In our early summers as campers, canoeing was among my favorite activities. I credit Tom McCready
(see Tom's Guide Book Below) and Eric Naseman as my early instructors and leaders of various canoeing adventures.
After my dad donated our family’s Sunfish, sailing became one of my passions. Even today among my
favorite activities remains sailing up to the rapids and finding a spot just before the bridge where I can
get the boat into a state of equilibrium matching the wind forward momentum against the current. To
anyone who wants to test their sailing skills and find a relaxing “water treadmill”, I recommend it.
One of my dad’s sailing quotes came after I had a little snafu taking out my grandson. The wind caught
us before I could get the centerboard down and we flipped in shallow water by the boathouse. I
grabbed my grandson while I was under water and held him above water trying to protect the cast on
arm. He gave me credit for saving him without assigning me the blame for putting him in jeopardy in
the first place. My Dad reminded me “No one is ever there when you make a smooth, graceful landing,
but there is invariably a crowd when you do something wrong!”
I remember being out sailing on a windy day and I saw another Sunfish up by Beaver Camp. I sailed up
that direction, following my father’s mantra that “If there are two boats on the water, they’re racing!” I
got up to his vicinity and made a few tacks and then due to some wind change and a bit of poor
anticipation we ended up colliding, the only two boats in an otherwise empty lake. He would have just
shaken his head. I remember sailing back from one of my bridge trips and when I hit the lake an older
woman/fellow family camper (her name escapes me) was waiting for me and shouted at me, “We’re
racing back!” She clearly was from my father’s school of sailing!
Dad taught me many things about leadership and management, and one lesson tied to Camp has stayed
with me through-out my career. He was on the Board of Directors, maybe he was even the President
(Every Camp Director’s nightmare is probably managing children of board members!), and I was having a
personnel policy disagreement with the Camp Director. The Board was visiting that weekend and I
thought it would be a perfect time to get my powerful father to weigh in on my behalf and get the issue
settled. As I explained the issue, he basically told me to not bother the board members with such petty
issues. They hired the Director to decide such things he said, and what was I thinking trying to drag him
into my petty conflicts. At first I was like “Ouch!” but I realized that he had a role beyond being my
parent and protector, and he knew how to balance those roles, skills honed in many corporate
boardroom battles. I’ve retained that understanding and think that in today’s environment of
“helicopter parents” shielding their kids from all adversity, there are some other skills many need to
learn. Not everyone can be as lucky as me to have had such a great teacher and role model. This is
probably one of those moments that he doesn’t even remember, but that as stuck with me after 35
years.
A quick story about the rebuilding of the boathouse in the summer of 1978.
I was on crew and my boss was Eric Antonsen. Eric was a hard working Swede, a genius grad student or
researcher at MIT whose real life ambition was to become a lumberjack. He convinced the board that
he could save the art shop from tumbling into the lake (there may have been some other engineer
involved in this, which my dad might remember. The project had us jacking up the building and tearing
out the existing supports (pictures made it look like the building was floating). Because he and I were
the only crew members that summer, he had some friends who were construction workers join us.
Pete, Bill the Pirate, some French guy (who the girls fell in love with) and Bob Stevens, who would
become Camp Director the following year. My brother Devin would also join us when his dishwashing
duties were complete.
We then built pilings to lower the building on, and built the entire foundation by constructing plywood
frames that we dug into the lake bottom. The outer frames had to be about 4 feet deep, which meant
digging underwater, holding our breath for each hard earned shovel-full and pitching it out into the lake.
Once the frames were in place, they were held together with come-along cables. The day the cement
truck arrived he drove down to where the canoes are stored today which was as close as he could get.
When asked, he provided the info that he hadn’t brought a chute, so we were stuck with the truck about
20-30 feet away from where we needed the cement Eric tried to improvise a chute with some roofing
material from the old boathouse but that was largely ineffective. We ended up carrying most of the
concrete in five-gallon buckets and dumping it into the forms to displace the water that was in them. I’m
not sure how many yards/toms we carried but it was a workout. As the concrete slowly displaced the
water inside the frames, we eventually smoothed it out and dove underwater to detach the plywood.
Then we had to build the cinderblock pylons and, having confidence that the concrete had set up
underwater, we lowered the boathouse, which had been floating over our heads the whole time onto
the pilings. I guess it worked since it’s all still there 37 years later.
It has always been my proudest contribution to the Camp and to see it restored to its old glory through
my brother’s vision, and to have my Father’s name attached to it, only deepens my pride. My grandkids
love Camp just as my kids and I do. I hope that many more generations will enjoy time there and share
in the pride that accompanies naming recognition that is such a deep part of Unirondack tradition.
HOLLANDS BOATHOUSE
DEDICATED 2015 TO DAN HOLLANDS
Dan came to camp with his three children in the early 1970s. After the lodge fire of 1976, when the future of the camp was in doubt, Dan joined the Board of Directors as the Financial Officer to help assure the camp's existence.
Dan helped kick off the modern sailing program with the donation of a Sunfish sailboat in the late 1970s. He taught many staff and campers boating safety and how to sail. Dan also helped maintain our small fleet of sailboats and promoted Beaver Lake as a great place to sail.
Dan helped make the new lodge a reality and served as President of the Board in the early 1980s. As a design engineer and VP of a large company Dan was able to bring his business experience, methods, and high expectations to the Board, which helped stabilize the camp and set camp on course for the future decades of great summers.
The boathouse was made possible as an 80th birthday gift to Dan by a generous gift to Unirondack from his family and friends.
DAN HOLLANDS' WORDS OF WISDOM
GENERAL BOATING GUIDELINES
1. Always wear a life jacket.
2. If your boat tips over, stay with your boat.
3. Always head out into the wind so that it is easier to get home.
SAILING GUIDELINES
1. Never wrap a rope around your hand, feet or any other body part.
2. Always tie an "8" knot in the end of your sheet before heading out.
3. Tacking:
a. Look behind you before tacking, look forward while tacking.
b. Don't pinch and lose speed before you tack.
c. Command to crew: "Ready to Tack!", "Hard to Lee!".
4. Jibing:
a. To jibe, turn toward the boom.
b. Pull in the main before jibing.
5. Sail on the tack that takes you closest to where you want to go. 6. Point the boat where you want to go and then adjust the sails. 7. Point the bow into the wind while raising and lowering sails.
8. To get out of irons — push the tiller and the boom to the same side
of the boat.
9. A good sailor never needs a motor.
10. One hand for you and one for the boat.
11. If there are two boats on the water, they're racing!
12. When in Doubt, Let it Out!
Letter from President Hank Bartowsic about the Canoe guide book
Brian Kress Docks built in the mid 1980s