A small group of children sit scattered in a room in a small wood cabin, still damp from a morning hike. National Park Service Lead Park Ranger, Tori Crawford, stands at the edge of the circle. With all eyes on Crawford, she gives instructions to the group as rain relentlessly pelts the window behind her.
“So to get our eyes ready, we’re gonna play a quick game. I need everyone to stand up,” Crawford explained.
Crawford instructs them to close their eyes as she pins a black binder clip to a random kid’s clothing. Then, they’re told to open their eyes and find who has the clip. Once they’ve spotted it they’re instructed to sit down, without telling anyone else who the clip is on.
“Eyes closed. No peeking,” Crawford commanded. “Alright, eyes open.”
After a few false starts, the kids got the hang of the game and demanded to keep playing. The exercise was a mental warm up for yet another expedition, a hunt for miniscule macroinvertebrates in the Niukluk River a short walk from the cabin.
After a few rounds of the game, Crawford helped the group muster up the courage to head back out into the rain. They went on a short, muddy walk to the rocky bank of the river to begin their search for the tiny, spineless creatures.
Crawford doled out ice cube trays to the group, affectionately referred to as “bug hotels”. The campers scoured the bank of the river in groups of three, turning over rocks and splashing through water as the river danced to the persistent beat of heavy raindrops.
“I got one!” a kid exclaimed as he delicately placed a tiny worm in his bug hotel.
While some children asked to return to the warm and dry shelter of the cabin, others asked if they could go for a swim.
Boys and Girls Club Director Pierce Goslin bounced from group to group to keep them motivated to complete their search. After 30 minutes of hunting, the group wrapped up their activity and headed back to the cabin to debrief.
Camp CRAVE
Longtime Nome resident, Danielle Sem, has helped organize summer camps at the Bear Creek Fish Camp property in Council since 2011, when she helped run a tobacco-free program. Amidst budget cuts at several local organizations in 2013, Sem teamed up with Megan Timm from Norton Sound Regional Hospital’s CAMP Department and Niaomi Brunette from Nome Eskimo Community to create a new, joint program.
“We all got together and we're like, ‘alright, well what can we call this camp?’ And we're spitballing lots of different different things. We’re wanting to talk about culture, we're wanting to talk about healthy eating, we're wanting to talk about healthy living, we're talking about exercise, we want to talk about tobacco and substance use prevention. So we just rolled it all in one.”
- Danielle Sem
What they came up with was Camp CRAVE, an acronym for culture, recreation, active values, and education. Since 2013, the camp has provided a safe space for children to learn and interact with the environment for little to no cost.
Camp CRAVE invites professionals from local organizations like the park service’s Bering Land Bridge National Preserve to deliver education for the children. Sem says this gives campers the opportunity to discover passions they may not have known they had.
“Offering their knowledge or experience in some area just makes it so much richer for the kids because every adult is different,” Sem said. “You never know who they’re going to connect with, or what information is going to resonate with them.”
The Bear Camp Creek Fish Camp property, just two miles downstream from the end of the Council Road, was previously owned by Garrett Glodek. In 2018, the property went on the market and Sem seized the opportunity to buy it. Now, Sem owns and operates Bear Creek Fish Camp with help from her husband, Joe Sem.
The camp hosted two groups over two weekends this summer. Registration was $40 and included a custom sweatshirt designed by Boys and Girls Club Director Pierce Goslin.Camp
