There were two other shacks.  One was a latrine, and the other a two story shack with some old engines in it.  But we decided when we looked over the place this might be a good place to start the camp.  The grass was waist high, there were dead birds in the mess hall and you could see the sky through the ceiling.  But the walls were solid and there was a kitchen there already. The floor was made of broken floorboards, Laketrails put the cement floor in later.   We decided that weekend that this is where the camp would be.  We talked a good deal, and made plans for a canoe camp while drivng and boat riding around.

From the beginning... (an interview with the Skipper)

                  Leo Stelton,  Fr. Bill Mehrkens and Jerry Noesen

                               
Fr. Bill, where did your love of the wilderness begin?
       When I was 5 years old on the shores of the Mississippi River.  My parents had a little cabin across the river, about a mile out of Red Wing. I spent part of the summer there, and I didn't like that very much because all of my friends and playmates were in town, and I was out there on the river.  And still, one day I had a vision of how beautiful it was.  Wrens were singing, I knew what wrens were, and the boats were coming and going past, and it was perfect weather...and for the first time in my life I thought, "hey, this is beautiful, I want to stay here."

Who came up with the idea to start Laketrails?
       I did.  Fr. Jerry Noesen, who was one of the co-founders with me, he came to visit me at Camp Columbus that year, and decided to travel back with me in my old car.  For the first time I opened up my ideas of a camp to him, a camp for older kids - teenagers,  in a wilderness setting.  Upon that road back we decided it would be some place on Lake of the Woods.  We would look around, and even call the camp Laketrails because it would be largely for canoeing in the wilderness.  I thought Jerry was good material for the camp, and to do it with me.  So we talked about it all the way from the Black Hills to home.