It’s Kyle Haggerty’s seventh summer at Camp Mather. He supervises archery, his specialty, which has earned him the nickname “Robin.” The archery range sits on the outskirts of camp near the meadows where the horses once grazed. The canopy is one of the few shady places in camp, the mountains of Yosemite rising just beyond the trees.
At 26, Haggerty has become something of a Camp Mather elder. If you’re unsure about where to go or what to do at camp, or even if you need help fixing your bike, Robin will show you the ropes without boredom or judgment. When I first started working here at 19, he explained what camp was like with an easy smile.
“You’re just out in the dirt and woods, and you’re working with the people you live with the whole summer. It’s make or break, you know? You either get to know people and have a good time … or it doesn’t work out,” he laughs in his typical grinning apathy.
Camp Mather, San Francisco’s 337-acre family recreation camp, is celebrating its 102nd season. The city of San Francisco, which owned the land, converted the former sawmill and work camp built for the construction of the O’Shaughnessy Dam into a summer camp in 1924. Every year, thousands of families enter a lottery for the chance to drive east through the Central Valley and up the Sierra Nevada foothills, spending a week near Hetch Hetchy’s hamlet, staying in rustic cabins or tents while swimming, fishing, attending camp activities and eating together in the dining hall…