Big Fires at Farm & Wilderness

Wait, what happened to the Fair Fire?

Part of being a progressive organization means constantly examining our traditions and making sure they are in service of magical summers for our campers, not our own memories of the past. Twenty years ago, the fair took place nearly a week before the end of camp, and an evening spent on the fairgrounds was the magic. However, now that Fair is on the final day of camp, having a fire that goes late into the night shortens our campers' opportunity to participate in closing ceremonies at their own camp, ceremonies that can be some of the most moving of the summer.

Campers still build a big fire during first session with Senior Lodgers from TL and FS leading the charge, and the ritual of building it together (interdependence) is still woven into the summer. What's changed is where we put the magic — we've moved it so the final night can be given fully to goodbyes within each camp's own community.

That's the work of a progressive camp: not keeping traditions frozen, but keeping them alive by asking what - and who - they're for.

John Kalapos

Here's the fully corrected draft:

What's the History of Big Fires at F&W?

There is a rich history of stacking up wood and brush and setting it alight at Farm & Wilderness.  Building the brush pile was a staple of All Camp Games during the Ken Webb years. Seth Gibson (TL 1952-54, TF 63-65) recalls: "We used to play "Transportez le Bois" (Ken's name; we called it Rush the Brush). The brush was piled into the big blue truck with the brush butts hanging out. We backed up to the bonfire site, dropped the butts to the ground, and then backed up which pushed the brush up onto the fire."

In the 70s and 80s, a burn pile was slowly built up all year long by resource and crew until it occupied a large part of the soccer field. Inventive ways of setting it alight included a flaming arrow descending on a wire. Another summer, gasoline was mistakenly substituted for kerosene as the firestarter, resulting in a rather explosive ignition — not to be repeated! That "boom" accelerated the return to birch bark and kindling as the firestarter of choice.

Another tradition to emerge in the 90s was lighting the bonfire with a silent procession of torchbearers, two from each camp, while Tamarack Farm campers read an original poem: "As Sparks Fly Upward." Around the same time, the brush pile was replaced with a fire built from wood collected from the land around the Woodward camp. The era of the brush pile was over, and the era of iconic photos of campers using two-person timber carriers, or standing proudly atop a carefully designed multi-layer bonfire, had arrived. Another element to this bespoke bonfire was the challenge to assemble the wood into a shape or design, with the most referenced being a fire "in the shape of a dragon." We are still combing through archival photos to find just how strong the reptilian resemblance was, but numerous sources have confirmed it.

Another subtle yet seismic change to the Fair Fire was the time it was lit and the date of Fair. Up until the 2000s, alums used to camp at the Fairgrounds (in the area we now spread composted KYBO manure!), and the Fair Fire was lit once the summer sky had fully darkened. As standards and expectations changed for summer camps to increase child protection, it was no longer tenable to have a nighttime event entirely open to the public where campers intermittently checked in with staff but generally roamed free. In 2009, the single most impactful decision for camper experience occurred. Fair now falls the night before pickup. Before the schedule change of 2009, camps all had at least four full days between the end of Fair and pickup day. They would stay up late watching the fire sink into embers, sleep late the next morning, clean up Fair, pack up their camp and belongings, and engage in an extended period of appreciations and tearful goodbyes culminating in Banquet, four days after Fair. Now, Banquet precedes Fair which is then separated from depature by few waking hours rather than days.  For years we adapted to this new, hyper-compacted and frenetic end of camp straight into a car or bus ride home.. This summer, campers gain some precious room to actually have a sit-down dinner and time and space to process and more fully experience their goodbyes to each other and their camp.

All of this is to echo the sentiments expressed above by John in "Wait, What Happened to Fair Fire?" Part of the magic of camp is that we imagine our personal experience to stretch timelessly and bidirectionally into the past and future. Yet in practice, one generation of F&W campers will enjoy an entirely different tradition than campers ten years before them. A new generation will respond to the needs and desires of their community and create their own traditions. This summer, Firefly Song and Timberlake built the Interdependence Day Big Fire in a single day! That this fire won't be there for Fair-goers to enjoy doesn't mean the new traditions are not as meaningful as the old — it means they are part of a creative, dynamic, and ever-changing cycle at Farm & Wilderness.