Another wonderful week at Mah-Kee-Nac, full of excitement, tradition, and fun!

After Sunday’s successful Lake Swim raising funds & breaking records for SCOPE, Monday was a nice calm day of regular programming…until that night. During the evening’s flag lowering, Brian – our LSR campus leader- was suddenly interrupted by blaring music and pyrotechnics. Everyone turned to see what was happening and saw the Senecas flying across the lake in speed boats. Once they made it ashore, they emerged from the boats carrying green and white flags, and everyone knew that Green & White (our color war) had officially broken.

The break always kicks off the first color war events, and usually includes some special guests. The Senecas introduced two semi-professional soccer players to camp – Ernest Bawa and Kelvin (known as KK), currently playing soccer at Syracuse and Notre Dame. Everyone was then led down to the lower field for the first competition- a t-shirt race that ended with each team’s participants outfitted in their appropriate team colors.

After the t-shirt race, the next event was “Maze Runner” which involves participants linking arms with 25 other teammates to find their way through a maze and get to the other side of the field. The evening’s final event was a G&W soccer game, with one pro on each team. The game was unbelievably tight and tied at the end of regulation time. After a round of Penalty Kicks (PKs), The White Lightening won, starting color war with a the first time lead. ​​​

The next two days were Green & White, all day, all night. The weather was hot, and the competition was hotter. Events included the Flag Find, Head2Head, Last Standing, Royal Rumble Dodgeball, Elimination, Rope Race, All or Nothing Rotation, Synchronized Swim, Head Coaches Canoe Tug Of War, Belly Flop, and The Program Presentation (like a talent show if your talent is selling a made up sneaker design inspired by your team).

Color War concluded with the eagerly awaited annual rope burn on Wednesday night. This event is something campers wait for their whole MKN “career”, and Senecas practice for all summer. The Senecas have to build a fire and burn a water-soaked rope, hanging eight feet above them, until it breaks.  No matches and lighter fluid, using only natural resources, flint, and steel.  Going into the burn, the White team had a six-minute lead thanks to previous wins at big events. Which meant that, in order to win color war, Green team had to burn their rope first, and do so a full six minutes before the White team’s rope burned.

Right out of the gate, both teams did an excellent job building and starting their fires – some of the biggest we’ve seen in years. As their fires grew, their teammates are able to compete in “challenges” to earn helpful elements like more wood and a flint starter. The weather was quite windy, which made the situation more challenging. The younger teammates helped by holding large tarps to block the wind.

The fires burned at almost the exact same size and speed for quite some time, but after 45 minutes, the Green Team’s rope burned & broke first. It was a brief victory as everyone waited with bated breath to see if the lead would be long enough. Three minutes later, the White rope burned, and White officially won Green & White color war- denying Green team a three-peat color war streak. The team ran to the rock to paint it white amongst screams of victory.

Over the next couple of days, the boys were tired from color war but somehow still had energy to play. Some participated in a swim tournament at Greylock, others in a hockey game at Winadu (we came in second place), and we hosted a “play date” (like a tournament without any scoring or pressure) for the youngest kids.  We also had some “sibling love” events, in the form of a brother-sister lunch at Camp Danbee and a brother-brother S’mores campfire.

Friday night’s huddle was all about taking pride in what you do and how you do it. Mostly, though, the kids were focused on seeing family (and eating candy) the following day for Visiting Day!  We had such a wonderful day hosting our MKN families, and we love seeing parents, grandparents and siblings discover our beautiful camp and joining into camp activities with their campers. From tennis to lake play to ropes course and pickle ball, the high spirits are felt far and wide. After all the visitors left, the kids participated in our annual shaving cream fight and a fun lip sync battle!

That’s it for week three. Don’t forget, you can get updated news every day on MKN Today and read about all about the daily happenings at camp!