The Orion fire adds new light to the Northern Lights story

It’s 7:05 am on Sunday, June 16 and the phone rings in the program director’s cabin.

Jude: “Hey Isaac, I think Orion burned down.”

I: “What do you mean?”

J: “Well, there are some fires going, and the building isn’t there.”

Summer staff, Jude Ogden and Jake Ball, were driving from the staff lounge to the boat launch to pick up the Leadership Development Program (LDP) participants who were on their overnight camping trip. They were the first people to discover the overnight disaster.

“It felt like I was in a dream. Jake looked at me and said, ‘are you seeing this’ and we were just in stunned silence for about three seconds before I called Isaac, and Jake called Dan (O’Brien, executive director at Northern Lights). The rest of the morning was a blur,” Jude shared.

As it turns out, it wasn’t just that morning that became a blur. It was the next few days.

Upon their discovery, emergency action procedures kicked in. The first thing Isaac did was meet with the staff team to make sure everyone was safely accounted for.  

He described the scene, “Jude was standing there with his head in his hands, Dan was calling 911, and then I called Sam Kujawa, (CNL Property Manager), who was mid-bike ride on his day off. He hopped into a dump truck and came rushing over. The police were the first to arrive and shortly after that, the fire department.

While first responders moved into the scene, Isaac gathered the staff to break the news. “Everyone was in shock and disbelief. But we were still expecting camper families to arrive that afternoon, and camp needed to be cleaned. So, everyone started cleaning and preparing for camp.”

Orion is arguably the most critical building during the summer as it houses the LDPs and is also the site of the commercial kitchen that provides meals for staff, LDPs and certain families camping in the tent sites. According to Isaac, “there are about five nights of the whole summer that LDPs are not in Orion and luckily that was one of them.” In between the two weeks that make up the LDP session, LDPs, spend Saturday night on a camping trip out on Bear Island Lake, which is where they were when the building caught fire. With staff housing in a different location and no campers around because it was Saturday night, “no one was on that side of camp.”

Investigators think that the fire started in the middle of the night and burned until it was discovered that morning. “Unfortunately, the first week of camp was really rainy. But it turns out that was the reason that whole side of camp is still standing. Some of the nearby trees were scorched, but everything else was fine. We got lucky with the weather, after all.”

Dan, Isaac, and two assistant summer program directors, Grace Johnson and Miles McGuire, spent most of Sunday on the phone. They called LDP parents to let them know what happened and that the LDPs were going to have to come home a week early. They called camper families and delayed their arrival until later in the week.

In addition to housing and the kitchen, Orion also housed the main pump and electrical center for six nearby cabins, the bathhouse, and the Back of the Beyond Village.

“Half of Buena Vista didn’t have electricity or water. Initially, we were worried it wouldn’t be back for a long time,”  Isaac shared.

Dan and Isaac, with support from Michel Tigan, YMCA of the North’s vice president of adventure and camp operations, immediately started working on contingency plans to get camp back to business as quickly as possible.

By Monday afternoon, Sam, the property manager, had trusted local contractors onsite to help restore power, water, and gas to all of Buena Vista and Back of Beyond villages. And fueled by sandwiches hand-delivered by YMCA of the North President Glen Gunderson, the team set to work.

This left the Northern Lights team with three distinct goals: 1) find a new way to feed staff, LDPs, and some campers; 2) get folks back to camp as quickly as possible; and 3) create new housing for the LDPs. In just that order, they got it done.

On Tuesday morning, camp leaders met with the team at YMCA Camp du Nord and devised a short-term plan for their kitchen to provide meals for Northern Lights staff. Little did they suspect, that same Tuesday afternoon, du Nord would begin battling its own natural disaster — a flood that washed out the road, leaving campers and staff stranded and both the North Arm Road and Echo Trail impassible. Undaunted and in typical heroic fashion (see story, page 14), on Wednesday of that week, du Nord staff nevertheless crossed Burntside Lake by boat, delivering 19 pans of food and gallons of ice cream to a hungry Northern 
Lights staff team.

By Wednesday afternoon, Dan, Isaac, Sam, and all the rest, had camp up and running, welcoming camper families for a shortened week of programming. And by Thursday, Northern Lights had secured an option to rent kitchen space for the summer at the Ely Senior Center. Isaac shared, “It was  20 minutes away and not ideal, but it would work for the summer.” Two challenges down, and 
one to go.

With LDP lodging gone, camp leadership made a plan to welcome them back by July 7—just three weeks later. It took a really good friend and one extra week, but it got done.

Learning about the disaster as a member of the YMCA of the North’s board of directors, Bob Gardner, also a YMCA family camper and donor, offered to help.

As the owner of Gardner Builders with offices as close as Duluth, Bob was well positioned to lend some aid. Bob and his team donated time, leadership, and materials to create an entirely new LDP platform tent village in record time. Gardner Builders built wooden decks in their Duluth shop while Sam and the Northern Lights team completed site prep and foundation work. Gardner Builders brought the decks on site, and the team installed the new canvas tents that would provide housing for the remainder of the summer.

Weeks after the disaster, Executive Director Dan O’Brien said, “Programming is up and running and the staff are crushing it. The outpouring of love and support from campers, board members, and several businesses in Ely has been amazing. It was really sad not to have the LDPs at camp for a few weeks because they are such a huge part of our program. But it’s been a great summer and we will continue to run the best possible summer program for every family who steps foot on Camp Northern Lights.” 

BE THE LIGHT: A CAMPAIGN FOR CAMP NORTHERN LIGHTS

With the unfolding of a sudden fire at YMCA Camp Northern Lights on June 16, the YMCA launched an emergency fundraising appeal to support rebuilding efforts and other challenges associated with the disaster.

This effort piggy-backed on a much larger, though quieter, effort to raise $8 million for a new lodge and dining hall to serve the entire community at Northern Lights. Dubbed the “Be the Light” campaign, the effort was already two years old by summer of 2024.

The lodge will include dining and event space for up to 250 people, a patio and deck overlooking the lake, a much-needed storm shelter for families staying in tent sites, and year-round multi-purpose space for programs and events.

The fire only served to underscore the urgency of funding and building this new facility as quickly as possible.

If you want to support this campaign, please visit ymcanorth.org/bethelight to make a gift.

Contact Executive Director Dan O’Brien at Camp Northern Lights for more information.