Merete Arvik came to a Girl Scout camp in Amber in 1979, at age 17, to work as a counselor through an exchange program in her native Norway.
She stayed with four different families, the last one being Jerre and Ginny Cummings in Shawano. The Fox River Valley Girl Scouts had asked Ginny, who was a Scout leader for 25 years, to be a host.
Chalk Hills Camp, founded in 1939 on a flowage between two dams on the Menominee River in Marinette County, closed several years ago, but Arvik has returned to visit the Cummingses, who now live in Clintonville, almost every two years. The Cummingses have been to Norway twice.
“Norway is one of the most beautiful countries on earth, with the glaciers, mountains, and the fjords,” Ginny said.
The families have become such good friends that Arvik’s children refer to the Cummingses as their grandma and grandpa. Arvik’s daughter was an attendant for the Cummingses’ grandson’s wedding.
Some of the Chalk Hills counselors have continued to hold regular reunions, which they call GROGs (Gathering of the Royal Order of the Green). They met in Norway for the first time in 2008. Arvik thought maybe four or five counselors would attend, but she was pleasantly surprised when 30 people came.
The group returned to Norway in 2014 to visit the hometown of Arvik’s husband, Johan Nicolaisen. When the Americans arrived in the small community, they slept on the floor in the classrooms of the school.
Arvik and Nicolaisen live along the coastline in a fjord. They get plenty of snow, but it does not get as cold there as it does in Wisconsin, Arvik said.
“Their home is like a dream house with the beautiful mountains in the back,” Ginny said.
Earlier in the week, Arvik and Nicolaisen visited some other former Chalk Hills counselors in the area. Next year, Arvik and Nicolaisen plan to bring his sister, who is principal of an elementary school, along for the GROG reunion.
Arvik’s daughter, son and his girlfriend are also planning to visit the Cummingses this month.
