Note: Summer camp happened like a week ago. But it was a crazy week of house cleaning and overall adulting and I'm just getting to it now. Better late than never, or so they say.
Summer camp has gotten weird in recent years.
Not that I have anything to base it on, as I went to summer camp exactly zero times in my youth. But, I know how it used to be because...well...I just know.
Every summer camp nowadays seems to be for a specific reason of productivity. Sports camp. Math camp. Morse Code camp. Pre-med camp??
Listen, I don't have anything against camps that teach you something. As long as it's fun for the kids, right? Maybe it's a great alternative to summer school. In which case I can get fully onboard. But if we are choosing Math Camp for "fun"...
Anyways, I am just as guilty of tossing my kids into productivity camps, especially for sports. Hockey camp, baseball camp, I'll be the first to sign them up. But remember the image of summer camp in the 90s, Salute Your Shorts style (if you didn't watch Nickelodeon in the 90s, did you even have a childhood?), campfires and smores and pranks and canoeing, among other wilderness adventures. There's just a lack of that in the world nowadays.
Unless you live in Alaska.
Boy Scouts here in Kodiak is small, but alive. And what better place to do Boy Scouts than the rough wild of the Last Frontier, anyways? Every summer they do a week long summer camp, and it's real camp, thankyouverymuch. Tent camping in the bugs and the (inevitable) rain and canoeing and smores and everything you'd ever envision summer camp to be. And as luck would have it, Brad is somehow in charge of Boy Scouts, so between he and I we got to basically plan the summer camp events single handedly. And this year, Camden was old enough to go too!
So what does a week of Boy Scout summer camp look like in Kodiak? Check out the schedule:
So, I guess I have to take it back. We are pretty productive this week. Every "event" makes progress towards a certain merit badge, even the cooking of meals. I guess even we are just as guilty as every other camp. But at least it's fun campy-type stuff?
After the boys pitched their tents for the week, they were each given a block of wood to carve throughout the week for a little friendly wood carving competition. The winner comes home with a new knife, those that don't still come home with a merit badge.
Throughout the week they also did First Aid and Emergency Preparedness training, canoeing and kayaking (including flipping the boats on purpose to simulate how to save yourself from being upended), rifle shooting, cooking over open flames, a hike up a mountain and then building a shelter from scratch and sleeping in it overnight.
Basically, it was Wilderness Survival in Alaska Camp.
I mean, is there anything better when it comes to camp?
Calen commandeered one of the days to work on his cooking merit badge. He was required to cook over open flame for all three meals, in which he prepared: eggs bacon and hasbrowns for breakfast, chili hot dogs for lunch and chicken teriyaki for dinner.
Camden has developed quite a fear of deep water (where he can't see the bottom) and conquered it on the second day, finallly flipping his canoe and floating in the water while getting himself "out of trouble". This small feat was huge for him in perseverance and facing your fears.
Photo dump!
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| Shooting range. Both boys prone while their buddy spots |
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| Canoeing. Camden in the water |
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| Calen and best buddy Noah working on kayaking |
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| Back to shooting. Calen is a crack shot! |
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| Wilderness Survival - they had to build a rescue litter and carry an injured Scout down the trail. Camden in neon green (because we'll never lose him that way) |
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| More canoeing. Cam in the water! |
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