Finished up three days of camping with Will at the Webelos Resident Camp at Camp Winnebago Scout Reserve in Rockaway. We drove up on Sunday afternoon for 1:00 PM check-in and orientation, set up our campsite later in the afternoon and ate dinner in the dining hall before meeting up for a campwide evening campfire. We’ve camped before, Will and I, but this was our first time in the canvas Boy Scout tents. We should have been more prepared. Unlike the tent we usually bring from home, the canvas tents basically offer overhead protection from rain, but not much else; the are not enclosed at the bottom nor the sides, and evidently a large contingent of Daddy Long Leg spiders decided to camp there at the same time we did. Will and I were a bit skeeved, to say the least. Our first night of sleep was fitful, but got better on the second and third nights.
Spiders aside, Will had fun. The purpose of the resident camp is to prepare the Webelos for entry into Boy Scouts, and the differences between Cub Scout adult leadership and Boy Scout scout leadership. The week before, Will had attended the Scout Day Camp at Camp Allamuchy, so he’d been doing Scout activities for 1 1/2 weeks.
Monday and Tuesday started off with 6:45 AM Polar Bear swims in Durham Pond, followed by 8:00 AM breakfast in the dining hall. From there, Will and his fellow Webelos skateboarded, raced cubmobiles, played field games, built raingutter regatta boats and leathercrafts, learned about geology, snakes, frogs, newts as well as fishing, practiced their shooting skill first on the BB range, then archery, then back to the pond for more swimming and boating. Back to the dining hall for dinner at 6:00 PM, evening campfires, and finally everyone crawled back into their tents around 10:30 PM. The Webelos took turns waiting their tables, and were responsible for setting the tables, bringing out the food, and clean-up afterward. On Monday evening, they took a 1 1/2 mile hike and prepared their own dinners over a campfire, satisfying several of the requirements for the Outdoorsman achievement.
We woke early on Wednesday, readied our site to pack out, had our final breakfast in the dining hall and a final lowering of the flag out on the parade field, and headed home, tired but happy for our experiences at camp.
i haven’t seen a canvas tent in a long, long time. and your description of camp brought back memories i’d forgotten about going to Girl Scout camp when i was a kid with my sister. lots of fun!