Saturday, May 15, 2021

Camp Agawak, a 100 year old all-girls camp at Blue Lake near Minocqua Wi, is patiently awaiting the start of its 100th summer, and 100th anniversary reunion. It was bought in 1989 by Mary Fried, who has finally found the 1941 camptruck!

After buying the camp and selling the truck because the rest of the camp badly needed the funds far more, Fried has spent the past 15 years searching for Camp Agawak’s beloved 1941 Ford 1.5-ton Transport Truck, and now it finally will soon return home, to the 260-acre camp on beautiful Blue Lake.

“I’d go through old photos, and there were lots of pictures of the truck,” Fried says. “Our former campers would always talk about the ‘Open Air.’ The counselors took it camping, hauled canoes, and they’d transport the girls back and forth to the lake.”

About 15 years ago, Fried decided to add “some history to the walls” of Camp Agawak, and one of the photos she chose was a black-and-white image of several girls climbing out of the truck, canoe paddles in hand. She enlarged the photo and hung it above “the slide” in the cafeteria, where the campers grab a tray for their meals. So every camper saw the photo three times a day.

Well, Mike Wolfe of American Pickers found and bought the truck, and flipped it, selling it to the Old Crow Speed Shop in Burbank, who kept it a couple years before selling it on Bring A Trailer, where it was spotted by the brother of one of the alumni campers who had spoken of the camp many times, as of course anyone would who'd had a great summer at camp. He saw the truck, told his sister, who immediately alerted Mary Fried the camp owner, who then had to win the online auction to get the truck back. 

$28,000 is a good indication of the inflation in the last 32 years for old trucks, and it's proof that cool old trucks can still be affordable too. 

Camp Agawak needs counselors by the way, and the camp is focused on 1st through 10th grade, June through August



there's even a registry for the alumni... that is way cool!

I dig the whole idea of summer camps on lakes, and have posted a couple, but this is the first that has had a cool truck story, and, get this, they have a blog they call an agazine. Of course they do... it's not camp Magawak, it's Camp Agawak, why wouldn't they have an 'agazine'? I love that! http://agawak.com/sites/default/files/camp-documents/May%202021%20Agazine%20updated2.pdf

What's my interest? Well, not only did I have the incredible pleasure of working on a Wisconsin lake resort in my last high school summer year, I made great friends that summer, of the college students that were working there as waiters and waitresses, laundry, and dishwashers, even the ex CIA secretary. Serious, back during the cold war, smart kids were hired by the CIA to be research experts and clog up the libraries. I'm not even making that up. So, anyway, sharing a cabin with college students who drank a lot was a mind blowing experience, and the maintenance guy owned a nearby bar, in walking distance (a couple miles up the country road) and because of making friends for the 1st time outside of school classmates, and finally living for the 1st time anywhere not under my parents roof, this was a wild summer, and I was the bellhop, pool cleaner, bar stocker, message delivery, and all around everything that needed doing kid, the summer before my senior year in high school. 

It was amazing, and I hope your kids or grandkids are offered the chance to do something similar. 

I find it very interesting to see what rules ANY place has, because I am quite anti BS and most rules are draconian, no matter where you are, or what they are for. 

This camp is pretty cool and simple, no food in the cabins, no electronics, and no egg crate foam mattress pads that will just become landfill. I bet cribbage and cards are encouraged.

https://www.facebook.com/CampAgawakMinocquaWisconsin/

https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/this-1941-ford-truck-proves-you-can-go-home-again-or-at-least-back-to-camp

there's even a book, about this very camp, by a 1970 alumni
I did a post on a Boy Scouts lake camp in Wisconsin a couple years ago http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2019/03/i-wish-there-was-book-of-all-woodies.html

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