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Starry, Starry Nights at Echo
by John Donohue, Family Camper and Echo Volunteer
Written in 1999
Each summer I volunteer up at Camp Echo, usually taking a cabin of young boys
and also teaching sailing. This past summer I had a group of fifth graders,
which is a pretty neat age (but then, they all are.) The joy of staying up
after lights out is one of those special things about camp, and despite my
longing for bed I'm usually not averse to an appropriate night adventure.
The stars in that portion of Michigan are one of the rewards for working up
there, as there is no reflected city lighting, and the Milky Way can be really
seen. In fact, my only real problem is that there are so many stars that
sometimes it is difficult to find old favorites that are usually visible in
the city. After I put the kids down I usually go outside for a few moments of
stargazing (and blessed quiet.) One evening last summer the stars were so
magnificent I went in and woke up the boys (who were probably faking sleep at
my entrance anyway) and told them that they had to get out of bed and come see
the stars. All but one - who insisted he was too tired and wanted to sleep -
did so, and we trekked out to the middle of the baseball field and lay down to
look at the sky.
Remember, these were mainly suburbanites, and they had never really seen a
star-filled sky. They were properly awed, especially by the Milky Way. We
talked about and pointed out some of the more obvious constellations and
identifiable stars, and I gave some pointers like "Follow the arc to Arcturus,
speed on down to Spica," and so on.
I showed them how one could tell time, and other arcana. To keep things modern
we also talked about satellites, and how to identify them, especially in a
Polar orbit. God, NASA or some intelligence agency must have heard me, because
when I suggested looking for a satellite sure enough, after just a couple of
minutes (and a couple of airplane false alarms,) a satellite went over in
perfect north-south orbit.
This was in August, and the Perseids had just come through, so we next talked
a bit about meteorites and "shooting stars." In for a dime, in for a dollar,
we then divided up into teams and quartered the sky looking for meteors. We
were really on a roll, and there were about six quick, small meteors in about
10-12 minutes. At that point I was getting tired, and was trying to wind
things up talking about something just above the Western horizon. At that
moment the largest shooting star I have ever seen flew across in a low
horizontal path, a long, brilliant white line extending over 90 degrees of sky
and.ending in a spectacular burnout. In my mind I classify it as a probable
meteorite, not just a meteor - I have never seen anything like it. Both kids
and very Senior Counselor were stunned.
By now the kids were really into stargazing, and begged for more. that, and I
know when to quit when I'm ahead. I told them we absolutely had to go back to
the cabin and hit the sack, before the Camp Director caught us out after
hours.
One of the unexpected joys the next morning was listening to nine young boys
telling their sleep-in compatriot about all the neat things he missed. They
all wanted to go out again the next evening, but luckily the sky was overcast.
It would have been a hard act to follow. But amazingly, the next week
provided an even more spectacular experience in the sky during Family Camp.
Again it was one of those perfect end-of-August nights, with enough of a
temperature drop to make the outdoors comfortable. We were now into Family
Camp, and the evening program was the Camp Echo version of Trivial Pursuit and
Jeopardy, played by various teams using a machine with bells, lights, whistles
and buzzers. [The machine was built by my father, Paul Grierson, in 1971 --
Editor] As the evening moves along the players segue from younger to older,
and witty wrong answers are sometimes given greater appreciation than those of
dull, factual accuracy. We had finally buzzed the last incorrect, but
hilarious, answer and put the machine away. I had also just been thoroughly
thrashed in some sort of card game by a pre-teen prodigy. Around 11:30 pm I
said goodnight to her and her mother, turned out the lights in the Dining
Hall, and walked outside to go to my tent, take a few Ibuprufen, and go to
sleep.
As I started across the field to the Sailing Area I thought to myself 'We
must have quite a defined overcast, as the city lights reflection is stronger
than I have ever seen it.' Then I suddenly realized THERE WAS NO CITY LIGHT TO
BE REFLECTED up here in pristine Michigan. Yet the sky was ablaze with white
light, and the stars that were usually omnipresent in the night sky were
hardly visible. What I was witnessing was the most awesome, and most unusual,
display of aurorae borealis I had ever seen.
I have often seen regular Northern Lights, which have been flickerings of
colored lights, almost like faint, distant 'heat lightning' in the northern
skies, usually of a late summer's eve. While there has been no doubt of what
they were, the phenomena were nonetheless not gut-grabbing, but more something
which almost had to be pointed out and identified. This was totally different:
An all-encompassing, always-changing display of absolutely white light that
dominated three-fourths of the sky, stretching far towards the southern
horizon as well.
It was the first time in my life that I was able to use the word
'coruscating' even to myself. After a few moments of awe I went dashing back
into the woods to find my friends so that they could come out in the open from
their cabin and see such a wondrous sight. (It was also a chance to try to
get back at least a little respect from the young lady who had so trounced me
in her card game.) They came out into the field and were properly impressed as
well. At this point I figured that the experience was too precious not to be
shared, and I went to my daughter's cabin to awaken her and some others,
insisting that they absolutely had to come see the skies.
There were waves, there were flashes, there were torii (again, the only word
that fit the moment,) and the sky undulated like a field of white grain in a
summer breeze. It was like nothing I or the others had ever seen. I went
around to most of the cabins awakening the inhabitants, figuring that at the
worst they would only curse me out. Eventually there were about 50 of us,
from ages 61 (me) down to 10 months (youngest granddaughter - who won't
remember, but I'll tell her about it,) all developing cricks in our necks from
gazing at a Michigan sky gone mad.
Most gradually grew tired - camp can be an exhausting experience if you live
it to the fullest - and went off to bed. I eventually left and went down to
the sailing dock, where I lay down with a pillow for almost another hour,
still absolutely fascinated by the celestial light show. When I finally went
back to my tent (I love the teen-age and college staff, but neither their
music nor their hours are mine, so I usually bunk alone - or with the
occasional grandchild) I turned on the radio for a few moments of smooth jazz
before going to sleep.
The late-night (really, early-morning by now) disc jockey on the local NPR
station was just saying 'If you are still awake at this hour stop listening to
us and go out and look at the sky. There is an unbelievable show of Northern
Lights going on up there.' As I finally nodded off my last thought was,
'God, what a fabulous summer!'
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