Camping,
BDUTroop-Style Camping,
BDUTroop-Style Where and When we Camp
We like to try different places, each season, rather than returning to the same place every time.
We have adopted the (New York, Ontario, Quebec) Tri-District Camporee as our annual Spring Camp event. The location of this event tends to rotate between the districts. Up until last year, the date of this camp was always Mother's Day weekend (which unfortunately tended to be a sore point with some....). Last year, the organizers moved the camp to the following weekend - a new tradition or a moment of "weakness"? Time will tell...
Our Fall Camp is often at Camp Tamaracouta, north of Montreal (though in October '97 we travelled all the way to New Hampshire, to share a camp with a BSA Troop our Skip had met at the Jamboree CJ'97). This camp tends to be in October or November (usually the weekend left over after Halloween and the Cub Fall Camp weekend have been plotted on the calendar).
Our Winter camp usually takes place in January. In 1998 and 1999, BDUTroop was invited by our Cub Pack to share the Arundel Tree Farm, for Winter Camp. This allowed us to take advantage of marvellous facilties, which we could not afford on our own, while offering the senior Cubs a chance to visit and participate in a Scout camp. It also offered the Kim(s) an opportunity to participate in both camp events.
How we Camp
We usually do our Spring and Fall camping in 3-person and 4-person 3-season dome tents, setting up a "Base Camp" with luxurious "creature comforts" like a kitchen tarp, picnic tables, Coleman stove, camp cooler, refined water supply, etc.. On our Winter camps, we construct an outdoor shelter, like a Quintze, and will sleep in that if the weather permits, but we also arrange for indoor overnight accomodations, because we have had too many occasions when the weather did not "permit". (rain, ice, melting snow...).
We will normally travel to our base campsite by car or van, arriving on a Friday night, after supper, and returning on the Sunday afternoon before suppertime.
We always bring day-hike equipment and sometimes plan and pack for an overnight camp away from the base.
We enjoy the novelty of campfire cooking, when it works, but our preference at base camp is for meals cooked on the propane stove. We have been experimenting with the MSR one-burner stoves, but we are finding them a bit too "fussy" to maintain and manage. We much prefer propane and butane stoves, for their greater convenience and the degree of control they offer over the flame. In theory, though, the gas fuels reportedly do not operate well in winter conditions, while naptha does.
We did experiment with that theory, in our winter camps, hoping to find that the latest fuels would prove quite satisfactory in the conditions under which we are willing to camp outside. If they had, we had planned to invest in portable butane or propane stoves and lanterns for future overnight camps, and will retire the MSR stoves or "donate" them to the Venturers. Unfortunately, propane proved to be problematic at Winter Camping temperatures - the valve would stick open in the cold & we had to take the equipment indoors for a while, to be able to remove the tank without it "leaking to death."
Resource Material
Here are some camping resources which we continue to refine, each year. If you have others to contribute or feedback on these, please send them to us and we will add them here, with appropriate credits:
Personal Packing Lists - Spring\Fall Camping ; Winter Camping
Permission Slips*
Troop Packing Lists*
Menus and Recipies*
Grocery lists*
* NOTE: the missing linked material is not yet available- please be patient with us, while we find the time to create it. Thanks.
Recommended Reading
BDUTroop recommends the following reference material, having found it to be useful in our own endeavours:
Last updated: 20 September, 1999
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If you would like more information about BDUTroop, please contact us at BDUTroop@bigfoot.com