Battle Of The Ends!

Imagine your heart is pounding, palms are sweating, you’re cheering so loud it hurts, you’re staring down your competition and the sound of fierce excitement stings your ears. You can’t sit still, you’re anxious to win, you fight to win, you must win. THIS, is the Battle of the Ends. Here at Camp Widjiitiwin we have a tradition every Tuesday night that ultimately ends in seeing who is better; the boys end or the girls end. This tradition is called Battle of the Ends, where the two genders compete to show each other what they are worth. The night kicks off with cheers, (theme related usually) and the two ends have time to make up a cheer, they can also dress up accordingly and make up a dance (for extra points of course!). I’d have to say, I am quite impressed with some of the cheers that I have heard. After that, they must meet at the field to present the cheers to the judge panel. The winning gender goes inside first before we get to the real challenges.

Some of the games that we play with the kids are mad gab; a jumbled up sequence of letters will appear on the screen and they must solve what it actually says. We also play Apples to Apples; the two sides have time to come up with five adjectives and when a noun appears on the screen, for example: outrageous. One representative from either side will have to convince the judges of why their word is most outrageous. Its always fun listening to the arguments even when they make no sense at all. Winning points are rewarded to the best argument and especially the best presentation. These games might get a little heated, however at any point in time the judges can call out “3…2…1!” any noise from the competitors results in a loss of points for their team.

Other competitions that we have are the Ultimate Test of Strength challenge, where a boy and girl have to hold a jug of water straight out in front of them for longer than the other person without spilling or lowering their arm. You’d be surprised at how many girls beat the boys even if they are half the size! We also to the frozen t-shirt contest where 3 boys and 3 girls are given a frozen t-shirt and the first team to have the t-shirt properly worn by one of their players, wins! Some of our challenges can also get pretty messy, such as the cup drop. A boy and a girl will be lying on the floor with their faces up and a cup over their mouths, their teammate must fill their cup with pudding while standing above them on a bench. These are just a few of the many challenges we have for battle of the ends. However, the final challenge, and sometimes the game winning challenge, is the Banana Relay. This one involves the staff and it is the most intense game of the night, it is also worth as many points as cheers (which is a lot of points!). Two campers and one staff from each side are competing. While holding a banana, the first boy and girl race out from the longhouse to the back of the field and around the baseball diamond, back into the longhouse and pass the banana off to the staff member who will run down to the waterfront. They must jump in the lake and run back up and hand the banana to the third person in the challenge. The last contestant must consume the banana as fast as they can and the first end to finish wins that whole challenge!

Battle of the Ends is a classic epic battle that shall go on for the rest of time. It is an important time of week for the campers. At the end of the night, the ends eagerly anticipate the final scores and the winning team can go to bed with dignity and can speak of their winnings to their grandchildren and their grandchildren’s grandchildren, and so on. The winning end also is rewarded with eating first at every meal the next day! 

Submitted by Liquid