No Safety Net, No Internet: Wilderness Survival

This month’s edition of No Safety Net, No Internet is going to be about my son’s first outing at the Wilderness Survival campout with his scout troop.  I relay this through my eyes and the conversations we’ve had over the years since his first outing with the group of boys that he would grow to call his core group of friends.  The families that supported the troop’s efforts were all wonderful people.  It can be hard finding families whose values are compatible with your own goals for your son these days, but forging relationships with parents who want to raise healthy, capable men is very important. 

As with most things my family does, we jump in right and get involved.  My son had just turned 11 and we had been with the scout troop just 2 weeks prior to the weekend of the wilderness survival event.  My kid hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet, and we joined not knowing anyone else at the troop other than his Webelos advisor whose own son was a senior in high school and just received his Eagle.  My kid was the youngest boy that fall at the troop, a fresh 11 year old now mixed in with young guys mostly 14 to 17 years old.  There were 3 guys near his range, but he was at the bottom of the totem pole.

I would lie to you if I said I thought that the age difference and not knowing any other kids wouldn’t be a factor for my kid.  Young dudes haze, pick on each other, and the youngest ones can also be a pain in the ass.  That’s why they’re boys and young men.   And the fact that my kid was an outsider and a homeschooler was something that could be a factor too, as the troop members all knew each other from school and even church.

One of the primary things about Scouts are the rituals and milestones.  Our troop was fortunate enough to have a permanent room in the basement of a local church, and on the wall were plaques with the names of all the Eagles since the early 1920s when the troop was formed. Next to plaques was a long rack where the names of the current troop members were grouped into columns according to rank, each name on a wooden plate that hung from the bottom of another scout’s plate.  

The dads of the troop instilled good values in their sons:  the older guys all spent time with my kid. To see a 17 year tap your kid in the shoulder and go through requirements with him is quite something. It told me that my son had a path to joining these young guys.  I learned too that first evening that my son is very adaptable.  He’s very different from me in that he’s easy going, he ramps up quietly and methodically while I charge ahead without thinking.  Those first two weeks that same senior scout met with my son, and at the close of the second weekly meeting they called my son up to the rack, and presented him with his first rank.  And a plate with his name, which he hung at the very bottom of the first column.  He was so much younger than everyone else, but man was he proud.  A nice first step.

That said, my kid matched the troop's pace, and yeah he got knocked around playing football with them, but he loved every bruise. One thing about scouts many don’t realize is that it’s a time for the young guys to try things with their buddies, perhaps fail, but then succeed later on.  Those bumps along the way, the drenched sleeping bag or burnt eggs at breakfast are things that are a component that many want to shield their kids from.  That’s a mistake.  But we also want to integrate boys constantly with girls and suppress all that makes boys boys. And depending on the young dudes personality, they will behave differently when girls are around.  That time away with the “wolf pack” is important for them. 

The truer initiation was the Wilderness Survival camping trip.  Rain, snow or good weather, the troop travels to D-Bar A Scout Ranch in Metamora north of Detroit.  1800 acres of rolling hills with horseback riding, two rifle ranges, 3 spring fed lakes and 11 miles of hiking trails.  Our first night, I naturally got lost driving to our tent site, the backroads D-Bar A are not well marked.  Navigating at night is a challenge there.  “When you come to the lake, take the second right …” were the directions that I soon forgot. Including my son, I had 5 kids with me, and they didn’t seem to care that I had to double back a few times to get oriented.  On a pitch black October night they were so involved in their boastful stories, time really didn’t matter to them.  

Amazingly many of us drivers arrived before the Scoutmaster towing the gear trailer did.  17 scouts and 6-7 parents were our number.  There’s a degree of pandemonium that breaks out when you arrive in the dark, it’s inevitable that doors fly open, and the youngest jet to run around and find other friends.  With just lanterns or headlights to illuminate the campsite all you see are shadows racing and chasing after each other.  That dies down a bit after the older patrol leaders coral their guys and try to get them to set up camp.  The one thing about Scouts is that the adults are there to guide and supervise, but the patrol leaders are the ones who direct.  When a kid comes up and asks “what am I supposed to do”,  the answer is “find your Patrol Leader or the Senior Patrol Leader and ask him.”  The Scout Master works with the patrol leaders, and the patrol leaders have the task of getting their patrols in line.  It takes a while for new kids to get used to that structure.  And it doesn’t mean a dad doesn’t or should n’t intervene.  But it does give the young guys a chance to lead others.  And make mistakes as they lead others and learn from that, too.

Our troop was very old school, and so was our equipment.  The boys had to use the pup tents which they set up with their buddies, either 2 or 4 Scouts per tent.  They were canvas, had bent poles, and were rickety unless you got the tension right with the poles, stakes and tethers.  Our troop also had these heavy wooden cabinets, known as the “patrol boxes”, that took two people to carry, and the dads, referred to as the Old Crow Patrol, had their own.  The canopies that we had were in the same shape of the pup tents - a mess of poles that had lost any colored marking so it was your best guess what fit together.  In the dark.  Tonight was my initiation as well with this equipment.  You had to improvise when pieces were inevitably missing.  

Soon you could tell who among the Scouts had the most experience getting their gear set up.  One of the Eagles, having finished first, had started a fire and the others were finishing. My kid and his buddy for the weekend were still struggling to get their tent set up.  There was a bit of good pressure not to be the last to the campfire.  I could tell my son was eager to join the others. 

“We’ll do it after campfire,” he said hopefully.  

That wasn’t going to work, so we started over and the boys finally got the hang of it. 

I could see some of the challenges coming up for my son.  As a family we had been camping, but this was different.  He had to work with his buddy with a tent he hadn’t had experience with, it was pitch black out so a misplaced stake added time when they couldn’t find it.  Being late October it was going to get down below 40 degrees that night. Setting up the tent was not necessarily the survival part. But the cold would be.  It would be a different type of milestone for him.  

It got down to 38 degrees.  I expected my kid to come to my tent, but he made it through the night without needing my help.

The next day the Scoutmaster rousted the camp with revelry - he had a speaker for his phone and it woke everyone up quickly.  With a full day ahead we dads had to ignore achy bones and stiff backs from sleeping out in the cold.  Coffee was the priority for us while the boys started their breakfast.   

There was a lot planned for the boys to learn.  Naturally in one weekend a kid is not going to become an expert and start a YouTube channel.  But Rob, the Scoutmaster who was instructor for the weekend, had an itinerary that offered a lot for beginners like my kid and a chance for the older guys to polish skills.  We had 17 boys with us, and most of them were more senior.  But there were challenges for them too.  Some being self directed in that they wanted to try building different styles of shelters for the night, or there was an old score to settle because they lost one of the fire starting contests from last outing and they wanted a chance again at besting their buddies.

The Wilderness Survival Badge offers a lot of challenges, and it is a start for many that becomes a foundation for a Scout’s skills.  Many of these things are common sense, but there is a lot to learn here, particularly a mindset to have a plan.  It doesn’t take long for the boys to realize that in order to have a great survival kit that can help you out in a jam, you need to think through what you may need that you can easily carry with you.  The other is to recognize what is out there for you to use for signaling, making a fire, making a stretcher or brace.  Or what heat exposure does or how hypothermia sets in.  First aid is an important component with training of what to do in case of frostbite, dehydration, blisters, insect stings, tick bites, and snakebite.

Fire building is another big component of the weekend training, and the guys had to start a fire with three different methods without using matches.  There are some neat ways with batteries and steel wool and some frustratingly hard ones like the bow-and-drill which takes a lot of energy.  Rob reinforced these units with what tinder you could find, like dried cattails, and what things to put in a survival kit to make fire starting easier.  The neat thing was the Scouts were challenged with lots of hands on tasks, and asked to think about what they could do to plan ahead. 

But the biggest milestone was building a shelter and sleeping in your humble abode overnight.  The Scouts were able to buddy up, they could use a tarp or trash bags, yet the rest was their own ingenuity.  Sleeping bags and mattresses would be allowed, but we had to teach the guys to identify what tree limbs were widow makers, where to build to avoid wind and wet marsh, and the wisdom of keeping the structure low to the ground to trap heat.  D-Bar offers all of those challenges with different terrain, but with plenty of downed trees, there were plenty of limbs that could be hauled to build something that would keep the wind off of you.  

It was a cloudless, crisp October day, with no cloud cover projected for the evening, meaning it was going to be colder than the previous night.  Rob warned the boys about being too grandiose with their shelters and advised them to think about cover and heat.  We turned the boys loose to work for the remainder of the afternoon with an inspection later.  

This was the fun part for us dads, as we built our own shelter, called Le Chateau.  The 3 of us were like 14 year olds again, and found a cluster of trees and a huge limb for a “rafter” on the outskirts of the camp.  We reconnoitered the area and found several other dead trees with the bark peeling, perfect material for roof and sides.  Yeah, we got too into it, with a primary mesh layer for a roof, tons of leaves for the second layer and sheets of bark on top.  Yes, you read that right, I got the bark to peel in huge sheets.  Check the photo out, ignore the look on my face. I'm not pouting, I don't know what the hell got into me when we took that photo.  We came back to this site two subsequent years after this weekend, and others cannibalized Le Chateau for the wood after the third year, but it was a good shelter.   

Rob inspected all the shelters, with all scouts and dads going from one to the next.  It was a good lesson for the guys, with both favorable and constructive comments when something was wrong.  For my part I think it’s very good for the guys to hear a critique of their efforts in front of others, it toughens them up and gets them ready for a life that may not be so kind. It’s also good for the younger guys to see some of the mistakes that the older guys may make, it teaches them that no one is infallible. We 3 got dinged for possibly having a roof too high.  Some of the scouts figured out they could use bark on their own, and some just did a simple low tarp.  Some found tree limbs and used that to build upon.  My son and his buddies looked like hobbits sitting proudly outside their shelter, there were 4 guys in that one shelter.

That night it was cold, as once the sun set and dinner was finished the temps dropped quickly as we sat by the fire.  It was projected to get down to 34 degrees.  So we decided to check the youngbloods every hour to make sure no one had rolled out their shelter and or sleeping bag.  I have to say I hardly saw my son during dinner, the boys were still running wild as they were pretty jazzed from the day’s building and other activities.  A few times prior to the trip I had coached my son regarding keeping his hat on while he slept, and keeping his coat inside the sleeping bag instead of just chucking it if he got too warm.  The Scoutmaster had a similar talk with the guys about staying warm.  But the rest was going to be on them to stay out in their shelters.  Realistically, though. I think the biggest risk was embarrassment if one of the kids needed help.  They were a brave group, and they made it through that evening.  The temperature hit 34.  

As a parent, sometimes you witness a change in your child that is not apparent to your kid.  While the event isn’t marked with their “aha” moment of realization that they have passed a milestone, you know a change has taken place.  And it is also a comfort to see that your kid just did their best, adapted, and now they are ready for the next hardest thing.  We all took our shifts to check the boys, and yes, it was cold to be out, I won’t lie to you.  But even the youngest of the guys really soldered through something that many adults wouldn’t even attempt.  And yet when they awoke the next morning, cold and bleary eyed, they could only think of making their own breakfasts right away.  They completed a right of passage but were thinking about oatmeal and something warm to drink.  I don’t know how to describe it, I’m beaming as I type this article, as I still have a deep sense of pride that my son went through this, without really knowing anyone all that well.

So it was Sunday, and after taking the camp down, we had one last cool activity for the scouts, which pitted the patrols against one another.  We held a fire starting contest.  To keep it fair for the newbies, we split the youngest patrol up and added them to the other two.  Rob tied strings between stakes just shy of a foot off the ground, and the patrols had to find tinder, kindling, and only using their magnesium starter strips to start a fire.  The first team to burn through their string won.  They had to get it done in under 30 minutes.

Chaos ensued.  Some of the older guys thought they had an idea of where to find what they needed, but it took them longer than they expected to locate everything.  Now here’s the thing that was most fun to watch.  Both patrols were neck in neck gathering what they needed, but the younger group got their fire started first.  A little bit of panic set in the older group at the thought of the indignity of losing to the younger guys.  Unfortunately the younger guys made the mistake of throwing too much kindling on too soon, and nearly put their fire out.  I really wanted them to win, but the older guys just got lucky and won.  But it was a good competition.  

That weekend was a great initiation for my son, and the Wilderness Survival camp out became both our favorites to attend.  My son made friends that weekend and he is still close with them today, having kept touch through college. They shared many more adventures, many without me, and that’s the way it should be.  The troop was a close group, this experience prepared them for even harsher conditions, like a trip we took in November one year where it got down to 17 degrees while we camped out.  But that story is for another time.