Capture the Flag

If you, like me, went to sleepaway camp in the Whiteshell in the mid to late 1990s, you know that the Canadian Shield isn't just a geographical feature: sometimes, it’s a battleground. Between the ancient granite outcrops, towering pines, and damp moss, summer was a time for shedding the polite rules of suburban life and tapping into something far more primal. Nowhere was this more obvious than during the holy grail of camp activities: Capture the Flag. Looking back, the game wasn’t actually a game at all: it was a sociological experiment disguised as an afternoon activity. And if you paid attention, it revealed a hilarious, deeply fascinating divide in how 10-year-olds choose to spend their freedom.

For the boys, at least the boys at this particular camp, Capture the Flag was serious business. It was life or death. It was full-throttle. It was Gladiator. The second the whistle blew, any remaining social grace evaporated into the mid-August humidity. The objective wasn't just to snag a piece of fabric; it was to wage total, uncompromising war. Strategy meeting? They didn't seem to need one. Their strategy was strangely simple: just rain down pure, unadulterated chaos, and hope for the best. They would hurl themselves off granite ledges, scramble through patches of poison ivy, and tackle each other into mud pits with a level of commitment that I found bewildering. A "tag" was rarely a gentle tap on the shoulder; it was a full-body flying dive into the brush, and the captured victim was frog-marched back to the other team’s ‘prison’ with his little arms pinned behind his back. They’d emerge at campfire that night dripping with sweat, caked in dirt, proudly displaying scraped knees and bruised shins as if they were purple hearts earned on the front lines. To this day, I cannot fully explain why a group of pre-teen boys, given twenty minutes in the woods, will immediately decide to physically tackle their best friends, a la Lord of the Flies. What is going on? I couldn’t begin to tell you, dear reader.

While the boys were busy beating the daylight out of each other in the brush, the girls were taking a decidedly different, and arguably far more sophisticated, approach to the game. Yes, the flag was protected. The defence was impenetrable. But guarding a perimeter leaves a lot of time for, well, society. While keeping a sharp eye out for stray, mud-covered boys charging through the trees, the girls set to work building an entire parallel universe. A fallen log wasn't just cover; it was a kitchen counter where elaborate "meals" were prepared out of crushed leaves, pine needles, and birch bark. A quiet clearing became an atelier. Pinecone art was crafted, intricate secret languages were invented, and coded messages were passed back and forth through clandestine network lines. We weren't just playing a game; we were founding a matriarchal micro-nation with its own trade, art, and diplomacy. And we kept our clothes clean.

This brings us to the ultimate mystery of the sleepaway camp ecosystem: Why do little boys choose to beat each other up while little girls build entire civilizations and exchange friendship bracelets? There is something delightful about the contrast. On one side of the woods, you had raw, unfiltered kinetic energy—a need to test physical limits, hit the ground hard, and make as much noise as possible. On the other side, you had the quiet, magical alchemy of female friendship, where bonds were forged through creation, shared secrets, and strangely witchy ritual. While the boys nursed their battle wounds in the mess hall, the girls were arm-in-arm, perfectly harmonizing the lyrics to The Rickibamboo and three other obscure camp songs passed down through generations of campers. One group found joy in the physical clash; the other found it in the weave of embroidery floss, plastic pony beads, and the rhythmic repetition of a song everybody knew by heart.

As a ten-year-old, I didn't overthink it. I just fell into the role required of me - stockpiling pebbles to use as currency, and trading pink beads for orange ones. The boys got their bruised glory, the girls built their birch bark empires, and the Whiteshell swallowed all our noise, keeping our secrets safe beneath the pine-and-poplar canopy. Decades later, the bruises have healed, and the friendship bracelets have long since frayed and fallen off. But the memory of those wild, sunny afternoons remains: a testament to a time when a simple game in the woods became a microcosm, and felt like the centre of the universe.

Jennifer