Gretsch
Golden Retriever · Faithful Companion
If a photo was taken at camp, odds are Gretsch is in it. Swims that were never authorized, sticks of structural size, a permanent seat in the side-by-side. Gretsch doesn't attend camp so much as host it.
Chapter Three · One week, every year
Camp Life
The drive, the food, the fire, the lake, and the dogs who run the place.
The Journey
Getting There Is Half the Story
It starts in suburban driveways: trailers backed in at awkward angles, coolers playing Tetris with lumber, a dog supervising from the truck bed. Then come the hours on the highway, the towns thinning out, the radio stations giving up one by one.
The last stretch is the real gatekeeper: a muddy trail that has humbled more than one vehicle over the years. The stuck-truck stories are camp canon at this point. Every rut has a name, every winching has a witness, and every year somebody's machine ends up in next year's crest. When the trees finally open onto the meadow and the lake, the week begins the same way it always has: raising camp together before anybody so much as sits down.
The Food
Cooking Is a Camp Ritual
Nobody at Cowanbunga eats out of a can unless the can is part of the recipe. Meals are planned weeks in advance: menus debated, prep divided, dough started at home so the sourdough hits the camp table at its peak. Food here isn't fuel between activities. It is the activity.
The signature lineup has been refined over a decade: Macho Nachos built in layers like masonry; homemade ramen with pulled pork that has no business being that good a hundred kilometres from the nearest restaurant; midnight steaks and baked potatoes pulled off the fire when the stories are at their best; a breakfast hash that gets the whole camp out of their tents; and the homemade trinity of sourdough, hot sauce, and salsa, made from scratch and defended with strong opinions.
The griddle has its regulars, the smoker has its keeper, and every meal ends the same way: a long table under the gazebo, plates passed, somebody insisting it's the best one yet.
The Fire
The Heart of the Evening
String lights run through the spruce trees, and below them the camp chairs pull in close. This is where the week actually happens: the stories told late into the night, the old ones retold for the younger ears, the comfortable silences that only a decade of friendship can hold.
The fire rarely goes out before the last person heads to bed. It's less a rule than a fact of nature here: as long as someone has one more story, there's one more log.
The Lake
Forty-Two Kilometres of Quiet
The lake sets the rhythm of the day. Quiet mornings with rods on the dock and coffee going cold. Kayaks tracing the reed beds. The pontoon loaded for an expedition to a far bay nobody has named. Floaties deployed with zero dignity and full commitment.
Dock life has its own gravity. Half the camp ends up there by afternoon, swimming, casting, or just watching the water do nothing in particular. And at the end of it all come the long northern sunsets, the kind that take their time and make everybody go quiet for a few minutes.
The Dogs
Dogs of Cowanbunga
Every camp has staff. Ours have four legs.
Yuki
Blue-Eyed Husky · Night-Watch Specialist
His name means "snow," and he runs the night shift. Yuki is the camp's early-warning system for anything moving in the dark: ears up before anyone hears a thing, posted at the edge of the firelight like he signed a contract.
See it all in the photo galleries, or read about the projects that built this place in What We Build.