Evangel Island Journey 11 -
A Week at Camp Woody, Alaska in the 1960’s
By Timothy Smith (revised in 2020)
The EVANGEL Goes to Camp! Part Two -
Originally Written for the 50th Anniversary in 2006
Author’s Note: In part one of “The Evangel Goes to Camp,” I gave a brief overview of the history of Christian camping in the Kodiak area, including the camps on Long Island and the beginning of Camp Woody. This section is not a history, but a memory. In this narrative, it is the late 1960’s. For a few years I had not been old enough to be a camper. But I’d been at Camp Woody every summer since it opened, I had total access behind the scenes (as in being in the way), and I tagged along for almost everything that happened.
For the purpose of this article, I am a camper, and I throw in bits and pieces of
memories from many years. As with the other “Evangel Adventures,” I am not sharing
specific events from specific days, but impressions of how things were, and what
was typical from year to year. The photos in this section are mostly from the mid-
The author as camper: Timmy Smith on Sawmill Beach, Woody Island, probably in 1966, roughly the time of this article. Somebody snapped a photo using my camera.
On the EVANGEL – Getting There Is Part Of The Adventure!
A Photo Gallery: Heading to Camp Woody in the 1960’s aboard the Evangel
Above: an unknown photographer snapped this shot of the Baptist Mission Boat Evangel around 1963, preparing to load up the campers’ bags. Some kids are already aboard, peering out the cabin windows.
The above photo is historic now, showing buildings in the Kodiak channel that were lost in the 1964 Tidal Wave, including Alvine’s marine repair facility, painted white.
Right: Woody Island author Yule Chaffin snapped this photo from the Woody dock in 1964.
Below: Two candid photos of fellow campers in 1966 on the bow and top deck of the Evangel.
Bottom: campers prepare to “daisy chain” the bags at the Woody float in 1969 (Travis North photo). Inset: a movie frame from 1970, showing the chain of baggage in motion.
It’s almost time for the Junior High camp in late July. My parents, Rev. Norman and
Joyce Smith, are serving as pastor and dean for the Junior High camp. I’ve only been
old enough to be a camper for a few years, and this week I will get to participate
and be just a camper, instead of being a “camp brat” trying to stay out of the way.
It is deep summertime on Woody Island. The rain and fog of June has been replaced
with bright sunshine and the vibrant colors of the intense growing season. Everything
is green beyond description. The salmonberry bushes are already laden down with deep
red, ripe berries. There are occasional rainstorms, but they last only part of a
day before the sun peeks out between the clumps of clouds, giving way in the evening
to dramatic sunsets. The temperature had been in the low seventies, making Alaskans
break out the t-
The staff has been busily getting ready for the next group of campers. Dad brought the cooks and a couple of new counselors over from town this morning in the skiff. The new counselors are all volunteers from Kodiak, who have taken time off from work to help out at Camp Woody. A few of the staff get to stay all summer. Some are college kids who have come from as far away as California, Wisconsin, and Arizona to work at Camp Woody. It is time to go back to town to get the Evangel, move it from its stall in the boat harbor to the loading ramp, and start packing in the campers and their gear. I join Dad for a quick skiff ride in to Kodiak, and we move the Evangel to the float closest to the boat harbor’s ramp.
The kids arrive at the boat harbor in a flurry of vehicles, and start bringing their gear down the ramp. We collect the first campers to help us load everything into the Evangel’s cabin. Heavy stuff goes down below, and sleeping bags go on top, in the bunk area behind the pilot house. I’m pretty good at arranging the sleeping bags in some sort of reasonable order so that they will be easy to retrieve at the other end of our voyage, and I can handle most of the suitcases and duffel bags. Soon it is time to head out. A few stragglers have stashed their gear, and the Evangel heads out of the boat harbor with its top deck awash in happy, excited young campers. There are kids at the bow and stern as well.
I’ve been taking long trips on the Evangel since before I could walk. But a boat
full of campers has an infectious excitement that I wouldn’t miss. One of my favorite
places to sit if the weather’s nice is at the top of the pipe ladder right next to
the pilothouse door, with my hand on the railing, which forms a natural seat for
me from which to view our progress. I choose the side that will be mostly out of
the sun. After a few minutes, I get up and join the other campers up on the top deck,
behind the pilot house. Once, the Coast Guard stopped us on one of our trips to Woody
Island, and inspected our safety gear. We had more than enough life jackets for all
on board, and had a large skiff and a rowboat along. They were satisfied according
to mid-
It’s under three miles by water between the Kodiak boat harbor and the Woody Island dock, but there is one patch where the tide rushing through the channel between islands causes frequent turbulence. Most of the time, that rough patch is a hundred yards off the face of the dock at Woody. Sometimes, the tide rushes past that dock so quickly that the float actually develops a wake. But today, tide and weather conditions are great, and we slide up to the Woody Island dock’s float without so much as a ripple. A counselor has brought the camp’s old flatbed truck down to the dock, and the fun begins. The campers form a chain up the ramp, and pass the bags one to the other. In very short order, everything is on the truck. The campers race up to the campground, eager to get started. (Continued below…)
Two views from the road, as we approach Camp Woody. A view to the left reveals the old 1915 Navy wireless building, the only surviving structure of a large complex of towers and buildings (even a school) that once covered the land between camp and the channel. It’s now an FAA garage. (That venerable old landmark lasted until the late 1990’s.)
Between us and the building, some of the Mission cattle rest in a little meadow next to Mirror Lagoon, which was a lake before the Tidal Wave of 1964. Those cows help to make all of Woody’s trails wide and easy to see; just don’t step on anything that looks like an olive green pancake!
Turn your head ninety degrees to the right, and across the lagoon are three of the camp buildings. The big white one is the old Navy barracks that is the main camp dining hall, staff housing, and girl’s dorm. To the right is the camp chapel (former generator shed from across the island) with its signature “industrial orange” roof, and above it on the hill is the smaller roof of the craft house, another generator shed from below the FAA station. (Splendid Travis North slides)
Soon, the kids have been assigned cabins, have met their counselors, and are off
to stash their gear and to claim beds. The camp bell, rung by one of the cooks’ helpers,
loudly calls everyone to supper. The campers all arrive by cabins, to sit with their
counselors at the ex-
Camp traditions are introduced with the first meal. Previous campers, old hands with the routine, are first to check on camp etiquette: a hapless newcomer has happened to place his elbows on the table. Suddenly, a song erupts! “Get your elbows off the table, (insert name here)…we have seen you do it twice and it isn’t very nice, get your elbows off the table (insert name here). ’Round the table you must go, you must go, you must go…” Of course, since there is a center table, off that kid goes around it once, before sitting down to resume the meal as if nothing has happened. It’s all in good fun, of course. But repeat offenders get the dreaded “’Round the building you must go…” which steals a lot of food time from the hapless victim.
Mealtime madness and happy mayhem continues as the plates are being cleared (each cabin has assigned meals, so some of the campers are busy cleaning off the tables). Each table has been given a #10 can and a scraper, and we clean off the plates and stack them neatly for the cleanup crew. Dad then takes on his role as a party animal, 1950’s style, and leads the campers in a few of the dozens of crazy songs Camp Woody seems to have collected. One or two of them are practically operatic in complexity: “It’s cheese, it’s cheese, it’s cheese that makes the mice go round (repeat twice).” Then the chorus involves shoving yourself into the shoulder of the guy next to you on the bench and vice versa, singing loudly, “Oh, rolling over the billows, rolling over the sea, rolling over the billows of the deep blue sea…” You work your way up the food chain in the verses, until finally, by semantic sleight of hand, the last verse lands on “It’s love, it’s love, it’s love that makes the world go ’round…” I told you it was an opera! Enough campers have heard the songs last year to quickly teach the rest.
The next saga song is a series of puns on names of states, with various tables asking the questions and others answering in song: “How did Wiscon sin, boys? How did Wiscon sin?” Then the most knowledgeable table bursts forth with, “He stole a New Brass Key (Nebraska)…” Of course, being proud Alaskans, we add our own verse: “What did Della Wear, boys, what did Della Wear?” We shout, “I dunno, but I’ll Ask ’Er (close enough to “Alaska” if sung loudly enough!) Not surprising at all that I should take my love of puns and silly songs into adulthood!
Oh, by golly, there’s more. There’s a key and tempo raising song that goes, “Swing
me up a little bit higher, Obadiah do, swing me up a little bit higher, say you love
me true. Swing me over the garden wall, swing me up till I nearly fall, Swing me
up a little bit higher, Obadiah do ooo” (in which the “ooo” is a half-
There is a supposedly Hungarian number, which also speeds up with each repeat, the
boys singing “Boom-
The source of many of our songs (silly, sentimental or spiritual) was this little songbook from BYF (Baptist Youth Fellowship). Some beautiful “folk” hymns were mixed in with the madness!
The camp staff learns some of the hymns and spirituals from the little yellow book before camp in 1966. My Mom, Joyce Smith, is playing the little pump organ at the end of the table. Mab Boko photo
The dining hall had World War II picnic-
Eventually, most of us leave the dining hall, dismissed by tables. There is a game
of volleyball going on, and some campers are down at Mirror Lake using the rowboats. Meanwhile,
my cabin group is busy washing the dishes, in Camp Woody’s three stainless steel
sinks: soapy water, clear water and a weak bleach solution. The huge sinks are one
long piece of welded stainless steel, and they take up most of the wall. The sink
area was originally the kitchen of one of the apartments, and the original sink is
in use for cleaning pots and pans. Eventually, all the plates are stacked, the silverware
has been sorted, and all the mugs are stacked precariously on what was once a built-
After a night in which most of the campers are far too excited to get much sleep,
the campers are awakened by music playing on a loudspeaker. The sound comes from
a tube-
After breakfast, everyone except the KP cabin gets to go and play. When the dishes are done, Dad rings the bell at the pole, and the campers go to their cabins to get their Bibles. We walk down a pretty trail through the trees to a point that juts into Tanignak Lake. There is a clear spot on the point, with trees and the lake beyond, where a previous group of campers have cleared a spot and made an outdoor chapel, with logs and planks to sit on, a lectern made from a cut log, and a rough cross made from a cut spruce sapling. We will come out to Inspiration Point every morning for devotions let by the camp pastor, then we’ll break to find a secluded spot in the woods to read the verses we have been given and have some “quiet time.” One of the Christian features of Camp Woody is training in personal devotions, which we call “Alone With God.” In this beautiful setting, it is not hard for even the most distracted and rambunctious campers to participate. I go out to the very tip of Inspiration Point, surrounded on three sides by peaceful lake waters. I am reading my Psalm out of my new “Revised Standard Version” Bible, and am startled to see a loon swim idly by. I freeze so as not to disturb one of the most elusive of the wild birds on the island. Later I hear it singing its unique song (as heard in the flutes of Grieg’s “Morning”) before the bell summons us all back to the dining hall. Incidentally, that Bible is the same one I so ingloriously lose later somewhere around Anton Larsen Bay in the article, “How Not to Visit Port Lions.” (Continued below…)
“Alone With God” at Inspiration Point, which juts out into beautiful Tanignak Lake. Left: Inspiration Point as it looked in the late 60’s, with benches and three crosses. Right: a young camper reads the Scripture passage during “Alone With God.” Every morning, after a short devotional, the campers would find a place to be alone and read some verses and pray before the day’s activities began.
The bell has summoned us to the dining hall again, where the dean, my Mom Joyce Smith, instructs the campers on our daily morning activities. Each cabin group is to be paired with another (one boy’s cabin with one girl’s cabin) and work every morning on some service project that can be used by the camp. Mom points out that the outdoor chapel we just visited was made by a group of Junior High campers on a previous year, and mentions several trails that need repair and signs. Woody Island has varied and gorgeous regions, from meadows to cliffs to deep forest, lakes, and wide sandy beaches. And almost all of it is available for the camp to use. Practically any outdoor project will do nicely, because the point is to make something together that can be used by campers later, or to improve our access to remote parts of the island. The cabin groups pair up and scatter, but not before getting a couple of boxes which contain their lunch. It’s beautiful weather, so the teams will be eating out. Our group will be blazing a new trail. We busy ourselves with finding a way to bypass the Garden Beach trail section where it cuts through Johnny’s property on the other side of Mirror Lagoon, because even though we are good neighbors, we’d like to stay that way. It’s rude to have herds of kids run past your neighbor’s back door if you can avoid it.
The first day, we scout out the new route, which winds along an existing trail on the north side of Tanignak Lake and then cuts through the forest for a ways before rejoining the existing Garden Beach trail. It’s the new detour that is the tricky part. The group determines that some planks will be needed to get across a swampy spot, so some go back to get a few old boards from camp. Others determine where and how often signs will be needed. The work (if you could call it that) is fun, like building a fort or some other kid project would be. Eventually, it’s lunchtime, so we hightail it to Garden Beach (testing out our trail, of course) and eat the sandwiches we’ve been carrying. In the boxes are some little booklets that contain the curriculum for the week: a Bible study on a particular theme. After lunch we get them out and lounge on the rocks and logs while we go over the material. This year it is about being an authentic (as opposed to a phony) Christian, and it’s called “Sincerely Yours.” It’s a testament to the skill of the counselors, but the lessons manage to thoroughly engage the campers. They are also reasonably brief, and that helps, of course! (Continued below…)
Right: My cabin group around the time of this article, finishing up a short lesson on Garden Beach before lunch. I am in the foreground, facing the camera. Below left: the Garden Beach trail close to camp. We blazed a detour that bypassed a private cabin, then marked the trees to help others find the new trail. Bottom: two views of preparing and eating “foil stew” made from shredded potatoes and carrots, canned corned beef, and a couple of spoonfuls of cream of mushroom soup. I liked it; not every camper did! Bottom three photos are by Travis North
The following day it is raining, so we use the craft house, and paint a few signs. Some of the teams opt to stay out in the woods, because it isn’t a really heavy rain, and they can still do their projects. But we all collect for lunch in the dining hall. After lunch and dishes, we go to our bunks for a full hour of rest time. It seems strange to take a nap when there’re all kinds of things to do, but that’s the point. It’s going to be a late night tonight, because the teams are going to put on stunts in the barn after supper. During the afternoon, the cabin group splot secretly about what skits they want to put on. Again the counselors come up with something. One of the counselors in the group I’m with is in the Navy, participating with the assistance of his base chaplain, and he’s done a lot of camping before. He loads the group up with several good ideas. We pick one, and the campers start practicing, to hilarious results. How are we going to pull this off if we can’t even keep straight faces?
Everyone is a bit excited at supper, at the prospect of having to perform skits in front of the whole camp. After supper, we trudge up the gravel road, past the foundation of the mission building that burned in 1937, and cut across a grassy patch to the Mission’s barn, where they store hay for their herd of cattle every winter. It’s empty now, a former Navy storage building with no heat or lights. We all get our feet a little wet trying to cross the grassy patch, and scramble in the end door. The barn has a large sliding door, and it is open, providing enough light once we get inside and acclimated. The hay smell and the original World War II bare walls and rough planking make for a memorable location for some more famous Camp Woody madness.
There follows a long succession of silly little dramas, flubbed lines, lame puns and regrettable plots. But that’s what skit night is all about, and everyone is having a great time. One group gets out a plank and a couple of bricks, and a blindfold. I know what’s coming next, having been its victim a few years ago when I was too young to really appreciate being made fun of. Two strong lads lift the plank off the bricks. The blindfolded person stands on the plank, which is suitably jiggly, holding on to the shoulders of two campers who are on either side of the plank. As the plank is raised (only an inch or two off the bricks) the two conspirators slowly sink down until only the tips of the victim’s fingers are touching their shoulders. The blindfolded one believes his senses. When the plank is suddenly dumped, he believes for all the world that he has fallen five or six feet, when he has only stepped about eight inches to the floor! Mean, but effective. There are more lame dramas ending in even lamer puns, including one where the punch line is something about the dreaded “Vindoe Viper” that ends up being about cleaning the windows. It’s all pretty simple stuff, but we are all in stitches anyway after the shared humiliation of every group’s multiple failures and flubs by the time skit night’s over.
Skit night in the barn. Is the kid lying down supposed to be a flat tire? Travis North photo
After the skits, we are given some free time before chapel. The rainy weather stopped sometime before supper, and it looks like a good day tomorrow. I know because I saw him, that Dad has checked the tide tables. We will probably hike around the island one of these mornings, if it stays clear. The bell rings for chapel. At Camp Woody, we have a worship service every evening. If we are out at a beach, we sometimes hold it there, but usually we climb up the steps into the old FAA power station that now serves as our little chapel building. Tonight we will worship in the chapel. As we file in, Mom is already playing the little organ, imported from the Evangel. When we are all seated, we begin singing. I look around; the place still looks like a generator shack inside, but it’s got cathedral ceilings with exposed beams that vaguely resemble the construction of the Community Baptist Church in Kodiak. The walls got repainted, but therein hangs a tale: we ran out of yellow paint, so we decided to mix mustard in with white paint. We got a very similar color for all the walls, but the mustard soon made the walls moldy, making the walls worse than they were before!
The discolored yellow walls don’t matter, because the acoustics in the chapel are amazing,. The campers pick up on this, and all the young voices singing sound like angels to me. Our dog (and the most popular person in camp) Oscar has wandered in, and is now lying near the pump organ, pretty much at Dad’s feet. We sing much more meaningful songs at chapel than at dinnertime. Besides, among the million other things on import from the Evangel, we are using the Youth Sings songbook, which has some very good songs in it. “Only to be what He wants me to be, every moment of every day…” “Following Jesus, ever day by day, nothing can harm me when He leads the way…” “Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me…” “Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before…” Many of these songs came from youth camps, and they fit the mood perfectly. There are a few hymns as well: “The Old Rugged Cross,” “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” and “Where He Leads Me I Will Follow.” The Junior High camp theme song is the hymn “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus,” and we sing that right before Dad begins his short message. (Continued below…)
Above: Rev. Norman Smith leads singing in the chapel at Camp Woody in this blending of two movie frames shot by the author in 1970. The butterfly pattern on the windows was made by Evelyn Pratt (Heflen) using bits and pieces of beach glass. Behind Dad is the painting “Christ Our Pilot,” which hung for years in the Evangel. Left: The following year, Bob and Marianne Boko paid for and remodeled the interior of the chapel with beautiful new paneling and paint. (Travis North photo)
I don’t really think of either Norman or Joyce Smith as my parents at this moment. I’m a camper, and I happen to know the dean and pastor really well! Rev. Norman Smith’s sermon is a piggyback of today’s lesson in the “Sincerely Yours” booklets. He talks about the walls that separate us from each other, walls that we make ourselves. He uses the Ephesians passage about the “wall of hostility” between us and God, and between us and each other, that Christ broke down on the cross. It is short, memorable, and to the point. Nobody even notices that Oscar is now fast asleep and snoring loudly at his feet. There’s a peaceful, even thoughtful mood among the campers as we head off toward our cabins, and it’s not all brought on by tiredness. Camp Woody always presents a vibrant, relevant, relational kind of faith, and it is definitely contagious.
Quickly the camp falls into its routine, as another day ends and a new one begins. The cabin groups go back out to their projects, and this time we carry with us a famous Camp Woody lunch. We are all given aluminum foil, shredded carrots and potatoes, a dollop of mushroom soup and a wad of shredded beef to wrap tightly in the foil. We write our names on our packets and box them up. When we get to our beach, we start a campfire, and then some of us continue working on the trail while a few stay behind to watch the fire. When the coals are hottest, in go all the foil stews. Camp cuisine being an acquired taste, I devour mine, once it’s ready (burned on one end, raw on the other, just like always).
One day after supper, we are told that we will be spending the rest of the evening
down at Chabitnoy Beach, named for Ella Chabitnoy, whose now vacant house is on the
bluff above the dunes. Ella is responsible for teaching Yule Chaffin and my parents
the original Native place names on the island. “Ehuzhik” replaced “Long Lake,” “Tanignak”
replaced “Upper Lake,” and the picturesque rocky point on the southern end is called
“Garraboon.” It is a few steps from the curve of the FAA road to the trail across
the meadow, and it’s a short walk from there to the wide, long sandy beach which
stretches from the mouth of the stream below Mirror Lake, under the dock, around
the point and all the way down to the cliffs beyond the Mission’s corral. The meadow
is worth a look, for it is covered with purple lupine, and dotted with little groundhog
burrows. Whenever we walk past, we hear the annoyed high pitched “chi-
But we’re not there for the meadow tonight. There’s still plenty of light left,
but the real focus of the evening is the large campfire that is burning on the wide
beach below. The beach is so vast that we can have multiple campfires during camps
all summer long and not exhaust the firewood that has collected during last year’s
winter storms. Tonight Dad and his cook helpers have built a splendid fire (a job
I often helped with when I was too young to be a camper). A tee-
“Chabitnoy Beach” is a long stretch of fine sand that stretches from near the old
dock site all the way to the cliffs near the Chaffin’s cabin. It has always been
a Camp Woody favorite because it is close, has abundant driftwood, and is wide enough
for games and contests before dinner or worship time. Above: A blazing campfire on
Chabitnoy Beach (Travis North photo) Right: members of the Weisser family and others
during Family Camp, mid-
The highlight of tonight’s campfire is toasted marshmallows, with sections of Hershey bars and graham crackers – S’mores! There are plenty of sharpened alder branches for us to use for the roasting, and all the campers set themselves to the delicate task. Too close, and you have a flaming torch to salvage. Too far away, and it’ll be breakfast before you get your marshmallows toasted. I’m pretty good at this, so I get mine a nice golden brown all over by hiding it behind a log that has fire beneath it but not around it. The hot air swirling around the logs works perfectly; sticking marshmallows in the flames does not. We eat S’mores until we want n’more!
During our dessert creation time, Dad begins to sing, and soon we all join him. It’s yet another set of songs, somewhere between the craziness of the dining hall and the sanctity of the chapel. These are certifiable campfire songs. “Tell me why the stars do shine, tell me why the ivy twines, tell me why the ocean’s blue, and I will tell you just why I love you!” “The call of the fire comes to us in the twilight…” and one which reflects the simplicity and innocence of a long bygone era: “If there were witchcraft, I’d make two wishes, a winding road that beckons me to roam, and then I’d wish for a blazing campfire, to welcome me when I’m returning home. But in this real world, there is no witchcraft, and golden wishes do not grow on trees. Our fondest daydreams must be the magic to bring us back these happy memories.” What simple sentimentality, which anywhere else might be nauseating to kids like us. But the sound of Norman Smith’s clear, strong voice and the mesmerizing orange glow and crackle of the fire make this moment as magical as one could wish for.
Without being conscious of the segue, I find we have begun our evening chapel service. The songs are spiritual now, but still they suit the mood of this beautiful beach in the orange glow of evening, around this fine fire with good friends. “Over my head, there’s music in the air…God’s love reaches everywhere!” “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder…soldiers of the cross. If you love him, why not serve him…soldiers of the cross.” “Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart…” “Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me!” There is no altar call. There is not even much of a message, except Dad’s quiet words between songs about the beauty of nature that shows the love of God and how our hearts are empty until we find our way to Him.
Then we finish our evening service in God’s own cathedral as a few stars begin to twinkle over the island behind us, the sky behind the Three Sisters still ablaze with orange sunset. Dad leads us in two of his favorite songs, and I realize that he is getting at least as much out of this service as we are. He is truly at worship as he quietly sings, “Evening Star up yonder, teach me like you to wander willing and obediently the path that God ordained for me…Evening sun descending, teach me when life is ending, life shall pass, and I like you shall rise again where life is new…” As a benediction to an impossibly beautiful evening, we all stand and sing, “Day is dying in the west. Heaven is touching earth with rest. Wait and worship while the night sets her evening lamps alight through all the sky! Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts! Heaven and earth are full of Thee, heaven and earth are praising Thee, O Lord, most High!”
But we are Junior High kids, after all, and full of boundless energy. That energy is put to serious test a day later when we are roused at five in the morning and sent down the road to the Chabitnoy beach again. There are a couple of campfires waiting, and we find our breakfast waiting as well (sort of). We each are given an egg and a paper cup, and told to go get some sea water. Then we place the egg, seawater and paper cup in the coals of the fire, and watch as it soon begins to boil! The paper burns down to the water level and stops, boiling our breakfast perfectly. We have our alder sticks again, and this time, we cook strips of canned bacon over the open flame. There are thicker sticks available as well, and we wrap biscuit dough around them and cook “doughboys.” The camp cook has thought of everything: cans of peanut butter and jars of jam appear out of the boxes. What a feast! When we are finished, it is still a little after six. The sun has been up for hours, and the tide is way out, exposing the vast tide flats that lie off Chabitnoy Beach. Our task today: hike around Woody Island!
The island of Woody is only about six or seven miles in circumference (hard to believe,
since it contains so many vastly different environments within its shores). But
the hike will take many hours, and not just because walking on soft sand eats up
time. There are many places to stop along the way, and we will all collect for lunch
at the halfway point. We start off in a blaze of glory, armed with oranges and jelly-
Along the rocky beach I find the remains of a small sapling, bleached white in the
tides, its roots forming a hand-
On we go, around the rough rocks below the FAA station to the sandy beach around
the bend, and then on past more rock outcroppings until we clamber over a reef and
onto the longest stretch of sandy beach on the island. At the mid-
The cooks and crew have arrived from camp, the flatbed truck is parked just out of sight in the trees, and a fine campfire is already blazing. The boxes with hot dogs and all the fixings await us, and believe me, we are ready! The campers I was hiking with were at the front of the line, and so we busy ourselves with various amusements while waiting for the stragglers. I go down to the little stream that exits the old millpond and start rolling logs in to make a dam. One of the campers, named John Howard, helps me out, and soon we have a swirling pool building behind our little retaining wall of driftwood. I promptly christen it my “Dam John Howard!” He shoots me a look, but decides it’s a funny enough name.
Lunchtime arrives with the last of the campers. In proper safety style, the counselor in the rear informs us that all are accounted for. Kids who stay on the beach can’t get lost, but sprained ankles have been known to happen. No mishaps this time, we dig in to our hot dog feast, ravenously hungry. Some cook from some camp lost to memory brought mayonnaise and chopped onion as well as the usual ketchup and mustard, and I christen the mayo and onion combo the “Camp Woody Special,” as memorable as any Coney Island creation, made more delicious by the hike, I’m sure. I down three of them before sliding in satiated contentment down onto the sand, my back to a log and my face to the ocean. The sun is overhead, and the dark sand sparkles at the tideline, reflecting a brilliant blue ocean.
I don’t know how we manage it, but we muster enough energy for a game of touch football after lunch! But exhausted campers must still reckon with the fact that we are on the opposite side of the island, and if we want to find our sleeping bags (not to mention suitable toilets) we’d best get a move on. We are at the halfway point, but the longer we wait, the less likely we are to be able to get around the rocks out from Crab Lagoon, an area with no trails in the woods and jagged reefs on the shoreline. We all decide not to even bother, and we hike around a small point to the next beach, which is near Ehuzhik Lake, and hike inland on the lake trail. After hours of plodding sand and sharp rocks, the mossy trail through the oldest stand of virgin spruce on Woody is like walking on a shag carpet. It’s nice to be in the shade, too, for more than a few of us are very pink from the double reflection of sun on beach and ocean. Sometime around three in the afternoon, we all straggle into camp, and promptly sag into our bunks, too tired to play! (Continued below…)
Scenes from island hikes, Woody Island, from top: Garraboon Point looking toward Long Island, with fields of lupine. Two scenes of the Natural Arch (Bridge). The black and white is from the front, and the color photo is from the narrow channel behind it (photo by my sister Jerilynn in 1964). The rocky coastline below the FAA station is a fun place to do a quick search of the tidepools (Travis North photo)
It seems impossible to believe, but one morning I wake up and realize that today
is the last full day of camp. Some of us go through the day’s activities with a
kind of desperation verging on depression, at the prospect of having to leave. We
live in Alaska, there are fine beaches, forests, lakes and meadows within driving
distance of Kodiak, but this is Woody, and the camp experience is unique. What many
are starting to realize is that they have met God here, and secretly don’t want to
leave Woody for fear of leaving Him behind. Well aware of this, the camp leadership
tailors all the teaching toward the idea of walking with Jesus anywhere, and standing
for Jesus, even if alone. Many of these young people have made decisions to follow
Jesus, and the counselors are busy helping baby Christians cope with the idea of
living for Jesus away from the spiritually-
That evening, there is a special campfire service, held at a very special place. High
Inspiration Point is in a clearing about midway down Tanignak Lake, high on the hill
overlooking the water. A semi-
The songs at our campfire are compelling and direct. “I’d rather walk with Jesus than roam the paths of sin, I’d rather have His friendship than Earth’s best honors win…” “I have decided to follow Jesus…Tho’ none go with me, still I will follow…no turning back, no turning back!” Rev. Norman Smith asks the campers to share what they have learned, and how they have grown, by picking up a stick, throwing it in the fire, and giving their thoughts. It starts slowly, but soon many campers come forward, and speak of the beauty, the fun, the adventures, the people who have meant so much to them. But many share that they have met Jesus for the first time, and others, taking their cue from the “Sincerely Yours” booklets, declare their desire to be authentic Christians instead of Sunday ones. There are few dry eyes, yet none of this has been twisted out of them. There have been no “altar calls.” But campers have been invited nightly to talk to their counselors, and all this has happened slowly, subtly, and deeply. (Continued below…)
Sawmill Beach Scenes Top to Bottom: A composite of two slides of the old military sawmill (left) and its pond (Travis North photos); Two campers play on the rocks amid the surf; Mab Boko catches Mom in a candid pose getting lunch ready at Sawmill, and kids play in the stream at Sawmill, family camp 1969.
Sawmill Beach was accessible by road for years, until alder brush totally covered it. Left: the “corduroy road” of logs laid by the military, and Right: campers hitch a ride on the camp truck, probably from Sawmill Beach, in 1966. The author is on the far right looking back, and Joyce Smith is in the foreground. Camp Woody archive photo
High Inspiration Point, so named because of its location high on a bluff overlooking Tanignak Lake, is a favorite outdoor worship spot, often for the last night of camp. Above: Mab Boko photo. Right: My sister Jerilynn took this sunset photo in 1964, the year her cabin group constructed the site.
Our final meal at camp is the following day at lunch. We have spent the morning cleaning, packing, throwing unrecognizable items of clothing into our luggage for Mom the Archaeologist to discover on our return home. Then with trepidation we head down to lunch, our last meal together. The happy voices demonstrate that strong friendships have been forged this week – some that will last a lifetime. Then the campers energetically participate in our last songfest together, and Dad pulls out some more of the oddball ditties that have become such favorites.
There’s a crazy song with a pretty tune from Switzerland, “Oh Vreneli, my pretty one, pray tell me where’s your head…” Then we stay ethnic and go to Australia for “Kookaburra,” ending with a verse we wrote: “Kookaburra sits on the old fence rail, he’s got splinters in his tail! Cry, Kookaburra, cry, Kookaburra, sad your life must be.” And that favorite, “Rolling Over the Billows,” will guarantee that our shoulders are bruised for a week! The amazing thing is that around the table, we don’t have any songbooks, and these kids have memorized these songs in a week! That’s because in its own bizarre way it is a lot of fun to sing these songs and not take ourselves too seriously.
Finally the meal is nearly over. We get more serious for just a little bit: we sing
our camp’s theme song, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” and then Dad closes with the
perfect good-
More Camp Activities: boating in Mirror Lagoon in the 1960’s (it’s now canoes in
Tanignak Lake); “Tidepooling” below the Chaffin’s cabin at low tide, searching for
various sea critters -
Now the dreaded moment comes; the bags are stashed on the flatbed, the campers are walking to the dock, the campers are forming a line down the ramp to the float below, the bags are stashed, the line is untied, and the boat leaves the dock. Its deck is covered with happy but tired campers, enjoying the boat ride and wishing the boat were headed in the opposite direction. Most are already planning to come back next year. I sit on the main cabin deck near the exhaust pipe, and listen to the stories the kids are swapping about some of their adventures. I do not live in Kodiak, but in an outlying village, but I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know my peers from town. I will run into many of them again next year at Camp Woody, and most of them when I move to town to attend high school. Anyone who has ever been to camp has an instant common culture to share, a common set of experiences, and a common love for the island and its beauty. It’s a testament to the staff and the counselors (led this week by my parents) that many of them also now share a common faith in the “God who touches Earth with beauty,” as one of the chapel songs puts it.
Senior camp, 1969, poses in front of the camp truck before heading to the boat. Randy Weisser (the future missionary) is third from left. Far right is Father Bullock of the Episcopal Church, a great camp supporter. To his right, sitting on the truck, are Dave and Ingrid Cook, who served as counselors that year and came back to work at the Kodiak Baptist Mission as houseparents. In front of Ingrid is Cathy Norton. I’m the guy in the center with the guitar, posing like a member of the New Christy Minstrels. Travis North took the photo (his first year as counselor)
Addendum: The Once and Future Evangel
At the end of the summer season, 1964, the Baptists abruptly sold the Mission Boat
Evangel, which had meant so much to campers and to residents of the Kodiak Island
villages. It became the SES Chinook, the initials standing for “Sea Exploratory Ship”
or similar, and was run by the Sea Scouts. In the one concession to its vital role
in Camp Woody, it was sold with the understanding that it would still be used to
ferry campers to Woody Island. Very little if any maintenance was done to the boat
from 1965 to 1971, and by the spring of 1971 the old Lathrop engine had frozen up,
rendering it unusable. Dad purchased the SES Chinook from the Sea Scouts for $1,
and Baptist churches in several states (New Jersey and West Virginia come to mind)
raised money for a new engine. The boat was repaired and repainted, was renamed the
Evangel, and served Camp Woody for five more years (1973-
The Evangel in its years as the SES Chinook. Top left, top right: the boat arrives at the Woody Island dock to pick up campers, summer of 1969 (Travis North photos). Bottom: the boat, loaded with campers, enters the Kodiak / Near Island channel, 1970 (Mab Boko photo). Notice the poor condition of the boat in 1970. It was very hard for the Smith family to witness the former Evangel slowly deteriorating, and we were delighted when it passed into our hands and became the Evangel again (a private boat being used for its former mission). The Camp Woody articles of the 1970’s show the boat being restored and returned to use.
The next articles are: “The Evangel: Return to Kodiak”
And “Camp Woody Year By Year 1970 – 1974”
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