Camp Emberpine · Established 1903
Camp Emberpine has welcomed campers to the lake for generations. This handbook covers the parts of camp campers ask about most: the water, where you sleep, and what happens on the last night. Everything else you learn by being here.
Camp Emberpine sits on a peninsula, so the lake wraps around most of camp and the shoreline changes depending on where you are standing. The main swimming waterfront is on one side, with marked swim areas and docks watched by waterfront staff at all times.
Follow the shore around the bend and you reach the boating side of camp, where campers canoe, sail, and take out other small craft. Farther along again is the waterskiing and wakeboarding dock. At the far point of the peninsula is Spirit Dock, which is quiet and set apart from the rest of the waterfront. Nothing is scheduled there. People go for the view.
Every camper takes a swim test at the start of the session, and waterfront privileges follow from it. No one enters the water or goes out on an activity dock without staff supervision. There are no exceptions.
One of the oldest traditions at Emberpine is Polar Bears. Campers come down to the swimming waterfront first thing in the morning and go in together. The lake is cold at that hour and stays cold through August. That has never stopped anybody from showing up.
Campers live in the Cabin Courtyard, grouped by age. The size of the group changes as you get older, which surprises people who expect it to work the other way around.
The youngest campers start in the largest cabins, so their first summers are spent as part of a bigger group. In the middle years, those groups break into smaller cabins. Most campers will tell you these are the summers where the friendships get made.
In the oldest years the smaller groups come back together, and by the final summers they form the CIT group — one large unit after years of splitting into smaller cabins and coming back together.
Counselors live with or alongside their cabins. Lights-out moves later with age. The oldest campers have the most independence at Emberpine, and they are still under counselor supervision.
The ropes course is not on Emberpine property. It is an outdoor adventure course in the surrounding woods, and camp brings groups out there for occasional team-building days. Groups work through climbing and high-ropes elements under the supervision of the course's own trained staff. Helmets, harnesses, and belays are required for every element.
Because it is off-site, going to the course is an outing rather than a regular camp activity. That is most of what makes it feel like a big deal.
The All-Night Treasure Hunt is the final-night tradition at Camp Emberpine and it is for the oldest campers only. Most campers spend years hearing about it before they are old enough to be in it.
The counselors organize the Hunt. The details change every summer and are not shared beforehand. Campers know to expect a night of clues and challenges that will take them across camp. They are not told the route, the rules, the teams, or what they are looking for until the night begins.
That is on purpose, and it is not negotiable, and asking does not work.
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