Archive for the ‘Scouting’ Category
August 22nd, 2010 | 
Author: No, nothing really dangerous. Honest. Jim’s post today reminded me of a couple of stories about fire and I had to come back to post. 
- Bridget no longer lights the gas grill at our house. She hasn’t since before Phil was born in 1997. I do most of the cooking, so she was being helpful and decided to go light the ‘Q’ for me. I was cooking burgers or something. Anyway, like about 99% of them on the planet, the push-button igniter on our grill was an iffy affair. Sometimes it would work like a champ: turn on the propane, listen for the hiss, push the button and poof! Fire. Other times it would click and click and refuse to do any good. So, I’m in the kitchen, getting stuff together and I hear the first click. Then another. Then, a third. This is usually the point where I turn off the gas and go find some matches. B pushed the thing once more: I heard the ‘click’, quickly followed by a “WHOOSH” noise, quickly followed by her exclamation: “WHOA!”. I ran outside to check on her. Women without an eyebrow look even funnier than guys for some reason. Honestly, I’m surprised I wasn’t beaten to death. I could barely breathe, let alone ask if she was all right. I laughed so hard that I was thought I was going to pass out. I was laughing that hard.
For some reason, grilling has been adopted by culinarily-challenged men everywhere as their domain. For some reason, guys who can’t boil water think that it’s their place in the world to grill dinner. In our house, that division of labour works just fine. 
Lighting a ceremonial campfire at Cub or Scout camp is always a production. There are hundreds of sites on the web dedicated to theatrically lighting a campfire. At our Fall camp a couple of years ago, I volunteered to produce a flaming arrow to light the fire. Naturally, I had visions of an arrow flying out of the gloom into the heart of the fire and it working right away. It may sound nuts, but I almost immediately started experimenting with rocket motors. It was a natural for me: I had model rockets as a kid and couldn’t think of a better way to get the arrow into the fire from a distance. Even better that the kids wouldn’t see me setting it off. The problem was that all of the rocket motors that I could find had an “ejection charge”. The motor is designed to burn the thrust charge, pause for a second or two, then eject the parachute for safe recovery of the rocket. Pete and I did an experiment at the cottage and while it worked beautifully, the ejection charge proceeded to shoot the arrow back out of the fire. I’ll see if I can find the video. I wound up running a fishing line on an angle from the flagpole into the fire and lighting some gauze wrapped around the end of the arrow. It would have worked very well but for two things: the second that I let go of the arrow, it bounced and the forward hook let it loose from the line. Picture a flaming arrow pointing at the ground, slowly sliding down the line to the fire. I jumped forward and hooked it back on the line and gave it a shove to the fire … just as the campfire chief (the leader running the ceremonial fire) walked in front of the line. He came within inches of getting it right in the behind. It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done and we have a story to tell other pack leaders at meetings. - At Spring camp, another leader (his camp name is Kaa. I’m Mang, the bat) was campfire chief, but I was helping
him work out the ignition system. We’re in what can only be described as a spiral of doom wrt camp fires. We keep coming up with insane ways to outdo each other. He had decided to use pyrodex in his ritual. Yeah, I know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. 
Anyway, the trick was igniting the stuff. If he’d bothered to mention it, I still had some rocket motor igniters at home. Instead, he was thinking of using batteries and steel wool to light the stuff. It’s actually a pretty straightforward survival technique: touch the contacts of a 9-volt battery against the steel wool and the stuff actually burns. That’s easy. But, it requires a very precise touch to place the wires in just the right place in the wool to get this to work from a distance. We found that out during one of the tests: Kaa was holding the wires in place against the steel wool holding a quantity of pyrodex while I touched the other end of the wires to the battery terminal. It didn’t work. Before I could take the wires off the battery terminals, he tried to get a closer look at what was going on and wiggled the wires on the wool at the same time. The cloud of smoke and flame was a sight to behold. I lost sight of Kaa as it engulfed his head. I was sure that we’d killed him, but he quickly sat down and started coughing. When I got a good look at him, I found out just how badly it could have gone: he’d lost half of his left eyebrow, a good chunk of the left side of his moustache and any chest hair that was peeking out of his shirt. The scary part was his head: he must have turned it just as the powder flared, because the toasty bits involved the left side of his head all the way to behind his ear. He claimed to be fine and survived. The real shame came later that evening when we tried to light the fire. It didn’t work and he had to do it manually.
Chil (another leader) and I have a different plan for the fire at Fall camp. I’ll let you know how it goes. The good news is that my insurance is paid up.
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Well, we survived.
Better than that, we had a ball. The weather was gorgeous (26C) on Saturday, the bear was nowhere to be seen and the most serious first aid was a scratchy eye that was fixed with a damp washcloth.
Cub-age kids aren’t the quietest bunch. So, it’s no surprise that we don’t see much in the way of wildlife on our hikes. The animals hear the gabble of 15+ 8-10-year-olds coming and heads for the hills. Normally.
Saturday afternoon, we hit the Doe Lake Trail at Frontenac Park (right next to the camp). The water levels are extremely low in the marsh areas, so we didn’t see the usual turtles, but we did meet up with something new: an Eastern Black Ratsnake. These beauties can grow to a length of more than 2 metres and are the longest snake native to Canada. What I didn’t realize is that they’re also listed as threatened. I guess that explains why I’ve never seen one before and I’ve been camping since 1975. The Kingston area is on the southern edge of the only pocket of their range in Eastern Ontario:
I have the afternoon off work and will be heading out shortly for our Spring Cub Camp at Otter Lake. The weather’s gorgeous (23C and mostly sunny) and we only have 15/19 kids coming to this one.
Now, for the trick: a black bear’s been hanging about the area this spring. One traipsed through the camp last year before the kids arrived, but it just kept moving along. I say it, because we didn’t see it, just a few fresh calling cards on the lane.
It shouldn’t be a problem, as long as it’s not a sow with cubs. The food is plentiful, so there’s lots to distract them from us. Besides, who many wild animals do you know that willingly head towards the sound of 15 8-10-year-old kids?
Well, that’s what parenting is all about, isn’t it? 
Greg and I are teaching the Cubs the basics of beekeeping tomorrow night. Here in Canada, there are two customizable badges that the kids can earn: individual and pack specialty.
The individual badge is for the child to design. They come up with a topic and a list of requirements and bring it in for a leader to approve. Then, they complete the requirements and earn the badge. The leaders do the same for the pack specialty and this year we’re doing beekeeping.
So, we’re hauling an assortment of gear in to the meeting tomorrow night where we’ll do our song and dance. Saturday morning, is the really fun stuff: they’re coming out to check out one of the hives.
Because the Spring weather has been so gorgeous, the boys will get to watch us set up a new hive, too. Spring has sprung a full six weeks ahead of last year and the bees are taking full advantage of it. They’ve been bringing in mountains of pollen and nectar from early blooms and the queens are laying. The spring build-up is under way.
The forecast was just for flurries, but it’s been snowing like crazy since I got to work this morning.
Here’s the Union Street webcam on campus for a live peek:
Still not enough for winter cubbing on Saturday, though. We’re postponing that until later in February. 
I haven’t downloaded the pics from my camera yet, but camp was a roaring success. One of the leaders brought a couple of propane heaters that took the chill off in the cabin nicely and everybody seemed to have appropriate sleeping gear, so no cold kids.
We did have two go home sick Saturday night, though. One with a fever. That’s no fun.
The wildlife was out and about as well:
- A bear wandered through camp sometime Friday afternoon between the time setup crew arrived and when the kids came. Nobody actually saw it but it left some evidence along the lane.
- There were some coyotes active both Friday and Saturday night. The howling was faint on Friday, and not everyone was able to hear them, but nobody had any trouble Saturday night. We gave a few howls and even managed to get an answer.
- A porcupine that was attempting to take up residence underneath one of the leaders’ cars was chased away Saturday afternoon. It climbed to the top of a nearby tree and stayed there until well after dinner.