Hello everyone! Welcome to a long overdue travel/lifestyle post! I will definitely start posting more travel and lifestyle content, and catch up on my posting schedule, as it is quite overdue. :3

Summer in Canada means Summer Camp, and Summer 2023 was a summer to remember!
2023 was a year that I went to my first camp in the United States!

So let’s do a little re-cap of my 2023 summer, shall we?

Camp #1: Caton’s Island
Hope City church rents out Caton’s Island for three nights, and they hold their own youth camp there! It’s truly incredible to be with so many people that you’ve known and get to see often. The people that help you learn and grow in your faith that you see every Sunday are your cabin leaders during a fun God-filled week. It’s the best thing ever.

Camp #2: Hampton Bible Camp
I got to volunteer there for 3 weeks as a youth leader!

Camp #3: Living Waters
I went as a camper, and I got to go waterskiing and wakeboarding! The messages were amazing and I loved connecting with people in a different country. We may come from different backgrounds, but we are all united by one thing, the love for the Lord <3

Camp #4, and the last camp that I went to in the summer of 2023 was Camp Courage.
Unlike any of those previous camps I mentioned, Camp Courage is not a Bible camp, and it isn’t even an overnight camp.

So then…
what is it?

Here is the link to the Camp Courage website!

Camp Courage was started by Andrea Speranza with the goal of encouraging more women to get into a field that is more male dominated. Camp Courage provides a more hands-on experience with different first responder fields, police, fire, and paramedicine. In Camp Courage we got to see and experience so many cool things, mentored by experienced first responders in the field, both men and women. It’s so inspiring to see so many women and men in this field, and getting a taste of what they do every single day makes me respect them so much more.

Me personally, I wasn’t really thinking about becoming a first responder, but I wanted to try out Camp Courage to see what it might be like to become a first responder some day. I think out of the positions we got to try (police, fire, and paramedicine) I gravitate towards police the most.

Day 1: Orientation
The orientation was held at the Saint John police station, and it was held by the Police Chief. He had a very great speech and orientation, and I’m pretty sure it was just the police orientation. He went over the core values of police, and we got to meet a lot of the police, plus some fire and paramedics members were there for the orientation as well. We took lots of pictures in front of all of the vehicles and with all of the first responders serving as mentors for the camp. They set up different skill stations, at the paramedics stations there was a bandaging station, CPR dummies where we did CPR for two minutes. At the police skill station there were handcuffs and how you would arrest someone. Outside, they let us use fire extinguishers to put out a fire! Just little things like that for the first day to get a taste of what we would be doing for the week, and then we were onto the 2nd day.
(Note: since this is a government funded camp, lunch is free. Haha.)

Day 2: Police Day

On police day we met at the Saint John police station again, and we got started by going to the court house. In the courthouse, there was a judge and, another who was a lawyer, that came to talk to us. We didn’t get to witness trials or anything like that, but they brought us into a courtroom and let us ask questions and see what it was like. From the courthouse, they took us back to the police station, but this time from an underground tunnel directly from the courtroom to the police stations cells. This tunnel is so that criminals who just had a trial can go directly to a holding cell without being seen by the public.

We then had a tour of the police station, we saw the forensics department and all of the things they were studying and analyzing there, as well as the tactical unit’s gear and the armoured vehicle. We even got to go inside the armoured vehicle. Then the K-9 unit came to meet us, and we met 3 dogs. The handlers gave us a demonstration of what their dogs could do, and made a scenario where one guy was a “criminal” on the run, and the dogs ran to him and bit his arm (but he had protection on that arm for the sake of the scenario, of course). It was really cool to see the training of the dogs in action like that! A few simple whistles and commands, stuff like that are what the dogs respond to.

The last thing of that day that we did was some hands-on training and workouts. We did some workouts in the gym, and I got to try those really heavy rope things as an exercise. Then we went into the basement where we did some actual training scenarios, they had a model house built there, and we got to practice what it would be like for a police officer to come in and chase down someone in the house, and then rescue a victim. I got to shoot a gun! Not a real one, although I kinda wish it was. Well, it was a real gun that shot something, but not like an actual gun like what real police officers carry. Yes. It’s confusing. Anyways, here’s how the scenario went, you go into the house and shout “POLICE!!” and then you run and check every room with your (prop) gun aimed forward. Search every room, and then you’re handed a real gun that actually shoots, and there’s a picture of a bad guy in the room so you shoot him, and then a REAL person in protective gear who’s also a bad guy, so then you shoot them too. Then, there’s another bad guy, and you tell this one to get on their knees and put their hands above their head. They have a gun too, so you have to take that from them, put them in handcuffs and walk them out of the building and into the police car. And that’s the scenario! We also got to wear real police vests and gear so it was pretty cool.

We also to got to practice dragging someone unconscious, and it’s a dummy so you have to drag this dummy out of the house, and it actually weighs as much as a real person so it’s very heavy. We also practiced with police batons and pepper spray and boxing. It was really cool. I loved it. That was pretty much all that we got to do for police day. I’m really glad that I got to learn a bit more about police training, and that I got to have an experience that not everyone gets to have.

Day 3: Fire Day

We arrived at the police station bright and early the next morning. They gave us a slight tour of the station, and I learned a bit more about how firemen and women go about their jobs. 1), There’s ALWAYS going to be a call. The fire alarm went off about 5 or 6 times while we were in the station for about 30mins. 2) There’s only a certain amount of people in the fire station at a time. Only 5 people are actively on duty. We saw the fire station, but we did not get to slide down the fire poles… I was very sad about that.

We got to try on our own gear, this gear was really heavy and hard to put on… it definitely gave me a lot of respect for the firefighters that have to wear all of this, especially in the peak of summer. Once we put the gear on, we did some simulations of what the fire training requirements are. There was this really heavy thing that you had to smack with a sledgehammer (I think it might have been an anvil?), and a lot of tools that we carried across the room. Firefighting is definitely a really demanding job physically. I really admire those who can do this job because we really need people like them.

Then we drove off in the Saint John city busses in full firefighting gear, off to the training grounds. Here actual firefighters train in controlled environments to simulate rescues and housefires. I’ll explain some, but it’s better if you just watch the videos linked below! I got to break down a door with an axe, smash a wall and climb through, jam some sprinklers with wooden wedges to stop the water, use a giant hose to put out a fire in the staged kitchen, and use a giant hose to put out a giant fire outside.
The training grounds were actually where these really big and shiny firetrucks were being kept, and they needed to be really big because they were for an oil company. Should something go wrong at the oil company, they would need to be very well equipped to deal with that.

After we were done rotating between the different skills, we practiced what we were going to showcase at the Exhibition. They had a t-bone car accident staged, with a dummy inside acting as the driver. We would be practicing how to get the dummy out of the car, and then treat him. We got to have fun breaking a lot of windows, and I got to saw through the car windshield. And let me tell you, that is HARD work. Manual labor, and all that. You need to do a lot of heavy lifting, all in your firefighter gear. They also helped us to use the jaws of life, which is like a metal claw that opens and closes to bend the metal of the car. That thing is really heavy.

After the scenarios, we went inside because it was raining and we learned a lot of knots, and a bit of paramedicine training, I think the guy who hosted the class was like a emergency rescue guy? Anyways, I was in this spinal board, and they were simulating how to rescue someone and package them up all nicely so that they wouldn’t get injured during transport. It was very snug being in the spinal board. Also comfy.

That was all that we got to do for fire day! There are a lot of videos on fire day that I’ve linked below for you! You get to see others (and me) doing some really cool stuff.

Day 4: Paramedicine and Showcase

We started Day 4 off with a tour of the Saint John Ambulance station. I found it really interesting to learn about paramedicine, we got to go inside the ambulances (I had never been in one before that), and we got to try our hands at some simulations. They also had a dummy so we practiced bandaging him up and doing CPR, and that sort of thing. There were also IV drips that we got to hook our instructor up to. It was pretty cool, but it was really just some preparation before the main showcase.

We took a taxi to the Exhibition, and we went around the back way so that we could drive into the venue in firetrucks, police cars, and ambulances. Depending on which kind of first responder you wanted to be, they let you choose your role for the showcase! I was a police detective. It was pretty cool, I got to ride in on the cop car and the sirens were on for all of the vehicles, it was really loud but really cool. They didn’t have me do a whole lot at the showcase, I was playing the part of detective so I asked any bystanders if they saw anything helpful to my case. I mostly just watched the fire and paramedics girls do all of the work! That said, I still really enjoyed that role that I got to play in the showcase, it was a taste of what real first responders have to do often.

Overall, I’m very greatful for what I learned! I’m super grateful that I got to train under experienced men and women in their fields, and I think what Camp Courage is doing is really special! I love that they’re encouraging girls to get into these fields, because it’s not about your gender. It’s about what you can do to save lives. It’s about helping people and using your skills to do that.
I loved my experience in camp courage, and while I don’t really plan on becoming a first responder, I’m still value the training that I received, and the newfound respect that I have for the people who step up to do jobs like these. Especially firefighters. Those guys are amazing.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.6961264
This is the link to the CBC News Video! Can you spot me in there? I’m in the thumbnail, and I also got the POV footage for the video :]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/camp-courage-female-first-responder-camp-1.6958243
And this is the link to the rest of CBC’s article on Camp Courage.

https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2759227
This is the link to the CTV Atlantic News video! I’m in the background in the orange shirt, maybe you can see me :]

PHOTO DUMP TIME!!!!

Well, that’s all for this post! I really hope that you enjoyed, and there will be more to come soon :]

As always, thank you so much for reading and I will see you in my next post!
Bye bye! <3