Scouting, Volume 71, Number 1, January-February 1983 Page: 25
58, E1-E24, [16] p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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I
In Minnesota's northern waters and
adjacent Canadian lakes, Scouting families
have a new passport to high adventure.
first closeup view of the American national em-
blem, the sight and sound of the loons, and the
smell of freshly caught gamefish cooking over a
wood fire were just a few of many absorbing
events that filled the calendar for five action-
packed days as the Melanders sampled a brand-
new concept in the high adventure program of the
B S A —the family wilderness canoe trip.
The idea was born the previous year in the
restless mind of Sandy Bridges, director of the
Charles L. Sommers National High Adventure
Base, located on Moose Lake, along Minnesota's
northern border, 22 miles east of Ely. Since 1926,
Boy Scouts and adult advisers had been making
expedition-type trips into the adjacent 4,000
square-mile Quetico-Superior Wilderness
country. With the development of the 18-acre base
in the 1930s and subsequent construction of a
dining hall, trading post, office, sauna, and
showers, up to 250 groups of Scouts embark on
canoe trips each summer.
The last decade, however, Bridges began to
sense a change in the vacation interests of many
outdoor-oriented Scouting families. Rather than
splitting up for all-male or all-female trips, they
preferred to stay together, enjoying the outdoors
within the family context.
"I began to feel that the base should be more
flexible and in addition to our regular expeditions,
we should be providing those families with canoes,
camping equipment, and trail food, at modest
rates, and also provide them with the benefit of
our years of experience in wilderness camping, trip
planning, and mapping."
Response from the advisory committee of the
Sommers base was instantaneous and enthusiastic.
Subsequent approval by the Boy Scouts of Amer-
ica resulted in the program being officially insti-
tuted into the 1982 program.
Some changes were required: Under the stan-
dard trip plan, nine persons—boys age 14 and up
plus adult advisers and a staff member acting as a
guide—constituted a single "brigade." Trips were
usually 10 days in length, covering more than 100
miles of strenuous paddling and portaging.
Bridges set about to change this, leaving the trip
length and time to the discretion of the family and
making guides available upon request.
"We decided to fit the trip to the family, not the
other way around," Bridges noted. "Depending on
camping skill or canoe experience, each family
could select the type of wilderness trip they
desired, from very easy to more difficult, in a time
frame to fit whatever vacation time they wished to
spend and to cover any age family member."
Scouting January-February 1983
In the spring of 1982, the family trip became an
official part of the high adventure program, but
publicity was purposely kept at low key. "We were
adjusting to a new idea which required changes in
our base operation and we wanted to feel our way
into this slowly, working out any problems as they
developed," Bridges explained.
Surprisingly, few problems cropped up.
Families began to arrive, some requiring complete
(Below) On a family high
adventure, teamwork is
as important as it is on
any patrol or Explorer
crew trip.
w. ...
25
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 71, Number 1, January-February 1983, periodical, January 1983; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353567/m1/29/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.