People, Lodging, Food, Spaces, Accessibility, and Pitching In
Who Will Be There?
Everyone is welcome. No singing background is necessary whatsoever. We will be a mix of experienced singers and new singers, and you won't believe how great we'll sound together. We will be a mix of city and rural people, and we will love getting to know each other. We will be a combination of many backgrounds, and we will learn from each others stories and ways. We will be a mix of old, young, and in-between people, befriending each other through the play of song.
We Love Children!
We Love Teens!
We Love Elders!
--and everyone in between.
Our village needs you.
Children are welcome everywhere at Village Fire. Each morning there will be nature-based experiential programming for kids ages 3-12. There is also a KiD’s TeNt where special activities will take place in the afternoons: crafts, games, songs, stories, and more. If you’d like to help out at the Kid’s Tent, let us know! Whether you are a parent of young children or not, you are welcome to be part of the fun.
Teens' voices are honored in circles large and small, and it is a joy to feel our connections over the many generations. We offer a teen overnight hike and campout during camp, and other opportunities vary depending on the year. If you are a teen or the family of a teen, keep your eye out for those offerings on the registration form!
We need our elders at camp. We need to see you and we need to see you seeing us as we make our best effort at tenderly and bravely embracing this world. Let us know what sleeping arrangements serve you best.
Kids' Schedule: (New!)
This year we are providing 2 hours of skilled nature-based programming every morning for kids ages 5-12! (Except for Thursday morning when there will be an all-camp activity which kids are invited to participate in.) These programs will be play-centered, using games, adventures, fun age-appropriate group challenges, and songs to weave together exciting mornings for the youth. In response to requests from families and activity leaders in years past and in order to continue to support a healthy and vibrant kid culture at the gathering, we are asking that all children participate in the morning programming provided for their age-group. This will be a new rhythm from years past and may take a little getting used to, so we ask your help in orienting the kids to the new plan. The great thing is: it's gonna be super fun! Kids will learn the name of their morning cohort upon arrival. During the afternoons and evenings there will be other optional activities offered for kids, varying depending on the day.
Our Camp
Nestled in a valley near Decorah, Iowa, Pine Bluff Camp sits astride the Upper Iowa River alongside bluffs graced by majestic White Pines. In June 330 people of all ages from the Midwest and beyond gather there to sing, play, eat, learn, and remember. With our whole selves we make beauty and connection, our humble and joyful attempt to show our gratitude for life, and learn together.
Pine Bluff is a rustic camp. There are a few spaces with roofs: a large picnic shelter, 4 bunk houses, and a bathhouse. We’ll be setting up a number of large tents for shelter from rain and sun. Across the swinging bridge over the Upper Iowa River you can wander or camp on 100 acres of wild land. We will be held together by the land, by the river, by our songs, and by our children, teens, and elders.
Here’s some of the landscape of Pine Bluff:
Main Shelter: Attached to the small kitchen there is a picnic shelter which we will extend with large tents. This and the open space will be our eating area. Open Spaces: There are large fields for running and playing. There’s a volleyball court. There are paths down near the river (adults should accompany children there).
The Bridge and the White Pines: Most of the wild land at Pine Bluff is across the large and sturdy (but swaying!) swinging bridge. Children should only go there with, or with the permission of, their parents who have looked with the eyes that know their children’s abilities, as there are steep slopes that drop into the river.
The River: This camp lies next to the Upper Iowa. In rivers of this size there can be undercurrents. As always, families and friend groups are in charge of their own safety. At this camp, it is important that children and non-swimmers be kept safe by their family groups. Life jackets will be available. Bathrooms and Showers: There is one bathhouse with two sides, each with 3 showers and a total of 4 toilets. All bathrooms at camp are designated all-gender. There are also porta-potties, and a stand-alone shower that is outside of the bathhouse spaces.
Spaces We Make:
Community Liberation Tent: We believe singing together can be transformative, deepening our sense of connection to each other in a society that systematically separates us. The Community Liberation Tent at camp is a physical spot to support cooperation in reaching across, and dismantling, the many barriers that keep us from being fully free together. The CLT is a place that marks our all-the-time commitment to listening to each other, learning, and taking responsibility for our right-sized part in healing the cultural wounds caused by systems of domination and exclusion.
Restorative Practices: Village Fire is committed to using restorative approaches to conflict as much as possible. Restorative Practices are a collection of community-building strategies grounded in the idea that we are all valuable members of the community, accountable to each other for our actions, and that the community should do what is within its power to restore members back to community after conflict. The current concept of Restorative Practices emerges from traditional and ongoing practices of people around the globe—a precedent which we humbly acknowledge as we work with this knowledge to develop healthy, humane models for building community and addressing conflict. If you would like to read more about Restorative Practices, at Village Fire and beyond go to our Info For Campers page.
Healing Tent: The healing tent celebrates and supports our bodies and the care that they need. It is a small space furnished with tapestries, pillows, and massage tables, and is mostly open for participants to use as they will. The healing tent often hosts early morning offerings, and sometimes hosts offerings at other points in the day as well.
Ancestor Altar: The Ancestor Altar is a small table set out under a tree, dedicated to remembering the people who we each come from. It is an acknowledgement that we all come from somewhere, and that our particular collage of stories and people is unique and meaningful. Sometimes there are ways to interact with this space, through writing names on slips and hanging them on a tree, or by lighting a candle. At other times the way to interact might just be to sit next to the altar and see what comes up. The space is an invitation to build relationship back in time.
Moon Lodge: A space for those who menstruate and all women (cisgender, transgender, and non-binary). The Moon Lodge is dedicated to listening to the intelligence of our bodies. It is a space that recognizes that there is knowledge in our blood, in our bones and in our dreams. It recognizes that this knowledge is tied to the cycles of the world around us; the moon and the tides, our hearts and our longings, each other and our communities. It is a space that celebrates intuition, a place to share stories, tears, laughter, and respect, and to tend to ourselves. The Moon Lodge remembers our bodies as sacred and connected to all of life. At Village Fire, the Moon Lodge is a small canvas wall-tent with pillows and candles, sometimes poem books and other reading materials, and is open for participants to engage as they will throughout camp.
Mutual Emotional First Aid: This year we again have a team of individuals with both lived experience and professional training willing to provide “Mutual Emotional First Aid" for any villagers finding themselves in emotional distress or inner turmoil. We're leveraging some of the tried and true resources of The Icarus Project to provide humanistic, non-judgmental peer-led support for people who may identify with a particular psychiatric label as well as those who do not. We honor that these experiences of "breakdown" can lead to "breakthrough" if tended with compassion and patience. If you or a loved one would like to know more, or if you'd like to fill out an "advance directive" about what kind of care you would or would not like to receive should you find yourself in a state of crisis or confusion during VF, please reach out directly to Josh at blaine.josh@gmail.com.
Men’s Co-Responsibility: A self-organized group of men from Village Fire 2019 are looking to engage any and all men and masculine-identified folks (cisgender, transgender, and non-binary) as we deepen our understanding of being co-responsible for our roles in supporting the ease and well-being of participants at Village Fire, especially those who identify as women, femme or non-binary. We will be hosting calls twice each month to get to know each other better and begin building the trust and connection needed to to be part of this important work. On the calls, we will invite authenticity and vulnerability with discussion and reflection prompts designed to generate more love, compassion, and understanding amongst ourselves. Our goal is to walk alongside one another as we build our shared commitment to equity and safety.
Lodging
Cabins: There are four cabins with bunks where a total of 60 people can sleep. These spaces provide a sturdy roof and really decent bunks but no privacy. We’ll be saving them for those for whom tenting is a challenge. Note that the cabins are close to where we’ll be setting up the Skylodge, so there will be late-night singing quite nearby. Though the singing will be wonderful, earplugs might be advised for some cabin sleepers.
Tenting Grounds: There is ample space for you to set up your own tent, either near main camp or across the river among the White Pines. If you plan to camp across the river, note that you’ll need to carry your gear across a narrow swinging bridge. No campfires are allowed across the river.
Camper Trailers: The parking space at Pine Bluff is very limited and we have to do some real puzzle-work in order to get all the cars parked. (Carpooling is encouraged!) We don’t have room to park campers right there at camp, but a neighbor has offered his yard for a handful of RVs/campers to park. Please let us know if you would like to avail yourself of one of these spaces. There are also several campgrounds with hookups in the Decorah area if that works best for you.
Sleeping Elsewhere: If you need to sleep in a bed and have some privacy, you could consider staying in Decorah. You can find out about lodging options by visiting the Decorah Visitor's Bureau or Airbnb.
Accessibility
Base camp is fully outdoors, flat and on a kept lawn. Most activities happen in this space which is about 200 ft across. Some activities take place outside of base camp, down a small hill, also on lawn. Bathrooms, picnic shelter (where we eat), and all base camp spaces are wheelchair accessible, though built in the 1950s.
Please let us know in advance if you have further questions about accessibility or if there are other ways that we can help meet your needs!
Nourishing Food
Friend of Village Fire, Ruth Hampton, will once again make us tasty whole-food meals. (More about Ruth at troutrivercatering.com and awesomecookery.com). All prepared meals are vegetarian, with options that are gluten free, dairy free, and vegan. Monday’s first meal is supper. On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, Ruthie will make three meals for us. On Saturday the last meal will be lunch. View this year's proposed menu. If you're coming for just a day or two, please plan to bring your own food. This way, the folks who are coming for more days can partake of the convenience of the prepared meals. If for dietary or other reasons you bring your own food, please also bring a campstove and cooler. There is no indoor cooking space or refrigeration for campers to use.
We Pitch In
Such good conversations and songs have been born while sweeping the shelters and chopping vegetables! When you arrive at camp we'll tell you more about how the community work systems run. Here are some of the things we'll be doing together:
-Helping our kind and talented cook, Ruthie
-Joining in our dishwashing rotation
-Tending the coffee/tea and snack station
-Keeping bathrooms clean
-General camp tidying
We also have some work trade positions available for a few of the more continual jobs that keep our camp running. These jobs vary, ranging from managing the dish crews, to parking and grounds upkeep, to helping train new shifts of kitchen volunteers. Being a work trader will require missing some of the camp events, as we ask for about a half-day of work each day, but will also leave you ample time to enjoy camp. We also ask that you arrive at camp early for orientation and to help with set-up. If you are interested in a work trade position (in exchange for full cost of registration), please let us know by completing this form. We will be glad to hear from you and hope to find the right work trade role for you. There are limited work trade positions available.
