CAMP HISTORY

In 1881, concomitant with other advances in the treatment of young people, Dr. Ernest Balch organized the first summer camp of its kind, for teenage boys. His program was a national success. The emphasis by Balch and his imitators was on "roughing it" and on forms of competitive physical training. Up until World War II most camps continued to be of a primitive sort, and their programs reflected this.

By the postwar 1940s the number of summer camps nationwide had grown to over 15,000. Facilities were becoming more permanent, more upscale. Campers tended to be younger, as young as seven or eight, with an average age of about twelve. Camp philosophy had evolved. The emphasis had shifted to the learning of handcrafts and basic athletic skills, participation in recreational sports, and an array of diversionary events.

Early on, the benign nature of the Orleans area made it a favorite location for children's summer camps. In 1900 Rev. Gibson Bell founded Portanimicut Sailing Camp for Boys, followed shortly afterward by Mrs. Mary Hammatt's Quanset Sailing Camp for Girls, both situated on the northwest shore of Little Pleasant Bay. Other camps sprang up on Town Cove and along the shores of local lakes. All in all, fourteen camps came into -- and went out of -- existence within town boundaries. Namequoit, last to close, endured till 1988.

Camp Viking was begun in 1929 by Katherine McLoon Bryan, joined two years later by Norman White, Jr. Each of them had already been involved with other successful Orleans-based summer camps. In 1931 they purchased the Namequoit Point site for $4000.

At the height of World War II, sightings of U-boats off Nauset Beach and fear of enemy attack led to mandatory blackouts and avoidance of the area by those few summer visitors still able to get out to Cape Cod despite rationing and restrictions. Local camps were forced to suspend or drastically curtail their programs. Until 1945, with Norman White serving in the U. S. Navy, Mrs. Bryan ran Viking alone, reportedly as a coed operation.

Cedric Hagenbuckle also served in the navy during World War II. Prior to the war, he had done a stint in the merchant marine, then taught for a number of years at Dalton in and other schools in New York City. Married in 1941, he and his wife Babbie spent their first post-war summer in a house on Nauset Heights. They loved the area, and learned about the Viking site and the possibility of its acquisition. An offer was made and accepted in late 1946. Joining in the venture was Ced's brother Roderick, who brought considerable experience from Camp Malabar, in Chatham. After a winter and spring of enthusiastic preparation, the new-model Camp Viking was launched in the last days of June '47.

Even when they enjoy success as co-entrepreneurs, brothers don't necessarily get along. Rod ended up acquiring his own camp -- Tonset, in East Orleans -- which he ran till 1972, while Ced kept on as director of Viking through the summer of 1975. The programs of both camps were quite similar, with divisions of campers into Able-Baker activity crews, Port/Starboard intramurals, emphasis on seamanship and model-boat building, an outer-beach cabin, and a carefully spun web of camp lore to ensnare the boys' imaginations.

By 1976 Ced was past seventy, and he decided to lease the camp operation to L. W. Thompson Lincoln, Jr. Over a fifteen-year period Tom Lincoln had worked his way up from camper to counselor to assistant director, so he was well qualified to take the helm, with the able support of his wife Bonnie, who served not only as camp nurse but also as a vigilant and active supervisorial presence.

The Lincolns were up against it, however. Throughout the 1970s and well into the '80s, liability insurance rates and the costs of complying with a host of new federal, state, and local standards caused operating expenses to skyrocket. The eight-week fee, a modest $675 in 1970, soared to $2480 in 1984. At the same time, the Cape was becoming an ever more prized location for vacation residences and retirement homes. Shorefront property was at a premium. Taxes kept rising. Other camps -- among them, Tonset, Quanset, and P.B.C. -- succumbed to the pressures of high costs and hungry developers.

After the 1984 season the Lincolns reluctantly chose to call it quits. They purchased their own site in Union, Maine, and renamed it Portanimicut, in memory of Orleans' pioneer summer camp. There, for the next ten years, they carried on much of the Viking system and its traditions. Meanwhile, Ced's heirs have seen to it that the Namequoit Point property has been spared development and remains intact. The camp buildings have been torn down and the former paths are overgrown, but the wind still rustles and sighs through the pine trees, and the view from the bluff is a spectacular as it ever was.