The thing about a Stationery Store is that even if you misspell it as Stationary Store, you will usually still be correct

Ken Smith was the reason both the load and I started working at camp.  I'll let the load tell his story. In my case, I went with my troop on a trek when I was 14.  Back then, camp used to hire a lot of international staff.  Our guide was an Englishman named Robin.  What I remember most about him is that he really enjoyed singing the hymn that was sung prior to each meal.  In the dining hall, there were large signs that listed the morning, noon and evening hymn.  Prior to the start of each meal, everyone was required to sing.  It sounded about as good as you would think a random group of mostly male individuals with little musical talent would sound.  If you came in late, after the hymn had been sung, everyone would shout out "GRACE" and you would have to sing it.  I really wish that my name had been Grace.  Then I would have come in late to every meal and when everyone shouted "GRACE" I would shout back "Hello" and pretend I was a celebrity.  But my name wasn't and isn't Grace.

Generally, those who came in late would sing the little hymn, although some would just blow it off.  Robin, loved to sing though.  So, he would deliberately come in late just so he could put on his little performance.  More power to him.  Singing was something Robin loved.  I would come to learn that incessantly correcting people's paddling skills was another thing he loved, perhaps even more than singing.

The trek our troop did was Long Lake to Tupper Lake.  It was a longer version of the trek detailed in "A not so Brady Sequel"  It was all canoeing, no break day to climb a mountain.  When you are paddling you are supposed to keep one hand on the top of the paddle and the other hand grasps the throat of the paddle. Your arms form a triangle.  You are supposed to keep bottom arm straight and use your shoulders and core to move the paddle, rather than simply using your forearm and bicep.  You can immediately tell someone who is relatively inexperienced because likely the canoe will not travel in a straight line and they will undoubtedly bend the bottom arm.  I think this is because it is a more natural motion.  It works fine for a bit, but your arms get tired because you are not taking advantage of any additional muscles.  Regardless, I was definitely in the bent arm camp on this trek.  There were others too, but for whatever reason Robin seemed to enjoy shouting at me to straighten my arm the best.  Being the stubborn teenager I was, my immediate reaction was to redouble my efforts and ensure that my arms were bent even more.  Robin also had what he thought was a hilarious joke.  He told our trek for the four days that we would have a treat on Thursday and go to a truly international restaurant.  This international restaurant happened to be McDonalds. He explained that there were McDonalds in England, not sure if that explanation was necessary.  He might have explained it because no-one laughed at this joke he had made for the past 4 days.  Perhaps he thought we didn't get it.  It never dawned on him that it might not have been funny.  Getting to this McDonalds involved a long paddle on Tupper Lake. According to Wikipedia, Tupper Lake is about 17 square miles in size.  On the day we did the paddle it was very windy.  We fought the wind the entire way to McDonalds.  We had a great time on the way back though.  We put two canoes side by side and then one in the front and one in the rear.  We then had two people in the canoes that were side by side hold up a large tarp lashed to the end of their paddles.  The canoe in the rear steered.  We were probably going only 6-7 mph, but it felt much faster.  We were actually leaving a small wake behind us.  Best of all - I could bend my arms all I wanted.  I had such a good time on that trek that I went on another one later that summer.

When we finished that trek I learned that Ken Smith had called my family while I was on the trek and arranged for me to work the last week of camp as a Counselor in Training.  It amazed me that he had done all this.  We never talked about it, I barely knew who he was.   Apparently, he had seen how much I enjoyed the camp though and the treks and had taken care of the rest of it.  At the time he was the director of Summit Base. He had dedicated his life to scouting, at this point he was in his late 70s or early 80s.  He had designed all the trek routes that we did.  He loved the outdoors, but most of all he loved to introduce the outdoors, and the Adirondacks in particular, to others.  He really was a legend. He continued to visit camp in subsequent summers but his health began to fail and unfortunately he passed away a few years ago.  

I came back the next summer and every summer afterwards for the next 7 years or so.  All of it thanks to Ken.  All the guides held him in very high esteem.  So much so, that when his grand daughter's girl scout troop came to camp, we all fought to guide that trip because we wanted to make sure they had a great time.  I was fortunate enough to guide that trip and did my best.  I owed Ken.