With 2025 just days away, we’re excited to look back on a few of our favorite images from 2024 – a year filled with Pemi traditions, milestones, and firsts! Pemi’s 117th summer saw boys join us from 24 states and 8 countries for 3, 4, or 7 weeks of friendship, growth, fun, and adventure, all while taking a break from screens and technology. The Pemi spirit was as exuberant and positive as it’s ever been, as you’ll read more about below. You’ll also read about a couple significant program and personal milestones, along with some exciting firsts. Before we fully shift our minds to the 2025 summer and all that it has in store, we hope you enjoy this look back at Pemi 2024, which we offer with our deepest gratitude towards all members of the Pemi family, whether you were an active part of the summer or were sending your best wishes from afar!

During the first session, a new tradition was born! With Paris 2024 as our inspiration, we held our very own Olympic Games at Pemi. The 15s took charge by creating “country” names and the rest of camp was split onto these teams which competed, over the course of several days, in events ranging from a cannonball competition to trivia to a campus-wide challenge course with every boy in camp partaking. To kick the games off, we held the opening ceremony on Senior Beach, and when the flaming arrow that struck the Olympic pyre failed to fully ignite it, our Olympic Chairmen bravely waded out with their torches to light the blaze. The event enjoyed such universal praise that we’ll be bringing our summer Olympics back on an annual basis during the first session!

2024 proved to be a banner year for Pemi’s fishing program. Under the stewardship of head of fishing Phil Landry, Pemi anglers were tireless in their enjoyment of this favorite pastime. Phil, a professional fishing guide when not at Pemi, recently instituted a Pemi Fishing License program that requires all boys who wish to fish independently to first obtain their license. Boys learn basic casting and knot-tying techniques, along with safety rules and conservation practices which allow them to safely and responsibly enjoy themselves. After beginning the program in 2023, we had roughly 60 boys earn their license in 2024. Many of the most dedicated anglers got to enjoy afternoon trips out on the lake with Phil, including Manfred and Ben, pictured above.

2024 marked the 100th summer of Pemi’s Nature Program! This storied program, which we’ll confidently put up against any summer camp nature program in the country, has inspired a century’s worth of Pemi campers and staff to fall in love with the natural world. To celebrate this milestone, Head of Nature Deb Kure and her staff put on a 24-hour Bio Blitz. Starting at the end of Campfire on Saturday night and running through Sunday Meeting the next day, groups of campers and staff engaged in a round-the-clock exploration of the natural world at Pemi. Pictured above are a group of boys checking a moth light at 11:30pm. In addition, the hours between Taps and Reveille included identifying nighttime sounds in the swamp, sugaring for underwing moths, stargazing, and pre-dawn birding, and there was still a full day’s worth of further activities after that!

The Pemi Hill Shelter has long been a favorite spot for campers to enjoy time in nature while learning camp-craft and bonding as a cabin group. In 2024, however, the Pemi Hill experience for Juniors took a new form thanks to the leadership of veteran trip counselor/nature staff member (and middle school science teacher) Scout Brink. Scout took each Junior cabin up Pemi Hill, during both first and second session, for an extended experience that spanned from after Rest Hour until breakfast the next morning. Up at the shelter, the boys learned a variety of camp skills such as how to use a compass, read a map, navigate trail blazes, and start a fire. They also learned more about the plants and environment around them, along with crucial lessons on Leave No Trace principles and backcountry safety. As the sun set, they cooked dinner around the campfire, told stories, sang songs, and, of course, enjoyed plenty of s’mores! Any boy who completed this experience felt fully prepared for the next stages of the Pemi trip program, including multi-day backpacking trips through the most stunning and picturesque scenery in the northeast.

Pemi 2024 will go down as one of the most spirited summers in our history. Thanks to a wide range of both campers and staff, Pemi’s spectators were more involved in cheering and supporting their friends than ever before. An energetic group of Spanish campers brought a whole new level of coordination and vibrancy to our cheering, while several key staff members helped us “raise the roof” in the Mess Hall in a crescendo of spirit. And of course, leading the way for all of the cheering and camaraderie building were our 15-year-olds – an especially close-knit group this year with a deep love for Pemi. 2024 set the new standard for cheering and enthusiasm in Pemi athletics!

One of our oft-repeated mantras at Pemi is that camp is a place to try new things, and we do our best to embrace that mindset institutionally as well. In 2024 that meant the construction of a gaga pit in Junior Camp. For those unfamiliar with this game, it’s a variation on dodgeball that takes place inside the pit. Participants have to try and strike the ball and hit their opponents below the knees. Once a player gets hit, they’re eliminated, and the last one standing wins. The addition proved an instant success, and it wasn’t long before the grass seen in the photo above had disappeared entirely thanks to hours of enjoyment by our youngest campers.

For many people setting off on a hike, they have an end-goal in mind of a picture-perfect view that can be shared on social media. As Pemi campers grow and develop within our hiking and canoeing program, however, they come to learn that there’s so much more to it than the payoff of a spectacular vista. Boys cherish the time spent together in nature, mutually tackling a challenge and enjoying each others’ company. The group of 15-year-olds who ascended Mt. Katahdin in Maine this summer didn’t get the hundred-mile view from the top, but to a person they came back raving about the trip nonetheless. They successfully completed one of the most demanding single-day hikes that we offer, all while spending time with their closest friends in the waning days of their camper experience. In a time when it’s so easy to focus on the final destination, this group instead fully bought into the mindset of embracing the journey.

Charlie Malcolm, Pemi’s self-declared “oldest boy,” spent his 40th summer at Pemi in 2024! Now one of Pemi’s assistant directors, Charlie arrived at Pemi in 1976 for three years as a camper. Since that time, he’s done it all at and for Pemi. From spending a summer on our custodial staff when he was 16 to holding down the Senior Camp as the counselor of Senior 3 to running our athletics program for decades and now to serving as assistant director, Charlie has spent years inspiring Pemi campers. Many a Pemi boy and counselor alike can easily recall a time when a little bit of the Malcolm Mojo raised his spirits, pushed him to work harder, and caused him to become a better version of himself. Charlie teaches us to attend to the smallest details, see every job over the finish line, and, above all, look out for our brothers and sisters at Pemi and in life. To celebrate Charlie’s 40th summer, Tom Reed Jr. gave a moving speech at Final Banquet that touched on so many of the qualities that have made Charlie’s run at Pemi such a success. Simultaneously the oldest boy and the consummate educator, Charlie “does camp” as well as anyone who’s ever been a part of the Pemi Family. Thank you, Charlie!

In another milestone, Pemi’s Family Camp celebrated its 5th summer in 2024! Originally a programmatic pivot due to COVID in the summer of 2020, Family Camp has grown into an integral part of the Pemi summer. Anyone is welcome to attend, and we’ve had a mixture of Pemi alums and their families, current Pemi families, prospective campers and their families, individual alumni, and families with no prior Pemi connections whatsoever. Attendees spend a week at Pemi engaging in all of our camp favorites from Campfire to archery, Mess Hall singing to waterskiing, nature field trips to soccer games, and so much more. Family Camp 2024 included a number of engaging art activities, including the family portrait session pictured above where kids and parents painted each others’ portraits to varying degrees of accurate representation.

The 2024 Pemi season finished with yet another Pemi first – our inaugural Women’s Weekend! 62 women from 19 states gathered at Pemi for a weekend focused on fellowship, creativity, healthy living, and enjoying Pemi’s beautiful setting. The weekend included (but was far from limited to) an opening keynote presentation from current Pemi parent/Family Camper Morra Aarons-Mele, journaling sessions, a tango clinic and dance party, hiking, a cookout on Senior Beach, and a classic Pemi Campfire. Attendees included current and former Pemi staff, current and former Pemi mothers, and women who learned about Pemi from a friend who was attending. One woman, however, deserves special mention out of this wonderful first group: Dottie Reed. Dottie has been a part of the Pemi family since 1987, and it was her inspiration, vision, and effort that, above all else, made this weekend such an unquestionable success. Many thanks to Dottie for spearheading what promises to be a long-running Pemi tradition!

With that we’re ready to close the books on Pemi 2024 and set our sights on 2025 and Pemi’s 118th summer. We don’t know everything that 2025 has in store for Pemi, but we know that it will be another summer filled with laughter and music, with kindness and character, with challenges met and triumphs earned (and without screens)! We hope that in the midst of winter, this look back on 2024 and the promise of 2025 inspire you to channel a little bit of the Pemi spirit in your community at home.

Wishing you good luck, long life, and joy for 2025 and beyond!