THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Friday, September 7, 1984 25 A JOURNEY BACK IN TIME The Bert & Toba Smokler Pioneer Skills Center The animal barn, crafts barn, blacksmith shop, water tower and windmill at the Smokler Pioneer Skills Center. PIONEERS • Marvin Berman, resident director of Camp Maas, stands outside the maple sugar cabin. P Blythe Rose and Leslie Gruber, above, make slab furniture. Below, making musket balls and taking care of the horses are favorite activities. • Where can you make rope, spin wool, dip candles, build slab furniture, pour lead musket balls, and partici- pate in beekeeping and musketry? .. . At the Bert and Toba Smokler Pioneer Skills Center, located at Camp Maas — the Fresh Air Society's resident camp for children age 11-15. The Bert and Toba Smokler Pioneer Skills Cen- ter is composed of 12 authentic- looking, pioneer-type buildings in- cluding a pioneer cabin, sugar shack, maple sugar cabin, animal barn, blacksmith shop, school house, root cellar, summer country kitchen and windmill. The Smokler Center maintains its own herb garden and apple orchard, and takes care of an assortment of goats, chickens, ducks, and horses — including two Belgian draft horses used for hay rides. The Smokler Pioneer Skills Cen- ter is the product of six years of effort that culminated in a formal commu- nity dedication last Sunday. The late Bert L. Smokler was a former chair- man of the Tamarack Hills Authority and he is credited with the develop- ment of the Ortonville campsite, now called Camp Maas. Through the years, Mr. Smokler maintained a close inter- est in the facility and he and his wife Toba were instrumental in the de- velopment of the Pioneer Skills Cen- ter. The center is still not completed. Future plans call for the creation of a complete Main Street with general store, post office, barber shop and hotel. The center was conceived as a year-round facility serving summer campers at Camp Maas and elemen- tary school children during the rest of the year through the Tamarack Out- door Education Program. During the summer months, the center is manned by the Teen Service Staff and is a part of their counselor-in-training pro- gram. Participants have completed the 11th grade and are supervised by the director of the Pioneer Skills Cen- ter, a full-time employee of camp. Bunk groups may do one or all of the activities offered and it has proved to be an extremely popular activity area. The center has become a major attrac- tion for elementary school groups who spend up to one week at one of Camp Maas' four winterized units during the non-summer months. Many of the activities at the Pioneer Skills Center are tailored to the season of the year. In the spring, for example, children and staff begin the production of maple syrup by tap- ping over 600 maple trees on the camp's 1,350 acres. The sap is later collected and processed in the maple syrup evaporator located at the center. Honey is harvested through the beekeeping program, and vegetables and herbs are utilized at the summer country kitchen during the summer months.