Horace Kephart was born in Pennsylvania in 1862 and found his way to Hazel Creek in western North Carolina (later to become part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Kephart campaigned for and is considered one of the fathers of the national park. He helped plot the route of the Appalachian Trail through the Smokies. Mount Kephart was named in his honor two months before his death in an auto accident in 1931....
Paul Siple, a nineteen-year-old Eagle Scout in Erie, Pennsylvania, was one of thousands who applied to join Admiral Byrd’s expedition in 1928. Byrd asked the Boy Scouts of America to help him select one Scout to take on the year and a half exploration of Antarctica. Local committees vetted applications and forwarded 88 to the national office. These 88 were winnowed down to six candidates who would meet with Byrd in New York City....
Several books authored by W. Ben Hunt (Walter Bernard Hunt) also known as “Whittlin’ Jim” grace my bookshelves. Each one offers a rich journey into Native American arts and performance, woodworking, whittling, scoutcraft, pioneering, jewelry making, metalworking and calligraphy. Native of Greenfield in Milwaukee County, Hunt was born in 1888 in the log cabin his father built. He dropped out of high school to take a job engraving lithographs and went on to become a noted artist and illustrator....
Friend of the blog and podcast Mike Malone has announced the release of his new excellent, authoritative Eagle Scout history: Four Percent – The Story of Uncommon Youth in a Century of American Life;**. (Listen to my interview with Mike on podcast 137.) Mike is a well known writer, twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. His articles and editorials have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Fortune, he was a columnist for The New York Times and he’s published nearly twenty award-winning technology books...
In recent years parents seem increasingly reluctant to allow their children to do things for themselves – to be ‘free range kids’. It makes me wonder if some parents have written activities like Scouting off as too dangerous, too unsupervised or less valuable than more controlled, conducted and packaged experiences for their children. We are barraged by irrational fears and constantly told to worry about what our kids do, what they see, who they talk to, where they g0....
Podcast Episode: Listen on Apple Podcasts IN THIS PODCASTInterview with author of Free Range Kids and ‘World’s Worst Mom’ Lenore Skenazy. Lenore has a great story to tell about her sons, and how valuable the Scouting experience have been for them. LINKS IN THIS PODCASTShout Out!Lenore’s Blog Buy Free Range Kids on Amazon My review of Free Range Kids | KEEP IN TOUCHContact Clarke GreenCall and leave a voice mail comment or question at (484) 734-0002 Subscribe to the podcast on iTunesFollow us on FACEBOOK – TWITTER | Past editions of the show are available at the PODCAST ARCHIVE |
Cook wild is not a new concept; cooking over anything other than a wood fire is a relatively new development for the human race. A recent study showed that 43 percent, or some 3 billion members, of the world’s population rely on wood fires for their primary source of cooking and heating. Gas or electric stoves are great but we are in danger of losing the knowledge and skill required to cook over a fire....
Why? –in a world of matches? Ernest Thompson Seton answered well when a group of ‘practical business men questioned his zest for the rubbing stick fire – said he, pointing to the ground, ‘You are thinking of the fire that is lighted down there,’ and pointing to his breast continued, ‘I am thinking of the fire that is kindled in here!” Impractical it is only to staid, prosaic oldsters who have forgotten that enchanted world of dreams called childhood!...
My first backpacking trip was a hike to a trail shelter in Shenandoah National Park in the early seventies. My brother and I carried frame-less canvas backpacks with webbing shoulder straps that my dad padded with upholstery foam. I don’t recall the sleeping bags or much else about the gear we used because my brother and I were much more interested in the creek near the shelter. Dad poured over Colin Fletcher’s new book The Complete Walker and so did I....
Read about the book Natural Navigation at The Next Challenge blog by Tim Moss. Tim took a course with Tristan Gooley the author of Natural Navigation: On an east-west running path in the northern hemisphere, you’ll find more puddles and dips on the southern side as it invariably gets less sunlight. You can sometimes get a gauge of north and south by putting a hand on different sides of a rock to see which has been warmed more by the sun....
Ellsworth Jaeger was an educator, author and curator of the Buffalo Museum of Science in Buffalo, New York. Born in 1897` Jaeger’s early inspiration was author and Scouting founder Ernest Thompson Seton. Jaeger later became one of Seton’s associates and business partners. He was an early television commentator and published seven books about nature and the outdoors, two of which are still in print. My favorite Jaeger book is Wildwoods Wisdom....
Outdoor leadership is different. Good administrative skills go just so far when leading a group in an extended outdoor experience. What works at a Troop meeting or in the boardroom does not always translate well on a week-long backpacking or canoeing trip. Scouting offers great administrative training and valuable supplemental training in outdoor skills and safety. What we don’t have is a comprehensive training course in the group dynamics of long-term outdoor trips....
‘ I am on my mountain in a tree home that people have passed without ever knowing that I am here. The house is a hemlock tree six feet in diameter, and must be as old as the mountain itself. I came upon it last summer and dug and burned it out until I made a snug cave in the tree that I now call home. ‘ Like most boys there where times when I wanted to escape; to be self sufficient, independent, heroic....
Years ago I tuned into the new ‘reality’ show Survivor thinking that it would offer some kind of practical advice on the subject, or at least provide an honest depiction of what happens in a true survival situation. Boy was I disappointed. Survival soon became a hot commodity for television shows. Most of them were predictably shallow, sensationalized and, in some cases, downright silly. All but one; Les Stroud’s Survivorman series; an honest depiction of how a skilled outdoorsman reacts to some pretty grim situations....
Medicine for the Outdoors Paul S. Auerbach MD There is nothing in this book that you don’t need to know. I don’t think you have to memorize this book but I would encourage you to know what’s in it and how to find it quickly. Our first duty as Scout leaders is the safety and well being of our Scouts at an age when they are poor judges of risk and have a propensity to overestimate their capacities....
It’s about time! Working the Patrol Method a Scout leader’s guide to youth leadership training is the best work on the patrol method since ‘Green Bar’ Bill Hillcourt’s Handbook for Patrol Leaders last published in 1965 or Baden Powell’s Aids to Scoutmastership originally published in 1920. Authors Rob Faris,Ted Knight and Harry Wimbrough have created an indispensable tool for understanding, implementing and maintaining Scouting’s centrally important concept, the patrol, in the 21st century....
I have spent some memorable hours reading an advance copy of David C. Scott and Brendan Murphy’s new book The Scouting Party… … a thoroughly researched, unflinching account of the founding and first decade of the BSA focused on the lives of Earnest Thompson Seton, Robert Baden-Powell and Daniel Carter Beard. To my knowledge no one has so thoroughly analyzed the events and personalities involved in the founding of the BSA....
I’ve had my copy of the 12th Edition of the new Scout Handbook for a couple of weeks now and I recently added the Scout Handbook to my Ipod touch. I have also looked over the website bsahandbook.org. As the way we use and manipulate information changes I applaud the BSA in attempting to keep up. Information seems to have aspirations to take on one form or another so it will be used....
My first reaction to a book titled camping’s top secrets was “yeah, right”. I’ve been a camper all my life spending a thousand or more nights under canvas or on the trail. My camping education started forty years ago with Colin Fletcher’s book ‘The Complete Walker’ and expanded to the classics written by Horace Kephart, Nessmuk and Bradford Angier. I thought I knew all the tricks until I read ‘Camping’s Top Secrets’....
Father of three child and family psychologist Richard Weissbourd teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and School of Education. His new book ‘The Parents We Mean To Be’ argues that parents have a much greater influence on their children’s moral lives than peers or popular culture. Serving as a Scoutmaster involves a fair amount of exposure to many different styles of parenting and I believe that Weissbourd’s ideas form a solid approach....