From 23-25 October, Troop 581 headed to the Northern Virginia Lions Youth Camp in Boyce, VA to give our first year Scouts the opportunity to earn the Wilderness Survival merit badge. They prepared for several weeks under the instruction of Merit Badge counselor Erik Weaver but the main event is the campout where each Scout must demonstrate the skills necessary to survive in the wild. These skills are based on the seven priorities of wilderness survival and include 1) STOP, 2) provide first aid, 3) seek shelter, 4) build a fire, 5) signal for help, 6) find clean water, and 7) don’t focus on finding food.
After a night of sleeping in tents, the Scouts got up Saturday morning for a quick breakfast and then went to work building shelters out of materials supplied by Mother Nature.
After lunch, they worked with Mr. Weaver on other survival skills including building and lighting fires without matches, purifying water, air and ground signals and reviewing survival kits. For most Scouts, the most stressful requirement for the merit badge is spending the night in their shelter. While this is normally done in pairs, because of COVID concerns, this time they had to sleep by themselves in their shelter. This is a big step in becoming mentally prepared for a survival situation and despite some early morning rain, all our Scouts successfully spent the night in their shelters. Some even said it was their best night sleeping in camp.
In a longstanding Troop 581 tradition, Sunday morning after wilderness survival means the epic “Breakfast of Meats” courtesy of the adult grubmasters followed by a Scouts Own ceremony.
It continued to rain as we packed up and headed for home but a Scout is Cheerful and we all enjoyed the ability to spend some quality time in the outdoors.