Juris Graney
Staff writer
When the teeming mass of excitable teenagers descends on the Apostolic Faith Youth Camp on the shores of Coles Pond each year, the first thing they inevitably reach for is their cell phones.
But to their collective mortification is the reality that for just one week they will live in a communication ‘dead spot’ halfway between Roddickton and Conche thus turning their cell phones into nothing more than colourful blinking paperweights.
It is a haunting reality for members of the ‘Connected Generation’ fixated by texting, Facebook updates and Twittering.
“You see the kids when they get here, they will be walking around with their cell phones held high into the air trying to get coverage but they can’t,” says camp supervisor Michael Ivany, “there’s nothing out here and that’s a good thing.”
“If they could they would spend all their time texting or talking on their cells but this gives them a chance to get outdoors and try other things.”
Cell phone coverage certainly wasn’t an issue 22 years ago when the site accepted its first campers.
Pastor and Roddickton-based district superintendent of the Apostolic Faith Church, Reverend Rene Cassell, better known as Pastor Rene, was there when it all started back in 1988 when the provincial government granted the church an acre plot to build a youth camp.
During the first spring several men went out, cut lumber but before they could construct the initial two cabins they had to clear the site as 50 years previous, the area hosted a logging camp.
“It took us five years to burn off all the timber used in the loggers’ cabins because it was all so wet,” says Pastor Rene.
The next spring they lugged plywood, shingles and all the timber down to the western edge of Coles Pond, loaded it onto a 15 footer powered by a 20hP outboard, and limped across the seven mile pond.
After a few trips and countless hours they had built another eight cabins and two washrooms.
