For 100 years, Camp Northland-B'nai Brith has been a place of firsts - first campfires, first canoe trips, first summer loves.
The rustic campgrounds on Moose Lake in the Haliburton Highlands, about a 250 km drive from Toronto, is a place Jewish kids in the region wait all year to visit. The mere mention of the place conjures fond memories of adventure in the minds of alumni.
On Wednesday night, about 350 people will gather for a fundraiser reunion at the Toronto lounge Six Degrees to mark the 100th anniversary of Northland, started by the National Council of Jewish Women in 1909 and now operated by the Jewish Camp Council of Toronto. All of the money raised tonight will help send kids to camp.
In the runup to the event, The Globe spoke with some alumni who shared their favourite memories of camp, a place where they came of age, had their first taste of independence and sparked life-long friendships.
Sherri Freedman, 49, vice-president of development at The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation. A camper from 1969 to 1974 and a staffer from 1979 to 1984.
Each summer at camp was memorable for Ms. Freedman, but the first day of her first summer on staff is by far her most treasured moment.
"I stepped off the bus and I met my husband," she said. "We became friends and we were friends for a long time."
She and Jeff Hoffman, also 17 at the time, were counsellors in the same section. Their bond was tight from the beginning and they wrote letters when Mr. Hoffman went away to school.
But their romance didn't blossom until more than a decade later. Twelve years after that fateful summer day, the couple married in 1991. They now have two daughters, Emma, 18, and Sara, 14. While they don't go to Northland, Emma got a job at another summer camp and is having an experience similar to her parents.
"It's a magical place," Ms. Freedman says of Camp Northland. "It's an incredibly transformational time in your life. Everything's possible."
Jay Rudolph, 51, a lawyer and mediator with Rudolph Mediation & Arbitration Services Inc.
A camper from 1966 to 1973 and a staffer from 1974 to 1981.
When Mr. Rudolph was a 19-year-old counsellor in 1977, Camp Northland integrated developmentally challenged youngsters with other campers for the first time. He met one of his long-time friends, Bill Sherman, now 46, that summer through the program.
"He's a big part of my life. I was his counsellor at camp that year and then the following summer his mother asked me to work with him, to teach him some social skills, go to the Y[MCA]with him, et cetera. We established a lifelong relationship through camp."
He helped to teach Mr. Sherman to sail, canoe and practise his swimming. They still see each other often.
"My time with him always has been and still is an opportunity for me to give back and an opportunity for me also to gain perspective in terms of my own life," he says. "It humbles me to spend time with him. That's probably what drew me to him and set us on a path of becoming life-long friends."
Cindy Seligman, 50, department head of health and physical education at Middlefield Collegiate Institute in York Region. A camper from 1973 to 1975 and a staffer from 1976 to 1978.
Coming from a family of water skiers, Ms. Seligman continued the legacy by working on the docks at Camp Northland, and remembers teaching campers how to ski.
"Inside the ski cabin, we set up speakers and played our music. It was the most exciting place to be at camp, we thought," she says. "Our names are all over the ski cabin, skis were put up in the ski cabin with our names on them."
Ms. Seligman also fondly remembers night duty, making music with other counsellors as the campers slept. "We'd be sitting around and singing while people were playing the guitar - songs by Carole King, James Taylor, Neil Young," she says. "I think that's where I got my passion for all the folk singers."
David Korman, 51, real estate lawyer with Korman Associates, Barristers & Solicitors A camper from 1971 to 1973 and a staffer from 1974 to 1976.
Of course Mr. Korman's favourite memory is meeting his wife of 29 years, Marla Barath, while she was a counsellor in training. But the canoe expeditions, which he led for part of the time as an instructor, also top his list of highlights. One particular trek springs to his mind - a canoe and whitewater rafting trip with the male counsellors in training.
"We were dragging our canoes through some whitewater, against the current," he said. "One of the guys slipped and let go, so his canoe, the current just took it and it bent it right around a great huge rock." The canoe filled up with water and they all tried to pry it off. Their packs were soaked and much of the food was ruined.
"That made for an interesting trip," he said. "We still tell stories from that and poke fun at the guys whose stuff was wet."