This is a high adventure experience that will have scouts canoeing 50 miles of rivers and lakes in the Maine wilderness and camping over a eight day, seven night period, venturing into a remote outpost town (accessible only by air/water), and earning outdoor merit badges. Scouts and adults will earn the rare and highly regarded BSA “50 Miler Afloat Award”.
Occasionally, the Council will offer, or some troops will do a 50 mile canoe trip. However, these trips are rare, expensive, and typically offered only to scouts over 14 years old. Not so with Troop 4. Our adventure is open to all current scouts, and the cost will be very reasonable. Furthermore, we are taking advantage of the troop’s own wilderness expertise to craft a self guided / self outfitted (except the canoes) adventure. We were very successful on this approach for our last wilderness canoe trip in 2006. This approach gives us much more flexibility during our adventure, keeps costs reasonable, and affords scouts increased opportunities for trip planning, merit badges and the ability to demonstrate leadership. This trip will probably be the only chance a scout will have to do a week-long canoe trip into the wilderness.
We will leave Milford by chartered bus on Saturday morning, August 14th and arrive in the town of Millinocket ME (about 325 miles away) to start our trip. After a night at a kickoff camp-site, we will board the canoe provider’s vans for the final drive to our remote canoe put-in location, deep in the Maine “North Woods”. We will canoe and camp along a route that takes us through lakes and rivers, including the Penobscot River, Lobster Lake and Chesuncook Lake. Our trip will include a stop at the remote trading post town of Chesuncook Village on the shores of Chesuncook Lake. We will canoe during parts of the day and camp at pre-determined campsites along the route. The total water route will be a little over 50 miles. The following Friday, August 20, we will finish up at east end of Chesuncook Lake and meet our vans for the ride back to our final campsite location in Millinocket. We’ll clean up for a night at this campsite, and then gear up for the ride home to Milford on our chartered bus the next morning. We will be home on Saturday afternoon for a family barbeque at TBD location where we will share stories from the trip, and give a 50-Miler Award presentation to each scout and adult participant.
We will be sleeping in troop tents and cooking in patrol size groups for the trip. The cooking will be on a mix of open fire and troop backpacking stoves. The food that we eat will be a top-rate expedition menu that we are developing over the next several months (the meals will be excellent!). We’ll re-use some of the best recipes from the 2006 canoe trip, and develop some new ones. The food and specialty gear will be purchased by the troop and packed by the scouts prior to leaving for the trip.
There are many areas of planning, logistics, specialty gear, and food that are required for the trip. Venture scouts and other scouts will be working closely in assigned positions with adult leaders for these areas. This is a great learning and leadership opportunity for the scouts.
Adult leaders for the week are likely to include Phil Bedard, Bob Garber, Peter Lanciano, Java Jim Brundrett, Jeff Croteau, Pat Gallagher, Stacey Barie, Mark Stiles and likely several others. The trip leaders all have extensive experience with canoe trips and other high adventure activities. As with all of our activities, the Troop will follow all of the BSA regulations for the trip and we will meet or exceed the requirements for training, water safety, first aid, etc.
This trip will be a great opportunity for scouts to earn outdoor merit badges. The adult leaders will be counselors for the badges and we will have time built into the trip to allow for scouts to work with the counselors to earn the badges “in the wilderness”. We are planning to offer the following merit badges: Canoeing, Camping, Cooking, Mammal Study, Nature, Orienteering, Pioneering, Soil & Water Conservation, Weather, Wilderness Survival, Woodcarving, Astronomy, and possibly more.
The complete cost of the trip (food, troop and specialty equipment, transportation, etc.) for scouts, adult leaders and parents is projected to be about $350 for adults, and $350 for scouts who sold at least $100 worth of pancake tickets. There is a dollar for dollar discount for scout ticket sales over and above $100. For instance, if you sold $200 worth of tickets, your trip price would be $350 - ($200-$100) = $250. The price for scouts who did not sell $100 worth of tickets is $450. The adult price is not dependent on ticket sales. Note that this trip is open to 2nd year scouts and above. First year scouts are encouraged to instead attend summer camp with the troop at Camp Resolute.
Scouts will only need to bring their personal camping gear (which they already have) and some pocket $ for the trading post stops and lunch on the bus trip up/back. Included in the cost of the trip will be a special Troop 4 Adirondack Expedition t-shirt! The estimated price of the trip is approximate, though it is based on expected headcount, vendor quotes and a study of expenses from the 2006 trip, so it is not expected to fluctuate much.
How to Sign Up for the Adirondack Adventure: The deposit of $100 per person for the trip is due no later than the March 4th troop meeting. The balance due for the trip is due by the May 20th troop meeting. Scouts will be notified of their specific pancake ticket price discount prior to this due date.
Thanks for all of your support. We are looking forward to a great upcoming year for Camp Resolute and 50 Miler Maine Canoe Adventure! Please call or email Phil Bedard if you have any questions.