Troop Camping Locations

[CalicoPenn 729]

A typical year when I was a Scout:

January - Klondike Derby - County Forest Preserve - no overnight (no such thing as Okpik then)

                  Cabin Camping - Boy Scout Campground

February - District First Aid Meet - no campout

March - alternated tent camping at a BSA campground or cave camping at Eagle Cave.

April - Grant Pilgrimage in Galena, Illinois - tent camping at Mississippi Palisades State Park

            Scout-O-Rama - Arlington Park Race Track

May - District Camporee - tent camping wherever camporee was - usually a BSA campground

June - Patrol Camping - usually at local BSA campground (Camp Lakota - in council - no camping fees)

July - Summer Camp - under set-up in advance canvas wall tents - Ma-Ka-Ja-Wan.  Summer Camp was two-weeks long - Had the same weeks (3&4) and same campsite (Hickock - West Camp)

August - Day Trip - either a long distance (10+ miles) hike or a canoe trip

September - Tent Camping - usually a BSA campground

October - Camporee - wherever the District held the event

November - annual Brown County, Indiana trip for hiking or bicycling.  Always the first weekend in November - stayed in a private lodge.

December - Hayride, bonfire and shotgun shooting at local farmers.

Of course if you were in OA there was the Spring Ordeal Weekend at Napowan in June, the Fall Fellowship at Lakota in late September or early October and the Winter Banquet in December.

Patrols were encouraged to camp or hike on their own throughout the year - but we were required to plan and hold a campout in June.  We didn't do lock-ins and didn't do any battleship camping/museum overnights but I do remember an overnight stay at the Glenview Naval Air Station in one of their dorms the Saturday night of the Air & Water Show which was really cool because that's where the military planes took off from and where the crews stayed - including the Blue Angels, Thunderbirds and the Golden Knights - so we got to watch them all take off and land and got to spend time meeting the crews and pilots.

Most of our camp sites were Boy Scout camps - part of the reason is that they were always open and usually available (unless someone was doing a big event).  Being in the Chicago Metro area, we were a bit lucky (or spoiled perhaps) - We had 9 or 10 Councils, all with their own long term and short term camps, within 100 miles of us (the Councils, not the camps - though there were almost a dozen short-term Scout Camps within that 100 mile circle).

From September to May, campsite set-up was almost always in the dark.

Edited January 26, 2018 by CalicoPenn