Oh Jeopardy!

[UCEagle72 10]

Tomahawk throwing is a "favorite Scout activity" ... oy ... unless I have missed something in the intervening years, last I knew, you could lose your Totin' Chip for that!

 

And why do we allow programs to continue to perpetuate the Boyce-London myth?

 

The real story is good enough.

[SR540Beaver 116]

Tomahawk throwing IS popular. It is always set up at our OA Fall Fellowship as well as other scouting events. Our troop even owns their own set of throwing hawks that we set up several times a year on campouts.

[Oak Tree 15]

You might lose your Totin' Chip for randomly throwing a tomahawk around the camp, but I'm not aware of any general prohibition on the activity. We've done it.

[nrp1488 9]

Our troop does it, our OA chapter does it, we even have it as a station at camporee. It is done just like rifle shooting,ie. safety spotters, only a certain number of throwers on the line, no

one down range until the line is safe, etc.

[NE-IV-88-Beaver 10]

Ditto to what nrp1488 said!!

 

The "tomahawk toss" is a very popular activity. They also do it at Philmont.

[UCEagle72 10]

See -- you learn a lot around here -- of course you all mentioned the primary items -- proper safety, etc.

 

What they did on the TV was without all the safety precautions.

 

Thanks for helping out.

 

[OldGreyEagle 5]

My first thought was I sure hope we don't have thousands of prospective new scouts show up at troop meetings wanting to get in on "hawk tossing" or join and ind out that tossing tomahawks are not standanrd fare at every outing

 

Overall though, it was good, it was better than a stick in the eye

[Miki101 14]

Actually UCEagle,

 

(and I love a good history discussion)...If one studies the so-called Boyce "myth," one would see that it is actually quite plausible and it is improper to dismiss it outright without knowing the facts. There are two historical accounts from witnesses that confirm that if it happened, it happened in December...not in August as later reports have come to describe. In fact, there was only one date according to the London Weather records that indicate fog in the Savoy area during that time....December 23.

 

What is untrue is that Boyce did not meet with Baden-Powell because BP was out of London at the time according to his diary entries. However, Boyce's ship left for New York the next day and arrived in New York on December 30 for quarantine and he disembarked on December 31. At that point he left for DC to incorporate BSA.

 

I go into this story as well as the mostly unknown founding history of the BSA in my forthcoming book, "The Scouting Party: Pioneering and Preservation, Progressiveism and Preparedness in the Making of the Boy Scouts of America," which will be out by June.

 

I was fortunate that the book earned the hearty endorsement of eminent US Historian and NY Times bestselling author of "The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America," Douglas Brinkley, who calls it "a gift to America."

 

In the end, I hope it will lead to a better understanding of the Movement's origins.

 

David C. Scott

[BadenP 93]

Well it may just be me but I don't think Jeopardy did much of a service to the BSA. Portraying the kids as a bunch of tomahawk throwing, teepee firebuilding, and stick in the ground to find direction was weak and inaccurate to say the least. The Boyce story at least gets closer to the principles scouting tries to extol on the youth but all in all I would give it a C- for the attempt. Still any positive publicity is better than none, and everyone knows that a log cabin fire is vastly superior to a teepee fire, lol.