B.P. Woodsman badge day camp

Well this past Saturday, October 3rd St. Georges Scout Troop held their annual Fall BP camp. The purpose of this camp is to give the new scouts that have just joined the troop the foundation of their woodsman skills. Back in the day when i was a scout, The BP woodsman badge was the first badge a scout had to earn before he was invested or allowed to earn any other badges. The newer Scouting program eliminates this in favour of a different  training program that I feel is inadequate so at St. Georges we continue using the B.P. Woodsman badge requirements as part of a new scouts initial training and education.

The 3 training topics of the BP woodsman’s badge that were to be covered at this camp were:

-Light a fire with 2 matches.

-Know how to use a compass by: A: Identify 16 points

                                                     B: show how to orient a map using a compass

                                                     C: walk a given bearing.

and

-Know how to handle and sharpen a knife (we also add in instruction on proper use of an axe and how to fell a tree and delimb it)

The trip started out at St. Georges Church with everyone arriving on time and ready to go. We headed out to Camp Longshadow. All eight of our scouts, one cub and both scout leaders attended and the weather made for a perfect fall day.

After a short, 1 mile hike into the Camp, and a pause to let the scouts watch a train pass by. We began the day by removing the old dead brush off the lean-too’s from last year and draining off the excess water from the summer’s heavy rainfall. Once that was finished the Scouts began to prepare to do the fire lighting badge requirement by gathering the tinder and wood they would need to start.

Once it was all gathered, Patrol Leader (and troop firebug) Alexander Urquhart demonstrated to the 6 new Scouts how to properly start and maintain a fire. After that the new scouts and  lone cub were given 2 matches and asked to light a fire. Everyone built their fire with a single match and when the last person had finished the fire was maintained and the grill put down on the fire pit in preparation  for lunch.

While Alex and Sadie the 2 senior scouts went and gathered firewood. I took the rest of the scouts up to the track where it was more open to teach them their compass work. After about an hour or so of working with them, they had all completed the badge requirement, and they were dismissed for lunch.

Shortly after lunch former 1st Moncton Scouters Ron Goodwin and Ken Wareham showed up with the St. George’s scouts camp tradition of Tim Horton doughnuts and to give the new Scouts their axe and knife training.  Scouters Ron and Ken took the scouts down the trail a little bit to a small clearing where the new scouts  learned about the different types of knives and axes, their parts, how to hold and sharpen them and use them in a safe manner. They also used an axe to practice felling a tree and delimbing it in a safe manner. After that they cut it up to bring back to the camp as firewood.

Scouter Ron showing the new scouts how to Fell and de-limb a tree with an Axe

After that, with the troop having accomplished everything that had to be done the Kids had 2 hours of free time that they could do what they wanted to. They played some games such as capture the flag, and hide and go seek tag. Then everyone gathered up their gear and hiked out to head home. All in all it was a great day at the camp. the weather was beautiful, everyone worked hard did a good job and got done all that they had to way ahead of schedule. Way to go Scouts!!

This entry was posted on 15. October 2009 at 21:35 and is filed under Camping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.