I was 22 when I took the job at Redfern Summer Camp.

It wasn't supposed to be anything serious, just something to fill the gap between graduation

and whatever came next.

A few months in the woods, a little structure, something to make my CV look less like

I'd spent the year drifting.

The posting made it sound wholesome in a very curated way.

Nature-focused, child-led development, unplugged creativity.

The kind of place where kids built rafts out of driftwood

and came home with bug bites and self-esteem.

The camp itself looked exactly like you'd expect when funding runs out, but the philosophy stays ambitious. The cabins were

built from dark stained timber, with gravel paths that turned to mud after rain. The mess hall

smelled faintly of pine cleaner and old oatmeal.

Everything was a little crooked, but still functional.

We had about 30 campers the first week, ages 7 to 11.

Most of them came from the same two or three towns nearby.

You could tell by the way they already knew each other's names.

There was the usual chaos you expect from a group of kids dumped into the woods together,

but they lined up when asked, and they listened when spoken to.

Even the youngest ones kept their voices hushed

as if they were in a library.

So there was hope to keep some sanity after this job.

The kids were separated into assigned cabins,

...