One year the cabin next to mine was hit by lightning. It blasted a hole through the roof and the floor, and in between ran along the iron frame of a cot which a counselor happened to be leaning against. His back was burned pretty bad and I think he had to go the hospital to get patched up, but otherwise he was OK. He didn't even know he had been hit. The lightning must have instantly numbed him. After the strike, which occurred right after bedtime, we were all gotten out of bed
and herded into the mess hall, where presumably it was safer. This counselor was walking around shirtless, when one of the campers noticed his back and gasped!

I remember learning to sail at North Woods, and getting my Red Cross swim cards (beginner, intermediate--I don't think I ever made advanced), and making lanyards out of gimp. I remember going on mountain hikes and going on a three day canoe trip where I believed we camped on Rattlesnake Island. When we went out of the camp, we rode in the back of truck which had a flat
bed and wooden sides. We all sat on the floor of the truck bed--a dozen or more of us (hard to believe in this age of seat belt laws, etc.) I learned to make campfires and to tie knots. A city boy, I discovered a great love of nature and wilderness. I was homesick and lonely sometimes, but looking back I know it was a worthwhile experience.

I had not thought much about North Woods over the years, until this past summer when we vacationed on Lake Kanasatka in Moultonboro. While there we made a long-overdue decision and purchased a home on Lake Winnipesaukee, in Hermit Cove on Moultonboro Neck. Now spending time in the area, I visited Wolfeboro for the first since 1962, and drove around looking for the camp. Some people who said they were long-time residents said the camp was gone,
and I was saddened to think that. Over the summer I asked another native or two about North Woods, and heard the same sad story: it was no more.

Now we are in our Moultonboro home, and have recently bought a motor boat. We took a ride in it to Wolfeboro this weekend, just to see what the town has to offer, and while in the Chamber of Commerce thought to ask again about old North Woods. Happy news, it exists! Now I have your phone number, your address, and have looked at your web site. Some time I will stop by to
see if anything looks familiar. For now, it is good just to know the place of my youth endures.

And maybe I remember more of it than I thought.

Larry Heller