Speaking to long-time facilities manager Eerik Valter, who has lived in the Jõekääru area for 30 years, it's clear that the labour has been comprehensive. As a board member who oversees the infrastructure, he ensures that the camp meets “local government requirements as far as drinking water, fire inspections, [health guidelines], and making sure that we're compliant with everything.”
Even without laagrid happening as usual, property maintenance has still been essential, and for that, a robust group of volunteers have come out to help. In the beginning of 2021, Jõekääru held smaller talgud, with the broader Estonian community coming to help from Toronto and Jõekääru. In other years, people have come from further afield. Later on this year, workers at the eratalgud (special community work days) included Heikki Kolga, Kaido Nippernado, Heikki Novek, Markus Poldma, Mart Poldma, and Eerik Valter.
Most of the necessary maintenance has been in the form of landscaping work. Across Jõekääru's 200 acres, volunteers have been mowing and clear cutting all of the fields and trimming back foliage. Eventually, the barracks will be opened and cleaned, too.
Some tasks were less routine than others, however, as Valter recounted the story of invaders in the ceiling of the dining hall. He says, “We noticed some stains on the ceiling, so we did a bit of investigation and realized that animals were beginning to live in there. So it was important to remove the ceiling. We're looking at replacing it in the spring, just letting it air out for a bit… We had a bunch of people come out to help. It was not a pleasant job ripping it all down. Actually, one of the people came face-to-face with a raccoon who scurried away. So we're still looking into how he got in.”
Of course, if people are regularly occupying these spaces, animals would not likely be enticed to move in. The camp has never been idle in its almost 70 years, which has presented new and interesting obstacles as they approach the return to normality next year.
Fittingly for an Estonian summer camp, access to high-speed internet has recently been improved across Jõekääru's buildings. Previously, internet access in the countryside of York Region has been limited. The means to access fibre optic internet infrastructure was installed by an internet service provider named Vianet over the course of three days.
This was thought to be a wise move considering the success of Jõekääru's virtual programming last year. It's hoped that with 100 Mbps of download speed and 50 Mbps of upload speed, further interactions can be facilitated with campers further away from Jõekääru and potentially camps in Estonia. These latter contacts were established at a forum for summer camps back in 2019. However, Valter adds that “internet and virtual programming will not replace the more traditional activities in laager.”
Looking to the future, the camp has many ideas to take advantage of all the available space they have, such as the north fields—for example, adding archery into summer programming, or raising bees.
More immediately, Jõekääru will be bustling this coming summer. Valter says, “Everything that was supposed to happen over the last two years seems to be happening over this coming year. Basically every weekend is spoken for. We have a lot of rentals. We have four weddings happening. We also have an international camp organization that is renting out their facilities for the majority of August… But the big thing is that we have the Alumni Laager happening this year as well, on the weekend of [Friday June 10th.]” With the huge success of the inaugural Alumni Laager, he confirms it will be a very nostalgic and fun weekend.
Though the regulations are always changing, Valter concluded that “I'm relatively bullish in spite of COVID, in spite of the hardships that we've been through. The past two years have been hard, but I think we're actually positioned really well right now going forward. I'm excited about this coming year.” The Jõekääru board is keeping an eye on local regulations and international travel rules as they change, but are looking forward to camp councillors coming from abroad, including the United States and Estonia.
Next summer, Jõekääru's camps will take place from July 2nd to July 30th. Register now to secure your child's place at camp!
Jõekääru would like to thank all volunteers, including Marissa Poldma, Siiri Valter, Eevi Novek, Valdeko Novek, Anne Linkruus, Linda Lillakas, Urmas Migur, and Mikk Jogi. They also extend their thanks to Eesti Abistamiskomitee Kanadas and honoured sponsor Eesti Sihtkapital for their ongoing, generous contributions.
written by Vincent Teetsov
