Wow. Our third scout camp! It’s been a journey, even though this scout camp started off the same as our others, by driving up for a while and going to our campsite. At the camp we went to we couldn’t exactly drive everything up at the same time though, so we walked up. We were at the top of a hill, and about a 15 minute walk from the dining hall. We set up camp, and went down to diner. At every diner and breakfast, there’s a flag ceremony where flags would be set up or taken down. Coincidentally, it started raining during diner, so the campfire was postponed to the day after. We stayed in our campsites from diner to going to sleep. We played lots of card games and such.

Anyways, most days when we woke up, several of us did the mile run and/or the polar bear swim, them went back up to camp to prepare for the day. We went down to breakfast, and went to our morning classes. There were many merit badge options, including a first years program, aquatics, tech stuff, handicraft with like arts and stuff, scoutcraft with some scout skills, shooting ranges, and another program for older scouts. After classes, we went to lunch and back up to the campsite for turtle time, which is when you vibe at camp and get ready for the afternoon. Then we went to our afternoon classes, went back to camp to drop stuff off, and get ready for free time and diner. We went down to diner, and then had free time, where we were able to go to any of the areas and do things there. Lots of us were able to get more merit badges at that time. Also on Thursday there was an optional religious ceremony.

On Monday, we had our opening campfire. It was mostly just skits and songs presented by the staff members, but at the beginning, there was a fun part where a few people came out, lit a beacon to have a flaming “arrow” come across the lake and light the fire. Basically, the camp kickoff was really cool.

One other cool feature of camp was the fact that it was like a spirit week at school. Every day there was a different theme, like troop shirts, or superheroes, or silly hats, or the camp shirts. Wednesday was Spirit Day, where we chose our theme for the troop, and went around camp doing different activities to get points and have fun. Our troops theme was crayons, so we all had a color we dressed up as, and that colored cone hat. The scoutmaster was our crayon box. One of the big things that we did was a triathlon, where one person biked about a mile, someone ran about a mile, and someone canoed about a mile. We got fourth, so I’d say we did pretty good! Another fun occurrence was at the last activity of the day, a game where you answer questions, and if you don’t answer, or get it wrong, you have a bunch of water dumped in a canoe you’re in. we were doing pretty well, but eventually all those in the boat had to lie down to keep it from tipping. That was when a hornet fell out of the sky onto one of our scouts mouths. That scout was stung, and needed to go out of the canoe to get first aid and an icepack, so as the canoe was lighter, our team won! Honestly unexpected!

Also a few of the nights, staff brought food up to the campsites for us to cook at camp, just for extra flair and fun.

At the closing campfire, lots of troops prepared and performed their own skits, songs, and the like, scouts were recognized for completing the programs, and the first years sang a fun scout song that’s just random words in no language whatsoever in a fun tune. There was also an OA ceremony, where new members of the Order of the Arrow are inducted in. That included a lot of fire, it was cool. Also, they did another one of the flaming “arrow” coming across the lake and lighting the fire.

Soon, the week had to end. We packed up the cars, ate breakfast, hiked up to where our rides were, and left. All in all, scout camp was fun, and even though there were some tough experiences, we were able to live through it, and have a lot of good experiences as well!

Riflery
Earning points
Canoeing
Scout Camp 2022!