New construction replaces old and damaged cabins at Camp Polaris on Lake Aleknagik.
The Seventh-day Adventist sponsored Camp Polaris on Aleknagik Lake welcomes students this week. Crews have been hurrying to finish up some new cabins and make improvements. The summer camp has received more than 50,000 dollars in donations from all over the world to give the camp a much needed facelift. Boide Hosey, Program Manager at Camp Polaris, walks through an old A-frame sleeping cabin.
“The little rodents that run around here have chewed holes in everything and it’s just kind of gotten pretty gross,” said Hosey. “So we’ve put all new tongue and grove and it going to have all new floor in it. It’ll be a nice place to stay, especially when I come here.”
Most of the current structures at the camp came from a defunct fish cannery and were already pretty well aged when they were moved to the camp over 75 years ago.
“They’re cold and they are always dripping water. So we’re replacing a cabin over there and that will be two nice ones on the boy’s side and then it will be four nice ones over there on the girl’s side,” explained Hosey.
The new construction is also replacing two cabins that were lost to heavy winds a few years ago. Work started a few weeks ago, most of the work has been done by college kids who will also be counselors at the camp.
Cheryl Collatz first came to Polaris as a young camper. She has been at Camp Polaris every summer since she was 12. She says feels she kind of grew up here. She was a counselor during college and is now Assistant Camp Director. She says pokey spring mattress and drafty, leaky canvass tents were just part of the experience.
“It’s very wet all the time. I really have very few memories of Polaris being a dry place. It’s hardly ever sunny when we are here,” said Collatz.
Her and the other counselors have picking up some hammers and power tools to help BoideHosey finish up the construction.
“Which is new for me, I am kind of clumsy but they’re teaching me,” said Collatz.
Hosey and his helpers have been working fast to get all the construction finished up before the camps start. In addition to the five new cabins, they are also hoping to build some flushing toilets and a bathhouse. Cheryl Collatz says all these improvements are a far step above those canvass tents she slept in as a child.
“That’s what we started with and then we got to the plywood and we actually had walls. Now we are getting to the point where we can afford, well from the donations, we can afford these newer cabins,” said Collatz.
So far the camp has received 51,000 dollars in donations for the improvements and they are hoping more will come in to finish all the projects to improve the camp. Work to build the new cabins will continue through the summer and as more donations trickle in, more improvements will be made. As for Hosey and Collatz, they hope the only memories the kids make of being wet at Camp Polaris this summer will be from swimming in the lake.
Contact Matt Martin at (907)-842-2200 or matt@kdlg.org.