Big Love

by Lindsay Tucker – Former Camper & Staff

I write this as my two little ones are tucked into their beds, hoping one day they will sleep under the stars like I did.

I think about how fortunate I was to spend a significant amount of my childhood summers – well, until I was 25 – at Camp Big Canoe. I think about the joy it brought into my life well beyond the two weeks or two months that I spent at camp, and the joy it continues to bring even though I am more removed from Hart Lake then I have ever been.

I am a special education teacher now but really I am a camp counsellor placed in a classroom. I can’t always say that I plan the most magical lessons (but sometimes I nail them!) or that I am full of bounce each day I enter my room, but I can say that every single day I enter my classroom I give my students as much love as I can possibly give.

This is one lesson I learned from going to camp. The importance of love….and lots of it.

Big love.

You see, people at Camp Big Canoe have this unique ability to just accept, without question or hesitation, everyone who arrives there. They see the beauty in each person for exactly who they are at that moment in time. I think that’s why so many people call Hart Lake home – because it has provided so many with a profound sense of love and acceptance. It is a safe space for so many campers and staff to flourish, take risks and to make beautiful mistakes.

But, creating a space like this is no mistake.

It takes an incredible leader, one who leads with love and leads by example. I am lucky to have been loved by such an incredible man and to feel, see, hear and experience what it means to lead with love. I am also blessed to have learned and felt love from so many campers. Watching children play, be free, wander in forests, solve problems together, think about their world and create relationships that might not have ever existed if not for camp, was magic for me. It’s still magic for me.

Camp has always been a feeling for me not really based on memories but a collection of emotions that has formed this huge place in my heart.

I am blessed to have found my spot at Big Canoe and to have camped with so many people who believe in the magic of CBC.