I was a "volunteer" adult advisor for the Wilderness Survival Merit Badge at summer camp this year. As a result, I had the "opportunity" to participate in the shelter building overnight with the boys. They spend the week learning survival skills, and then have to spend a night out in a shelter they build from natural materials they find out on the trail.

The adults were given the option of bringing a tent, but, we thought the boys would make fun of us if we wimped out like that. We compromised and showed them how to use alternative things you should have in a daypack (which they weren't allowed to use for this exercise) like poncho's as shelters. I also had a AMK Heat Sheet bivy with me, which was nice (but, too hot for summer, I had to trade off sweating or bugs getting to me). I have included a few photos. I have some notes/observations from spending a week trying to help these guys, I'll type them in when I finish unpacking from Scout Camp!

Oh yeah, to keep it fun, it rained around 1am the night we did this. It wouldn't be a Scout camping adventure without some rain, sleet or snow

Enjoy - Ron


Debris Shelter for 2:







Another proud pair of Debris Condo owners:





A third group:






Roof of one of the "sticks and moss" shelters:






Wait, you mean I have to sleep in this tonight?





Firebuilding 101:





This was my poncho shelter for the night, the boys were jealous:
(Note the AMK Heat Sheet Bivy for my bed)

Hey Ron..... Nice pics, I bet you all had a great time. Looking forward to reading your notes on the trip. How well did the roof of the shelters shed the rain?

smitty

Did you also show them how to build a bough bed to keep off the cold ground? Sleeping directly on the ground is hard and definitely colder than a bough bed.

Now that's a week well spent. The little lambs look knackered. Which is as it should be. Push them hard enough to challenge them, but not so hard that they become discouraged.

Please don't take any of the following as criticism. It's just what I picked out of your pictures. Good photo's. Trying to take pictures after dark even with a decent flashgun can be something of a challenge.

Looking at the laddie with the mozzie head net, should we take it that there as was an excellent chance of being bitten to death?

Bug repellent is vital, not a luxury. If you don't have it, you will need a smudge fire. That's a fire that has green wood or leaves deliberately put on it to generate smoke. Or site your shelter where there is a breeze of at least 5mph.

I notice that you where showing them how to make a classic tee-pee fire. Seems to be a favorite of the Scouts. Works quite well but it is relatively difficult to construct. Have you shown them how to construct a block & brace?

Isn't summer camp grand? I couldn't go for the entire week this year with the troop because of work obligations, but I did make it there for three days.

I'm headed up to a week of BSA summer camp with my son tomorrow. I always wondered why the Scouts aren't allowed to at least use their 10 essentials, including a poncho. The Scouts who did this MB last year didn't get much sleep that night. They said they mostly sat around a campfire and yacked it up. They spent much of the afternoon of the next day sleeping. :-)

For me the biggest issue would be mosquitos, as they can be pretty thick in the woods of central Wisconsin. Did you allow Scouts to bring & use mosquito repellent?

Ken K.

Man, you're makin' me flash here. I was a volunteer "honorary scout master" when my son was in scouts, and did the same as you, 'cept I used what the kids used. Lucky for us, we were on a lake that was very low, and there was no risk of it coming up in months and months, so we had a lot of driftwood, and big rocks with some nice soft sand in between. That made it pretty easy to simply cover over the space between a couple of rocks, scoop out hip and shoulder holes in the sand, and sleep like babies. Of course a bunch of older scouts had to make a midnight (or maybe later, who knows) raid, screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs. Such fun...

Thanks for the comments. Summer camp always is one of the most enjoyable weeks of the year. We jokingly complain about it sometimes, but, none of us would miss it. I wish more parents could come and see their boys in this environment.

As a few of you mentioned, mosquitos are certainly an issue in this area. We had all of the boys slathered with various bug sprays, it's a concern particularly since we typically get some EEE issues by this time each summer. Fortunately, with the storm approaching, we had some wind to keep the little buggers at bay most of the time, but, they do get thick occasionally.

Interesting thing about the fire building exercises, they all have "seen" several ways to build a fire. They've all "seen" us build tinder bundles, and watched us breathe life into a fire from a spark in the bundle in our hands. Still, they really don't get it until they struggle with it themselves. It's really fun to watch them try different things. I think the struggles are what make it so powerful, and reinforces things we try to teach.

The other thing about fire building that they need to experience is that the preparation of the materials and fire lay are far more important than any of them think initially. How many times have we seen them finally get a spark to catch in the tinder, only to see them frantically looking for more fuel to feed on the fledgling fire before it goes out!

About the 10 essentials. Usually, when we do a minimalist overnight, you can use your Scout Essentials. (That's what the adults had available). In this case, for the Wilderness Survival badge, we try to show the boys that they can still build a pretty good shelter even it they don't have anything, it gets them improvising a little. A couple of them figured out that even though we didn't let them bring cord, they all had boot laces and a belt that could be used to help lash things together, for example. After they spent a long time building shelters with what they could find, the adult leaders put together their shelters with the stuff in their fanny pack or day pack in about 5 minutes. We talked about how big a difference that might be if bad weather came up suddenly, or they were injured, or both. Another reason to carry the essentials, but, now they saw how it really made a difference.

We put a twist in the exercise also... after they had built shelters, and we were just starting to get a fire going, someone started screaming for help off in the distance. We had staged a mock injury with a couple other camp staff members. The boys had to set up a search, then assess the injury, immobilize a couple joints, improvise a stretcher, and get the injured hiker back to our camp. In the morning, the boys were given a little postmortem briefing on what went well, and what didn't. (I thought our "victim" was going to become a real casualty a couple times when the stretcher had some issues while they were carrying him out, I think he had a headache by the time they were through with him!) It really threw them out of their comfort zone when we staged it, because although eventually they knew it was a drill, initially, they didn't. Just when they thought they had their shelters built, and a fire and some dinner were next on the schedule, things changed.

Something else that I thought was interesting. Because this was summer, I think some of the boys got lazy with their shelters. They didn't really utilize all of the resources they had to make them hold up to rain better. (Gee, it wasn't raining when I built it?) Anyway, some of the boys spent extra time collecting "God moss" to cover their little condos, packing it in all the gaps. Those boys slept a lot better when it started raining after midnight. The other guys were pretty miserable for a while. I think both factions learned something, one put in the effort up front, the other put up with discomfort later.

Someone earlier mentioned having them make a bed with bough's. We certainly went over how to do that with them, and in colder weather it provides a comfort factor plus warmth, but, for this night, the area we were in had a generally soft ground, almost like peat, so they got away with just clearing the sticks and stones and were able to be comfortable. I think if we did this exercise in winter, there would be a number of changes that we'd need to make. We hope to do a snow trip this coming February in Maine where they'll make quinze huts to sleep in. That will be fun. (It will also be cold, which will change the dynamics)

Another observation... coyote's having a snack at 3AM can be a pretty, ah, exciting situation. I don't know what they killed, but, it sounded like they were having quite a party. When you wake up to the sound of them yelping, it seems like they are right next to you at first, even if eventually you realize that they are really quite far away. We had a bunch of flashlights snap on all at once, it was funny. The coyote's went on yapping for about 10 minutes, then it was over, and we went back to sleep, or at least I did.

I appreciate the suggestions you guys added. I always learn something new when I'm doing one of these trips. I seem to learn a little by reading/listening, more by doing, but, I really know I have it down when I can teach someone else to do it. (especially a skull full of mush)

The midnight raids still are "popular". Now, sometimes there are daytime raids... some scouts have finely honed skills... they know how to make some pretty amazing water balloon launchers. A couple years ago, one of the troops had some older scouts with the FRS radios for their "forward controller". They were launching the balloons from a distance, over our site, trying to hit the guys next to us. It looked like the water balloons came from our site. It was funny listening to the guys on the radio "ok, 10 degrees left.... no, a little more.... ok, FIRE FOR EFFECT"

At least you can still have fun at Scout camp, not many attorneys out there yet

LUCKY! When I did my Wilderness Survival MB, we weren't allowed ANYTHING. We spent 3 days making the shelter, then were walked to it about 8pm on the overnight date. We were allowed clothes only. No 10 essentials, flashlights, fires, etc (though any fire would have set the island ablaze). Being that I was on Catalina Island, it was a bit chilly with the fog coming from the ocean. Every couple of hours the leaders would make rounds and make sure we were still there.