Monthly Archives: March 2021

Adam’s Steps

Compiled by Maggie Stoyles in Summer 2020

There have been many stories and legends told at Cave Springs Camp. We describe a legend as a story that has been passed down from person to person, with some true parts and some false parts. Some of our legends are newer, and some are very, very old. The thing about legends is that they morph and change as time goes on, so how I might tell these stories may be different from how a counsellor would have told them in the past (even last summer!), but overall the concept remains the same. We have included “the real version” of some of these stories, especially when history is involved. Often it is just as interesting to know what actually happened, and usually, it is more important. 
Lots of information found in this book is from the Cave Springs Farm: Fact and Fancy book that was written in 1952 by W.F. Rannie, as well as some community newspaper articles. The rest is general camp knowledge and stories that have been told and retold.

The Legend

Around two hundred years ago, there was a family who built a house on the top of the escarpment and lived off the land. There was a wife, a husband, and a little baby named Adam. The year Adam was born there was a big drought, and it was very hard for them to find food. The husband would often go on long hunting trips, and the wife tried her best to find berries and edible plants. 

One day, while her husband was out hunting, the mother decided to climb down the escarpment wall to look for more food, as they had not eaten in days. She put Adam in a basket and used her other hand to scale down the rocks. Once on the ground, she found a huge bush of raspberries that she knew could feed her family for a long time. She filled her basket and stomach with as many berries as she could, and before she knew it the sun was setting. There were many creatures in the forest at night, and she didn’t want to meet them.

She got back to the wall of rock, and suddenly realized that she could not climb up with both Adam and the berries. She had to make a hard decision. If the mother left the berry basket, she was sure an animal would snatch it up and eat them all before she got back, because they too must be starving. However, she didn’t want to leave her baby alone in the forest either, but she knew she had to. The mother found a little space in the rocks, wrapped Adam up in blankets, and placed the sleeping baby there, constantly worried about her decision. 

She scaled the wall and ran home as fast as she could to drop off the food. She then ran back to Adam. But when she got to the bottom of the rock wall, Adam was gone! Frantic, she looked everywhere, but he was nowhere near where she had left him. She retraced her steps back to the bush, but still did not find him. After hours of looking in the dark, she went home and found her husband, who started to help her search. The couple searched all night until the morning, when they enlisted help from the town at the bottom of the escarpment. Everyone searched for two days, but they concluded that he had disappeared.

Filled with guilt, Adam’s mother sat down on a rock at the top of the wall. She started crying for her lost son, and cried more than she ever had before. All of a sudden, it started thunderstorming, with the rain beating down on her. But she kept crying. She cried so hard that it felt like the earth was shaking underneath her, and the water from her tears and the rain rushed like a stream down the escarpment. When she opened her eyes, to her amazement a row of steps had developed along the side of the rock. And at the bottom of those steps was little baby Adam.

The Real Story

Adam’s Steps are a series of natural steps along the edge of the escarpment. Everyone knows them as “Adam’s Steps”, but no one knows why they are called this or where that name came from. At the bottom of them, there are many mysterious carvings, including the year “1871” and a series of initials and monograms. It has been hypothesized that these markings were created by explorers, although we do not know how they relate to the steps or the story we tell.

How Camp Prepares for Post-Secondary

How Working at Camp Prepared Me for University 

Hiya everyone! My name is Zya and I’m super excited to head into my 7th season on staff at Cave Springs this summer as the Assistant Director. I started working at Cave Springs as a Day Camp Counsellor the summer after grade 12, right before I started university. Camp helped prepare me in ways that I didn’t even realize at the time! I’ve since graduated and upon reflection, here are some of the ways that working at camp helped prepare me for post-secondary:

Time management 

I’m not saying I was perfect at this, but certainly, the importance of sticking to a schedule at camp and keeping track of time were handy skills that carried over to my time at university. 

Organization and schedule planning 

As a counsellor, I was responsible for planning activities for my campers. We were instructed to pencil them into weekly schedules. This type of schedule planning became useful when it came to planning classes, extra-curriculars, work and other commitments into my planner. 

Responsibility and Confidence

Being in charge of the care and wellbeing of 10-15 campers certainly instils an intense sense of responsibility that carries over. Camp also gave me confidence in my leadership abilities, which helped me to put myself out there at university.

Making new friends 

I didn’t know anyone on staff when I joined and learning how to make new friends is an important skill to work on before starting post-secondary for sure! In post-secondary, you are bound to meet new people in classes, residence or through joining clubs so it doesn’t hurt to get some practice in while you can- especially if you haven’t moved to a new city or switched schools before. 

Team work

University/ college is full of the dreaded group projects. Working with my team at camp and learning to deal with the challenges that arise helped me gain skills in communication and conflict resolution. Also, you’ll benefit from gaining experience with getting along with people when it comes to roommates in residence, or house-mates in upper years. 

How to work super hard 

Camp is hard!!! We work long days, it’s hot and sometimes the kids can be challenging. But because of this, I learned how to push myself and worked super hard because the reward (kids having an awesome time at camp) was well worth it. This is like university- some days were very challenging, but hard work and determination lead to the reward of obtaining a degree. 

Creative problem solving and flexibility 

I feel like this is pretty self-explanatory. Two great skills to have when tackling a university degree or any post-secondary option. Camp is an inherently creative environment and it encourages staff to think outside the box. I learned how to deal with tricky situations and a touch of chaos here and there, which definitely transferred to university well.

How to step back and look at the bigger picture 

Understanding that all the little things that need to be done to get camp done help make it run smoothly. Even though cleaning a bathroom or sweeping the dining hall floor for the countless time can seem trivial in the moment, it always helped me to step back and think about the bigger picture. All the small parts add up to create an awesome time at camp for our campers. This was like university- I didn’t always love doing my readings or assignments but taking a moment to pause and think about the big picture always helped me to stay motivated. 

Good morals 

At Cave Springs we teach our campers about love, trust, respect, patience, kindness, sacrifice and servant heartedness. All good values to apply to life beyond camp as well. It also filled me with a sense of greater purpose and helped me further my spiritual development in a way that helped me stay grounded in my time outside of camp.

I sought community wherever I went 

This was a major one for me. After experiencing the way that the community at Cave Springs filled me with such contentment, I aimed to replicate this in the extracurriculars that I chose to do, or the workplaces that I entered. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Maggie and Chad’s Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

In the Spring of 2017, Maggie and Chad were determined to invent the most delicious chocolate chip cookies. They spent 2 months swapping out ingredients and experimenting with different ingredient quantities. They made chocolate chip cookies almost every night to come up with what they deemed the most perfect recipe. This is the recipe that our campers use if they do a baking activity while at camp- and it hasn’t disappointed yet!

Makes 24 cookies

Ingredients 

  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 cup margarine
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 egg
  • 2 1/4 cup flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 F. 

Cream together sugars and margarine. Whisk in vanilla and egg. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking soda and salt. Add to wet ingredients.

Add chocolate chips and stir until combined.

Form into balls (approx. 2 tablespoons of dough each).

Place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper, leaving room between each cookie because they will spread.

Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cookies should start to brown around the edges but will look slightly undercooked (which is what you want for ultimate chewy gooey-ness). Allow to cool slightly before removing from tray.

Enjoy!!!