Scouts Canada Survivorman Challenge
- Written by Ian Mitchell
Bringing only a small amount of equipment, food and water...
Scouts Canada has long been known for preparing youth for leadership roles and for helping to teach knowledge, skills, and outdoor expertise through experiential, hands-on learning. Les Stroud, Canadian filmmaker and survival expert, recently became involved in Scouting by helping to take the Venturer Outdoorsman Award program to new heights, while introducing a new challenge for Rovers.
Stake-Out
Help Beavers mark out a piece of ground with a circle of string, and tell them to take a close look at the territory within the boundary to see how many living things, or how much evidence of life, they can find. Encourage them to lift pebbles and look closely at leaves and stems. Pass out some magnifying glasses to your Beavers to help them explore.
Have the Beavers follow a crawling insect to find out how fast it moves, what it eats and where it lives.
If Beavers pick up an insect (and they will), ask them to handle the bug gently and look carefully. What colour is the bug? How many legs does it have? Can they find its mouth and eyes? How many segments does its body have?
Make sure you tell the Beavers to put their critters back as close to where they picked them up as possible.
“Survival is not about smelling the pines and feeling the breeze on your weathered and tanned face. Survival is not fun. It’s not pretty. It’s never comfortable. It may involve eating gross things, enduring pain and deprivation, and battling fatigue and loneliness. It may involve danger. It’s about life and death.
No matter how prepared you may be, you should never lose sight of the fact that a survival situation is an emergency. It may seem fun on a survival-skills weekend when you’re fully fed, guided by an instructor, and surrounded by a group of like-minded students, all smiles and dirty faces. But in a real-life ordeal, “fun” is not part of the equation.” (From “Survive; Essential Skills and Tactics To Get You Out of Anywhere – Alive” by Les Stroud (SURVIVORMAN)
Stroud says, “The “Survivorman Challenge” is designed for Venturers and Rovers, ages 14 to 26, who want to stretch their outdoor skills and knowledge while providing an experience that could prove essential in a survival situation. Do not take it lightly, for those who complete it are well on their way to being their own ‘survivorman’.”
Bringing only a small amount of equipment, food and water, the youth must demonstrate several survivor basics, such as building a shelter, lighting a fire without matches, finding edible foods, and keeping a personal log of their experience. Those who accomplish the Survivorman Challenge find themselves with more self-confidence and stretched to their limits.
To find out more about Scouting’s outdoor adventurous programs, visit www.scouts.ca or call 1 888 ScoutsNow.
