My Survivors

Meet some of the members of BSA Venture Crew 7. We went camping and did it "survivalist style". That means we took no tents, no camp stoves, no "Coleman". We built shelters out of whatever was available. We cooked food over an open fire. We braved a thunderstorm and poison ivy and scorpions and impressed even ourselves that we could do it. We really "roughed it"!

And these 4 kids all made my heart swell up with pride. I looked around at one point and saw them all sitting like this...together...voluntarily...HAPPILY! I could have cried with joy at such a sight! Aren't they something?

This is Mesa's shelter. She has used trees and limbs and a thick muscadine vine as braces. She has leaned support branches found on the ground up against the back side of her tree braces and then stretched a tarp over the top and down the back side. She had a second tarp, so using muscadine vines, the second tarp got tied to the grommets of the first tarp, which gave her another wall. A long branch she found on the ground held the second tarp out and gave her extra space inside her shelter. Isn't it great?

And this is Manti's shelter. He built a wikiup with limbs and branches and muscadine vines. Then he spread River Cane and leaves all over it, which actually did hold out the rain that fell! You can see a small fire glowing inside. That fire chased out bugs and kept him comfortable during the rainstorm. He made that all by himself. I'm so proud!

Don't they just make you smile?