Generally Boy scouts are 10 years old or above. However, being an Eagle Scout with Junior Leader Training and former Leader I learned quickly that age does not equal experience or trust. The majority of new scouts got frustrated trying to start a fire in the best of conditions, never mind in the worst. Many also had to be carefully watched when wielding simple hiking sticks, never mind knives and lighters. I wouldn't let a scout carry a knife and fire starting device until I felt they were ready and trained with their certification cards (still Toten Chip and Fire'm Chit I gather?). However, all scouts would be given a whistle (with info about the three blasts for help signal) and water bottle right away and were expected to carry them.

Fact is, one list does not really work for all. Skill level varies greatly, even among scouts of the same age or rank. Telling (or even just allowing) a first year scout with little training or experience he needs to carry fire starting gear with him could end up being more disastrous than helpful, even in a survival situation.

I agree wholeheartedly. But, the problem in scouts is that our children includes kids raised by other people. Sometimes that means you are going to have problems, not just with the kids, but with the parents as well. If a young kid carries a knife because it's on some list and doesn't have any training or experience that knife could just end up exacerbating the situation for the child.

Plus, if he does get rescued you'll end up getting sued by the parents because the knife the kid carried (on your recommendation or because it was on your list) endangered his welfare by hindering his survival (due to the self-inflicted gash on his hand). It's a shame, but that is what we deal with today.

Ditto Paul. The scouts had to earn their Toten Chip (basically learn the basics of knives: cut away from you, no rough housing, saying "thank you" to signify you have the knife firmly while passing, etc). You'd lose a corner if you were caught violating rules. In my troop though, it seemed that the adults left you alone if you were responsible/mature enough. We had a good troop in terms of adult leaders, and later, older kids as role models.

Most kids are fine with a SAK, but I did have one idiot that loved the Rambo knife... at least until he threatened a kid at a Merit Badge Day (he was about 15 or 16, the rest of us around 12). Out he went. I think the big thing is active parents, aware of it's necessity, and smart about what to buy. It's really hard to intimidate someone with your 3" SAK, when the other 10 kids with you have one. But bring a Ka-bar to camp, and there WILL be issues.

Nighthiker:

I just went thru my BSA Handbook again, Not even a SAR Section, guess it's time for me to find a newer copy.

I'd say that the training is as important as the equipment -- if the scout knows what to do when lost then his chances improve greatly.

Garrett, I think you will find that most of us don't have problem with giving a knife to a young citizen, regardless of age. A child is different matter.

However, we also except that schools get twitchy, because of the ratio of feral children to normal children to young citizens.

As others have said, knowledge is most important, without it, gear is misused, or not used at all. This applies to adults as well as kids.

As far as getting scouts to carry the minimum required stuff, it seems, at least as far as I have seen, that scouts today rarely wear the uniform, and if they do, usually only the shirt. With the current popularity of "cargo" type pants, many, if not most, of the scouts will probably be wearing them, it should be pretty easy to come up with kits that they can stuff into one of those many pockets (that is why I like cargos myself). Won't be as easy to tell if they are "equipped" that way as opposed to a pack or fanny pack, but there are ways to work around that.

As far as whistles go, I have to agree that a pea whistle is not the best, but I was required to carry a pea whistle as a part of my uniform, and actually did it for the first ten years or so. A quality pea whistle (Acme Thunder, brass, highly polished in my case), will work. I have stood in the rain directing traffic for more hours than I care to remember, and never had it fail to work. In really cold weather you do have to warm it up a bit first, or it will become attached to your lips. But at least you won't drop it that way. Much better than no whistle at all...

I don't know how much they changed the BSA handbook in the last few years, but as I remember it was pretty useless as far as outdoors info. It didn't go into much detail on anything.

The Fieldbook was, by far, the better resource.

Normally I would expect (demand) that they dress appropriately and carry water. A knife and fire starting materials may be carried after earning their Totin' Chip and Firem'n Chit. We do not allow youth to carry lighters at any time. The patrol boxes have them for lighting stoves and lanterns. There have been too many cases of disposable lighters exploding from a sharp impact. A former scoutmaster had seen pictures of a youth that fell with one in his shirt pocket. It has been a troop policy ever since. Other fire making materials are fine (with the appropriate Chit). A whistle is excellent. We camped in Canada one summer at a camp that wrapped around a lake. You had to canoe everywhere. Every one in camp was required to have a whistle on there person, all the time. For several years after that, most of the youth who had been on that trip carried their whistles on other events. Unfortunately, that has somewhat died out. The council owned camps do not allow fixed blade knives, so we encourage youth to use folding knives with a locking blade.

It's funny - I never remember a "tote'n chip" in my troop - in fact, most NEW scouts came up from the Cubs, and tended to get a BOY Scout knife to replace their CUB Scout knife on the "Moving up" ceremony

Friday nights were the Troop Meetings. Right after Colors, there was inspection. I'll see if I can remember what we were supposed to carry.

You were in full uniform (this is the old Khaki uniforms, except for Leadership Corp - who wore Explorer Greens). This meant polished shoes - or hiking boots, your neckerchief properly folded, Garrison cap pants, shirt, belt (No dress sash required except certain meetings)

Other required items:
Approved knife (almost everyone had the classic 5 blade boyscout knife)
Paper and Pencil
Handkerchief
10 cents (later 25) for phone
Until you were signed off on knots - 3 ft of clothes line

On "camping trip" Fridays (we almost always went on 2 nighters) - you were inspected - you had to have a first aid kit, boots, had to wear your neckerchief, but NOT the rest of your uniform, pocket knife, Knife/fork/spoon, mess kit, canteen, food, rope, match case with matches, compass, maps for area we were going (my troop RARELY went to scout camps - we went into the WOODS), clothing based on season, etc You were given a list of minimum gear

Patrol Leaders were expected to inspect their patrols

The Senior Patrol leader and Assistant Sr then double checked, and checked the Patrol leaders - the JASM would sometimes inspect THEM

This was before any of us heard of multitools. Between the Leadership Corp (Patrol Leaders and up) we carried group gear - things like larger first aid kits, pliers, wire, 2 handed axes etc

Gee - sounds almost paramilitary, huh? That's because the Boy Scouts were!

If I remember right - our big "moving up" ceremony for the Cubs was December, so their first Troop meeting was in January - By end of March - they were expected to be ready for a 20 mile day hike!