Pathfinder Camp Yell
Ki Yi, Ki Yi, Ki flippity bim
Come out of the woods, sandpaper your chin
We're wild, we're wooly, we're rough like a saw
Pathfinder, Pathfinder - rah, rah, raw!
Setting and Tradition - Pathfinder Moments
A glimpse of the Pathfinder experience is found in the familiar places and traditions of the Island and the camp season.
- The Big Moment: the start of each camp session, with the boys arriving and their counselors meeting them on the dock with a smile and a handshake.
- Council Fire: a weekly gathering for the comradeship and stories of the woodcraft camp fire. Pathfinder trip reports, skits, songs and stories are long remembered.
- Sundays at Pathfinder: the ageless traditions of Sunday soap baths, hand-written letters to parents, chapel talks and special dinners.
- Generations of boys and men: A snapshot of a Pathfinder day captures multiple generations of senior staff, college-aged guides, high school junior counselors, and campers of all age groups, working, playing, laughing and sharing life in the woods.
- The Thrill of Achievement: a Pathfinder motto and her counselors' commitment to the boys -- to help each one feel the thrill of accomplishments and goals achieved. If one staff man is praising a boy for success at camp, all other staff join in.
- These traditions and more are reflected throughout the web page. Read on ...
Setting and Tradition - A canoe tripper's camp in Algonquin
- Letter from a Pathfinder tripper, November 2008
Dear Sladds,
This year at camp was so much fun, even more so than the last. Even though I was only a first year Ottawa, me and my friends managed to get a thirteen day trip to Temagami! Our trip was amazing, and I experienced some of the best memories I've had in my entire life. I can't wait to go back next year to relive some of the wonderful Pathfinder memories that make us all come running back, and I look forward to seeing you at the camp reunion. Sincerely, Eli
Setting and Tradition -- a glimpse of life on the trail
The Pathfinder Camper on a Canoe Trip
'His travels pass moose feeding in the channels of creeks and the backs of bays. He drowses and wakes with pine bough shadows swaying overhead and loon calls carrying across the water.'He hikes and sweats across a trail flanked by swaying stands of pine, balsam, cedar maple and beech. He sees a forest floor carpeted in needles, ferns and bunchberry. The lake is such a welcome sight beyond the last horizon of trees.'Stars, an overhead carpet, defy belief as they emerge in the blackest of blue nightfall skies. His fire crackles and burns low. The tripper feels tired but satisfied, feels tuned to every sight, sound and smell, feels a belonging to the world, and feels that probably early man felt a similar belonging. He doesn’t want this world to disappear...'