Yip de ninigo nanago saska – poodly addly yoohoo.
It’s a boisterous call lingering in the memories of generations of girls and alumnae who know the code of Camp Tapawingo.

  “When our canoe trips leave or return, it’s a phrase that one group sings and the group on shore will respond to with a welcome,” explains Liz Greenway, Manager of Camping and Outdoor Education for the YWCA of Toronto,
The rustic camp on the shores of Georgian Bay, just south of Parry Sound, is steeped in such tradition and ritual. On the second night of camp, is the “blanketing” when flaming torches bring life to a welcoming campfire, encircled by campers swaddled in blankets, as much for comfort and warmth, as for protection from bugs. On the last night – just before a magical floating campfire mysteriously passes by on Georgian Bay – campers are united in a solemn candle-lighting ceremony.
 “We tell the kids that if they need to remember a circle of friends who are thinking of them, that candle is a symbol of the warmth they take with them from camp,” explains Greenway.
Today, Cec Barks of Parry Sound, can not only recite the poem from that candle-lighting ceremony, but also remembers the faces around that circle of friends.
 “Our group would go to Tapawingo for three-week periods – and we had pretty much the same kids come back year after year, so you formed these really close relationships with these kids you wouldn’t see all year long, but then you were pretty much attached at the hip for those three weeks of the summer,” she says.
One such long and meaningful relationship began at age 10 with a camp friend she later chose as her maid-of-honour.
“We don’t see each other often now, but we always know we can call each other and, every once in a while, we get together.”
Barks remembers sharing trials and triumphs with camp friends.
“You’re roughing it as a kid, sleeping in these old cabins, doing canoe trips in freezing cold weather, but you always had lots of fun,” she says. “And it was always safe and there were limitations and rules, but they were fair.”
Bonds forged through experiencing Tapawingo together have transcended economic status and extended across continents. A large percentage of campers have come from the Toronto area and across Ontario, while others travel from Norway, the United States, Japan, Germany, or China.
 “Usually there’s some kind of family connection,” Greenway says. “For example, some of our former staff now live in California and send their kids up because they want them to have a real Canadian experience – they figure true camping happens in Ontario.”
Another girl’s family is posted in China with an international company, but her original connection was that mom went to Camp Tapawingo.
“Some of the others know about the YWCA, being an international organization, and so when they want their kids to get a ‘real Canadian’ experience they look to the YWCA,” says the camp manager. “So it’s an interesting mix of kids from all over – kids who couldn’t afford to get out of Toronto for a one-week holiday and kids who are coming from overseas. That’s really quite unique, and then it’s all girls.”
She estimates that one fifth of the campers are subsidized.
“The kids that come run a broad range of economic groups as well,” she explains. “We spent about $80,000 a year on subsidies on girls who would not otherwise be able to afford to go to camp, but we also have a large number of kids who are full-fee paying.”
Tapawingo also offers an experience shared by generations of moms who send their daughters because they enjoyed Camp Tapawingo themselves.
For Barks, dropping off daughter Jacki brought back memories of a childhood when summer growing up in Parry Sound was synonymous with Camp Tapawingo. From age ten to 15, young Cec O’Callaghan was a camper, then a counselor-in-training and at 17, spent a year as a junior counselor.
Her mother registered her at Tapawingo believing the socialization was important for Cec, an only child, and being cottagers on the bay, she knew her daughter would be receiving swimming and canoeing lessons. An added bonus was learning camp crafts, out-tripping, sailing, hiking, drama, art – everything you could possibly think of, says Barks.
“There were lots of exciting adventures, and it was a very happy time with lots of confidence and self-esteem building, lots of physical skills that they taught us,” says Barks. “And of course that’s one of the reasons I wanted Jacki to go, because I felt they were really important, and helped to shape the person I am today.”
When she picked up Jacki –initially from day camp and later overnight camp – they’d have plenty to talk about.
“She always made mention of the singsongs, the campfires at night, and the games like capture the flag and the regattas and cabin clean-up,” says Barks, recalling how the mom-and-daughter chats conjured recollections from her own Tapawingo days. “Mostly of happy things we did. And neat people we met – and then we’d run into them later in life.”
One of those “neat people” was Adrienne Kolbuc of Nobel, a counselor when Cec was a camper.
Back then, she was Adrienne Blaney, known to campers by her monogram-derived nickname, pronounced Abby. She summered at Tapawingo from around 1963 to 1974, working her way from camper to staff and ultimately earning herself the unofficial title of “lifer”.
“I think once you’re connected with the camp you never leave,” she says. “You’re connected through friendships and the atmosphere.”
She traveled from the west end of Toronto, welcoming the change of pace and relishing the contrast in lifestyle and scenery. Never did she think one day she’d be raising her family in this community, although, a part of her always vowed that if she should ever have daughters, she would expose them to Tapawingo. Later, she had the opportunity to follow through on that vow, introducing daughters Caitlin and Emma, first to daycamp and later, overnight camps. Today, all three share memories of those same Tapawingo traditions, ceremonies, and learning opportunities – some silly routines, many cherished alliances, a few practical jokes.
Oh, if the walls of those cabins could talk, they would sing, and laugh, and whisper and giggle.
And those walls go back a long way.
The property was once the sheep farm of Mr. Gentles who sold to the  department store-founding Eaton family. The white cottage was built in 1928, and in 1929, the Eatons sold the property to the YWCA for $2. That first summer, ten campers spent a week at the cottage, roughing it in the attic. 1930 was considered the first official summer for Camp Tapawingo and it was quite an adventure for the 16 and 17-year-old Toronto businesswomen who ventured out to camp by boat. For most of these city girls, climbing down a ladder from boats into canoes, then paddling to camp was a new experience. So was pumping water from the bay into pails to bring up to the cottage.
Their quarters were in the attic, which later became known as “Cottage In” when a “Cottage Out” occupied the screened porch. The following year, a dining room was constructed. Year by year, the camp grew to include more cabins and younger campers.
For three or four summers during the Second World War, the camp was managed by Elizabeth Cross, later better known locally simply as Beth Green.
“It was almost wilderness back when mom was there,” says Susan Brunton of Parry Sound, who remembers her late mother’s stories about the girls arriving by steamship from Midland since the camp was not accessible by road.
During the 50s, 60s and 70s, several different service clubs helped build cabins at the camp. In the fall of 1975/76 winterizing began. Pam Wedd, assistant director at Tapawingo at the time, remembers working with camp director Ann Dunnigan to winterize three cabins on the hill, two cabins by the waterfront and the dining hall. Introducing indoor bathrooms into the main lodge was another big step toward year-round operation. The local directors designed a network of cross-country ski trails on the scenic property as an extra winter activity. During shoulder seasons, school groups used the camp during the week, and private groups would rent cabins for women’s weekends.
“Women would leave husbands and kids and jobs at home and get away for the weekend, and those weekends were quite special,” says Wedd, a Tapawingo camper/counselor alumna from 1965 - 1969. “We had our regulars, largely Toronto folks, getting out of the city to do some snowshoeing, paddling and hiking.”
When Greenway became a director in 1979, she began running the summer programming. Although she had a strong connection with the YWCA in Toronto, she felt it was important to build connections with the Parry Sound community.
“We’d had a number of local school groups come out in June on year-end school trips here, and they’d say they’d like to go to our camp,” says Liz, recalling that Carol Mymko was one of the teachers who regularly brought her Grade 5 students on a year-end two-night camp-out using Tapawingo cabins, with parents as volunteer chaperones.
Around 1990, a day camp was started, offering local girls a chance to come out to swim, canoe and discover the Tapawingo experience for five weeks in the summer.
Community partnerships have expanded to include the local Waubuno Shriners annual surf and turf fundraiser on the campsite in the fall, and the WPSHC foundation sustainable gala on August 27.
Alumna Adrienne Kolbuc, a.k.a Abby, who now chairs the West Parry Sound Health Centre Foundation board is helping to plan that gala. In February, she stepped into the Tapawingo dining hall.
It was as if time has stood still.
“It has the same smell that it did 30, 40 years ago when I would go as a kid,” she says. “It hasn’t changed. There’s been some modernization… but it’s really a treasure, from my memories anyway,”
For her, the welcoming venue showcasing Georgian Bay, combined with Tapawingo’s simple, basic, local and sustainable philosophy seemed a good fit for a health centre sustainable gala.
“When you look at Camp Tapawingo being there for nearly 80 years, and the people it has nurtured and supported, just in that environment alone, and it has never changed,” says Kolbuc. “It still holds the foundation, the purpose and the mission it was built on as a girls’ camp.”
Today, the camp continues to carry out the YWCA mission, working on the principle that “fun, challenge, adventure and learning new skills in an all-girls’ camp are key factors in building confidence, self esteem, independence and self reliance.”
“What’s unique is that it’s all girls, and there’s not a lot of all-girl camps around still that are run by organizations, oddly enough,” notes Liz Greenway. “This used to be the way it was, and then a lot of places went co-ed in the 70s. But we thought it was important for girls’ development to remain an all-girls camp.”
Greenway is now planning the 80th anniversary celebrations for 2010, beginning with a scavenger hunt in downtown Toronto in May, and a weekend reunion of leaders and some campers in September at Tapawingo. Alumnae will be cramming in as many activities as they remember from camp into one weekend.
”It’s totally exhausting,” says Greenway, who describes it as “a hoot”.
As with past reunions, it’s as if it’s easy to pick up where they left off – 20, 30, 40 or more years ago – and relive the routine of being the carefree girls at Tapawingo again, remembering the traditions and every word of the camp call. Canoeing, sailing, swimming, a campfire both nights, looking at photos from the camp’s archive books and arguing about who is in which picture and laughing about the nurse Bandy – short for Band-Aid – who would inspect the cabin cleaning.
Barks attended a couple of the reunions held over the years – with her long-time camp friend, of course.
“You always feel like you’re still connected,” she says. “We did all the things we used to do, like the flag raising, the late night swims, the early swims and the synchronized swims, and the candle-lighting ceremony. Just for a weekend. We had to pack in a lot of stuff.”
Kolbuc found being reunited with camp friends a few years ago, overwhelming.
“You don’t see people for great spaces of time, and it was as if we had just left there three years ago,” she explains. “We had the same songs, the same thoughts, all of those things that bind you as friends. That will never leave and it’s heartwarming.”
Greenway will soon be starting the count down to welcome alumnae to the 2010 reunion.
Yip de ninigo nanago saska – poodly addly yoohoo.
The girls are coming back.