The Profound—and Electrifying—Impact of Kooch-i-ching
By John Meyer Jr.
I became acquainted with Camp Kooch-i-ching through my father, John Meyer, Sr. My dad was a camper and a counselor at Kooch in the 1940s and early 1950s. He loved the outdoors and introduced me to the joys and hardships of canoe camping.
Our first overnight trips were with my older sister, Margaret, on spring-fed streams in the Missouri Ozarks, two or three hours from our home in St. Louis. When I was 6 years old, I joined my father and two of his contemporaries, Art Heuer and Walter Bauer, on a weeklong paddle in Ontario. We entered Canada through International Falls.
John, second from the left, on a portage trail near Straw Lake, Ontario in the early 1970s. (John Meyer Sr.)
“On the very first portage, I managed to snag one of the fishing lines. My dad pointed this out when I triumphantly reached the trail’s end.”
My jobs on the trip were to paddle in the bow and to portage the paddles and fishing rods. My father steered and carried our Old Town canvas canoe, which was painted the color of a clear Canadian summer sky. On the very first portage, I managed to snag one of the lines. My dad pointed this out when I triumphantly reached the trail’s end. He then patiently helped me retrieve the line all the way back to the trailhead.
It was a fabulous trip. While I am sure we received our share of cold rain, my memories are of adventure, warmth and a measure of pride when my dad caught the biggest fish, a giant northern pike that fed all four of us during the trip’s final dinner and breakfast. I was hooked on the Northwoods and canoe camping.
My first summer at Kooch was in 1968, as a first-year Prep. I was 10 years old, which my father thought was a trifle young for what was then a mandatory eight-week session. The preceding winter, my father had taken me to a gathering of alumni and prospective campers where we viewed a slideshow of fit young men on rigorous canoe trips and competing in sports at camp. I met Steve Maritz at that meeting. We both successfully lobbied our parents to send us to camp that summer. We have been great friends ever since.
That was a formative summer in many ways. To a 10-year-old, the line is fine between eager anticipation of the unknown, and dread. While in transit by bus from Minneapolis, the thrill of spending the summer away from my family suddenly switched to a deep homesickness. Eight weeks seemed like an eternity. But before long, my funk was subsumed by my enjoyment of the physical challenge and beauty of life in the wilderness.
It was on a seven-day canoe trip around the Fourth of July when we were camped on an island on a sizable lake that I had a truly electrifying experience, witnessed by my friend Steve. We had just finished dinner when a thunderstorm rolled toward our campsite across the lake. The counselors ordered us to scurry for shelter. Our tents were canvas six-man Army surplus models held aloft by a ridge pole suspended on either end by convenient tree trunks and/or tripods fashioned from fresh-cut saplings.
I was the first camper to enter my tent, which was attached to the tallest pine on the island. The moment I crawled in, I experienced the simultaneous deafening roar of thunder and a brilliant flash of light. I realized that meant the lightning bolt had struck me. I assumed I was about to die.
John, in the stern, navigates a rocky set of rapids with his brother and stepbrother in the early 1970s. (John Meyer Sr.)
“Moments later, as the terrified teenage counselors dragged my smoking, semi-conscious body out of the tent, I realized I was not dead.”
Moments later, as the terrified teenage counselors dragged my smoking, semi-conscious body out of the tent, I realized I was not dead, but I could not move my tingling legs. Luckily, the counselor’s air mattress on which I was kneeling when the lightning struck the tree provided just enough insulation. Soon all was well and my friends’ concerns about whose canoe would carry my corpse and arguments about who would get my allotment of chocolate bars were put to rest.
In 1971, I returned to Kooch as a camper for the second and last time. I am amazed at the level of performance great counselors like Gary Leinberger and “Bugsy” Coleman inspired from 12- and 13-year-old boys. We carried canoes, Duluth packs and heavy wannigans over sneaker-sucking muskeg and slippery logs. The air of the two-and-a-half-mile Cleft Rock portage was as thick with mosquitos as oxygen. On the final day of the 210-mile Canal Bay trip, Bugsy led us on a 38-mile paddle through headwinds to a full moon-lit midnight arrival to our final campsite that I never shall forget.
During my professional career as a lawyer, I have faced difficult challenges both in the courts and in the boardroom. From my experiences at Camp Kooch-i-ching, I learned the power of perseverance and the joy, and pride of working with a team devoted to a worthy goal.
My father and I returned to the Boundary Waters and Quetico numerous times, joined by good friends, my younger brother, Charley, and stepbrother, Jonathan Rill, who joined our family when his mom married my dad in 1972. Our last canoe trip was in early October 2011, when my 80-year-old father, suffering from Parkinson’s disease, insisted on portaging the wannigan he had fashioned decades before. His traditional design eschewed shoulder straps in favor of a single leather tumpline.
We endured plenty of rain and cold, for which we were rewarded, as we paddled toward civilization, by reflections in placid lake water of scarlet maples and cumulonimbus clouds billowing in a hauntingly deep blue sky.
While I wish I had spent more time at Kooch, the impact of my two summers there was profound and everlasting. My father passed away on January 8, 2019, but his spirit remains strong within me thanks in large part to experiences we shared in the Northwoods inspired by the Kooch-i-ching philosophy.
John Meyer Jr. is a Kooch-i-ching alumnus living in St. Louis, Missouri.