Some places stay with you forever.
For much of my life, Holiday Island was more than a place on the St. Lawrence River. It was camp. It was a part of our family history, our summers, and memories that will always matter to me.
For years, this website shared a little of that place with the world, including our live view of the river. The website has changed because life changed. But the memories deserve to remain.
Some truths cannot stay hidden.
Sometimes the people who should have cared for you the most are the very people who caused the deepest hurt.
Madelyn’s Corner
It would be impossible to tell the story of Holiday Island without remembering Madelyn Handley Campbell. She was the heart of so much of what made camp special. She knew the river, the family, the stories, and the little moments that made a place feel like home.
On the original Holiday Island website, Madelyn had her own corner. She deserves that same place of honor here.
Madelyn wrote down the history and memories of Little Calumet, the island we knew as Holiday Island, in her book We Came to Little Calumet. Through her words, the people, laughter, hard work, and everyday life on the river are still with us.
Read Madelyn’s book — We Came to Little Calumet (PDF)
Original scanned book · 110 pages
If the video does not play here, watch it on YouTube.
What a mother should be
Sandy used to say that Madelyn was more of a mother to her than her own mother had been.
I've thought about those words a lot, especially after everything that happened with Holiday Island. Because, as painful as it is to say, I can say something very similar: Madelyn showed me far more of what a mother should be than Sandy ever did.
That's my experience, and I won't pretend otherwise to make the story more comfortable for anyone else.
Holiday Island on Film
Visit our video page for more memories of Holiday Island and the St. Lawrence River.
Watch the VideosLoving a place doesn't mean accepting how you were treated.
I didn't stop loving Holiday Island. I stopped accepting the double standards, the demands to take the blame, and the idea that keeping the peace always had to come at my expense.
In the end, my father took camp away. That was his decision. I won't pretend it didn't hurt, and I won't rewrite the story to make anyone more comfortable.
It wasn't just me.
What happened wasn't limited to me or my immediate family. From what I witnessed, the breakdowns came one after another.
First, they stopped speaking to their niece after telling her to “get the fuck out of our house.” A couple of years later, they stopped speaking to their oldest son.
My decision to walk away came separately, after Sandy treated my son-in-law terribly for using her cushion. To anyone else, it might sound like a small thing. To me, the way he was treated said everything about how little consideration was being shown to people who were supposed to be family.
These weren't all the same disagreement, and we didn't all make our decisions together. But the pattern I saw was impossible for me to ignore.
This page is my perspective and my experience. It's not an invitation to harass anyone. It's a way to remember a place I loved while being truthful about why that chapter ended.
Do I Have Regrets?
Do I regret walking away from Holiday Island? Yes, I have regrets, but not the ones people might expect. My biggest regret is how many years I spent accepting double standards and taking the blame just to keep my place in a family tradition I loved.
Camp kept relationships together long after they had become painful. When my father ultimately took Holiday Island away, I realized that I did not regret walking away. I regretted how long it took me to do it.
Continue reading the full story
That's probably the question I've been asked more than any other.
Do I regret walking away from Holiday Island?
Yes, I have regrets.
But probably not the ones people expect.
One of my biggest regrets is that I didn't walk away from these relationships years earlier.
About ten years ago, several members of our family took a trip together to Disney World. On the morning we were leaving, there had already been a discussion about making sure everyone was back to our rented van on time. My mother had made it very clear that if my brother John and his daughter were even a few minutes late, they would be left behind.
Later that same day, my mother, father and Mike decided they wanted to continue doing what they wanted.
There was one problem.
They had the keys to the van.
The rest of us stood outside in the parking lot waiting for roughly an hour while they remained inside.
And yes, I got angry.
We had a major blowup because I couldn't accept the hypocrisy of threatening to leave my brother and his daughter behind for being a few minutes late, only to turn around hours later and make everyone else stand in a parking lot waiting for them.
To me, it was pretty simple:
We didn't speak for months afterward.
Eventually my father told me that the only way the relationship could be repaired was for me to accept responsibility for what had happened.
Think about that.
Not that everyone should sit down and acknowledge their part.
Not that maybe things were said in anger on both sides.
I needed to accept responsibility.
And eventually, in one form or another, I swallowed my pride and allowed the relationship to continue.
Why?
Holiday Island.
Or, as we always called it, camp.
Camp had a way of keeping things together that probably should have fallen apart years earlier. I loved that place enough that I tolerated things I otherwise wouldn't have. I wanted access to a place that had been part of my entire life, and that meant maintaining relationships that, looking back now, were already badly damaged.
That's my regret.
I regret not realizing ten years ago that a relationship requiring me to accept blame simply to remain part of the family wasn't much of a relationship.
I regret the years I spent trying to hold it together.
And I regret how many times I convinced myself that keeping the peace was more important than standing my ground.
Eventually my father took camp away anyway.
And when that happened, something became painfully clear.
Without Holiday Island holding us together, there really wasn't much left between us.
I only regret that it took me this long.
What remains
The river is still there. The sunsets are still there. And every good memory we made at camp belongs to us, no matter what happened afterward.
This is my tribute to Holiday Island as I knew it. Not to the way it ended, but to everything worth remembering.