Outdoorsman Pin

FOR A GOOD EXPERIENCE, DO THIS IN WARM WEATHER. June - very early October.

I don't know whether to say this was easy or hard. It only took a weekend. There are lots of other ways to do this. One year Tim Shukait led a group to a February Boy Scout event. It was so cold so everybody else left and Tim's group got the cabin. Sue Harwood took a den camping on somebody's acreage nearby during the summer. The newsletter from Council will describe opportunities throughout the year when Cub Scouts can go attend outdoor Boy Scout events. For $15.00 you can reserve the group camp in any of the metroparks or a close by state park. There are some nearby KOAs if you wanted to organize something close to home.

We went camping with 3,000 Boy Scouts in Adrian at an 85th anniversary Camporee on a cold, windy, rainy (and snow flurries) late October, 1995 weekend. I was a Girl Scout long ago and was more prepared for this kind of event (and even enjoyed parts) than many others might be. Even so, it was a "character building" experience. Daytime was OK; there were lots of activities to attend. After dark was tough. My son ran around in the evening on the wet ground in his last pair of dry socks. We sat through an elaborate long evening program in the rain. Many of our boys had to be put in running cars to warm up. Several boys were in the first stages of hypothermia at some point. About 4 a.m. the wind and rain stopped and I was warm enough all over to sleep soundly. My son was fine during the night, but in the morning after breakfast he got horribly cold and just shut down, even when it became warm and sunny. He wouldn't even walk out to the car.

There are good reasons why a parent or adult has to camp with each Cub Scout. They get excited and wild and do things that challenge their survival (e.g., get cold, wet, lost, play with fire). It would be nearly impossible for a leader to single-handedly take on many inexperienced boys of this age alone.

Lessons:

Always bring your own outhouse supplies, and guard them. Too many kids delight in trashing the facilities every way they can.

Don't let them drink too much at night, even if they're cold. Every trip outside the tent is chilling. And you hope they wake up enough to remember they need to go outside for the facilities.

Guard their warmth. You'll seem like an annoyance to your active Webelos scouts, but you'll benefit from it. You can survive days without water, weeks without food, but hypothermia will kill in hours.

#5. Plan and take part in an evening outdoor activity that includes a campfire. During one year the pack had a haunted hay ride. It included a campfire and marshmallow roast. That would count.

#6. Help cook your own lunch or dinner outdoors with your parents or another grownup. This can be done at home or anywhere you choose.

With my second son's den, I organized a family cookout as our second meeting of the new school year. I planned this in August and mailed fliers to all the families late in the month stating the date and what each boy/family needed to bring in food and equipment. The first meeting was getting the boys to make hamburger and veggie foil packets, which we froze and were allowed to keep in the freezer at the church where we met. The second meeting started 1 ½ hours early, so the boys could get organized, get cooking fires going, mix cake batter for the box oven cake we made (see the Macscouter web site for this; it's cool - you wrap a cardboard box in aluminum foil inside and out and put an oven-bag window in it and you have an oven to put over charcoal), wrap garlic bread in foil, make Kool-Aid etc. Parents and siblings who weren't helping came later when dinner was ready. It worked quite well, but took a LOT of preplanning on my part. To do this in the evening and have enough light, it had to be done in September, even before the pack began meeting (this was a stable, already-formed 2nd year den, so we weren't getting new kids after we did the event who would have been excluded due to early event date). Otherwise, you would need to do it on a weekend. Also, we did skits and songs in front of a campfire after dinner, so this counted for #5 too. It was a good BIG event to start the den year, but early burnout on my part was a possibility due to the amount of behind the scenes work - enlist help if you have willing parents.

#7. Know the rules of outdoor fire safety. See the handbook.

#8. Visit your Boy Scout camp with your den. Camp Munhacke in the northwest corner of the county is the closest camp owned by Great Sauk Council; there are others. In October every year they have a 4.8 mile hike for Cub Scout families and dens; you could go then. (I highly recommend this Fall Color Hike for families or dens; it's even good in the rain, except for the sliding down the muddy wet hill part.)
They also have day-long (come home by dinnertime) and weekend Boy Scout events at the camp throughout the year. Csheck with Council or see the monthly newsletter from Council. Council makes it a point now to have a special encampment at Spring and Fall Camporees just for Webelos dens.

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