Boy Scout Troop 325
By George Denise, Scoutmaster
Last weekend, we held our annual BearPaw Winter Camping Outdoor Experience. BearPaw is a three-part program: an indoor, all-day seminar on how to prepare for winter camping which takes place in the fall, the three-day, two-night outdoor camping experience itself, and this year, for the first time, a three-day trek on skis with backpacks in the high country above Yosemite Valley later on this Spring. The purpose of this program is to prepare scout units, leaders and scouts, for snow camping as part of a formal program, with trained leaders, and in the accompaniment and relative saftey of hundreds of other scouts and scouters.
BearPaw is similar to many other snow camping programs put on by Boy Scout councils all over the country, often called Klondike Derbies, occasionally Okpik. The program is meant to challenge Scouts to continue their development as campers, to push the envelope a little bit farther, and become a little more experienced, a little more skilled, a little bit more self-confident. Building your own snow cave and spending the night in it is viewed almost as a test of manhood in many councils; and the scout that emerges in the morning often is a new man.
In years past, we have had many scouts from our troop and crew attend BearPaw. This year, we had just two Scouts and two members of Venture Crew 325 attend. Family vacations, a broken wrist, flu and colds, and a wrestling match interfered. The two Scouts that did attend, Dennis T. and Robert Y., and the two Venturers, Emma P. and Annie S., represented our troop and crew well, and hosted a great event for the other scouts, a sled rescue relay. I believe they had fun, learned, probably were cold at times, but braved the elements, and grew and they are that much stronger for it. Adversity does build character. Consider...
The tree that never had to
fight for sun and sky and air and light,
That stood out in the open
plain and always got its share of rain
Never became a forest king,
but lived and died a scrubby thing.
The man who never had to
toil, who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and
air never became a manly man,
But lived and died as he
began.
Good timber does not grow in
ease. The stronger wind, the tougher
tree,
The farther sky, the greater
length, the more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and
snows, in tree or man, good timber grows.
Written by E. Urner Goodman
Founder of the Order of the
Arrow
Thank you, and God be with you!