Okpik means "Snowy Owl" and is a Boy Scout winter camping program. There is an excellent resource titled "Okpik: Cold Weather Camping" available at scout shops which provides lots of great advice on operating a safe winter excursion. You might also learn a bit from reading Winter Camping Tips when planning the training for a campout.

Our troop heads up north on Friday for our own Okpik campout. The scouts have planned the morning to pile snow for shelters - there's 8 inches of snow so it takes some work to make a quinzee. While the snow settles, they're having a cross-country map and compass contest. Then, digging out their shelters in the late afternoon. It's a long day of work, but so exciting for scouts doing it the first time. Fortunately, there's a good handful of experienced scouts going along so they'll show the right way to build and prepare for the night outside.

This year, we're having a visitor from Boys' Life taking photos for a story which will probably show up next year. They called to find out what we were planning and if they could take photos. I said it sounded ok to me, but I'd have to ask the Senior Patrol Leader at the PLC meeting and get back to them. :-) It was pretty much unanimous that a photographer would be welcome.

If you saw the past issue of Boys' Life, there was an article about some Minnesota scouts icefishing and some other scouts doing some winter orienteering. It's good to see a broad range of winter scouting activities covered to broaden the sights of troop leaders.

The funny thing is that this photographer is flying up from Georgia, poor guy. This past weekend, it was -16F here but the forecast is a heat wave of 26F on Saturday.

Scout On
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