The Magic of the Final Campfire
As a Girl Scout camp counselor, no matter how your week went at camp, you always have the last night’s campfire to lift your spirits. Most Girl Scout camps offer a similar program for this final gathering: songs, reflection, and taps—all around a big campfire.
Over the years at Keyauwee Program Center in Sophia, North Carolina—part of the Girl Scouts of Peaks to Piedmont Council—I have seen many ingenious methods of lighting the campfire. (I have been going since I was a Girl Scout myself, and now my 10-year-old daughter, Zoe, is a camper there too.) In years past, the campfire has been lit by a flaming arrow shot from a bow, by a ball of fire that zoomed through the trees on a zipline, and by torch. But lately the fire is already roaring by the time the first campers arrive in a long, silent line. That solemn march through the trees on the last night gives campers time to reflect, but also ensures that they resist the temptation to flee into the woods to hide away and stay at camp forever.
Campfire songs are many and varied, and at our camp each unit is assigned a song. Being a music educator the rest of the year, I know how tricky it is to get student-aged personnel to learn a song in two months—much less a week. The trick? Someone holds up a huge piece of poster board with the words written in marker. The girls really only learn the chorus, so they lip sync through the verses. The sudden dynamic change after each verse lets you know their hearts are all in with the chorus of the song. It is the chorus that usually has all the meaning anyway. A job well done is met with a thunderous response of magic fingers.
Then the staff join around the fire and, at our camp, they sing “On the Loose.” You may not even know the person beside you, but you all feel connected. Even when I return for Alumni Night, it does not matter if you know the people you’re standing with—you are all part of the camp family now.
Toward the end, girls wait in anticipation to hear who will take ashes home with them. Only at camp would you be excited to get a can full of cooled ash and charcoal to kick around your room for a year only to bring it back and pour it on next year’s final campfire. But, if you’re serious about the tradition, you keep up with where your ashes have been over the years. Mine at Keyauwee go back all the way to the National Roundup that was held in Colorado in 1959.
As the night ends, individual units are dismissed and unit staff deal with the gush of tears as girls realize they may never see each other again. You’ll understand if you have been there—it’s a special moment that’s hard to let go of when you know you’ll cherish it forever. I’m so glad my daughter gets to experience that now too.
Tina Barber
Longtime Counselor at Keyauwee Program Center
Gibsonville, North Carolina
