Summer Camp at Camp Sequassen

It is 11:40 a.m. on Sunday, the 10th of July and I am sitting in the back seat of my Dad’s car in Camp Sequassen’s parking lot. Around 12:00 p.m. everyone from my troop starts showing up and we put all of our gear in one spot. By 12:30 p.m. everyone is here and we are ready to head up to camp.

We will spend a week camping at the Nathan Hale Campsite. I end up being tent mates with Ryan and that is fine with me since I am good friends with Ryan. By 1 o’clock we have all of our gear set up in our tents and have the mosquito netting up around our bunks to keep the mosquitoes out at night. My parents leave around 1:00 p.m.  

At 1:30 we are in a small orientation and ready to do our swim test. We’re soon done with that and have some free time. I head down to the trading post with some friends to pick up a new hat and get a new pocket knife. Every night for dinner we need to wear our Class A uniforms. So we all get changed. I was waiter for that meal so I had to do clean up. We then head back to camp to rest and get ready for a camp wide campfire and then get some sleep for the merit badges the next day. Our schedule for Monday thru Friday is basically the same every day. The merit badges I am taking this week are Life Saving, Fishing and Astronomy.

Monday, I wake up around 6 a.m. and within a couple of minutes Mr. Ackell comes around waking anyone up who wants to do the polar bear swim. I do, so I get dressed in my bathing suit and everyone who wants to swim is set and ready to go to the waterfront. My swim tag wasn’t on the board so I had to wait for some guys to come and soon enough I had my swim tag and was in the water at 6:47 a.m. Seven minutes later they call us all out so I get out, dry off, and we head back up to camp to get changed and ready for breakfast. The bugle goes off at 7:00 a.m. waking anyone that wasn’t already up. Soon enough I have the American flag in my hands and we are heading down to Clark field for a flag raising ceremony.

After the ceremony we go into the dining hall say grace and dig in. The life saving merit badge went well at the water front. In fishing we went over the first aid and were told we would be fishing on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Thursday was going to be knots. I have half an hour till lunch so I head up to camp, drop off my stuff and head back down to the dining hall. We say Grace and once again dig in.

After lunch there was a staff versus leaders volleyball game so I watched that and then got my stuff and headed over to the Nature lodge for the astronomy merit badge. I was walking back to camp and crossed our Senior Patrol Leaders path (our senior patrol leader is Tim Peterson) and got dragged into a campers volleyball game. I headed down to the waterfront with them after we came in third in the tournament but ended up not being able to swim because my buddy Peter did not have his tag (like me in the morning). I head to the trading post to grab a slushy and go to camp.

I relax in camp and get my class A on for dinner at six. After dinner I go to camp and play some cards with some friends. I then go to bed around 10:30 after taking a shower and hope to get some good rest. Unlucky for me I stayed up to midnight talking with Ryan.

Tuesday morning I wake up for the polar bear swim, and follow the same schedule as Monday. However, during free time I do some 22 caliber rifle shooting at the range. And at 8 pm. go to the dining hall for the Order of the Arrow ice cream party and I’m in the OA. At 8:50 I have to get to the trading post where the astronomy class is meeting for a night hike. We head down to Platt field and Ryan sneaks in and joins us because he went on one before and liked it. We look through the telescope and see some planets and stuff that was really cool. Then we talk about some constellations and drift off into a discussion about star wars for a good hour, hour and a half. At 12 the hike is over and Ryan sneaks out a bit so that he wouldn’t get caught during the attendance.

Wednesday I wake up and do the polar bear swim again. I go through the same schedule except in life saving I drop a 10-pound weight on my finger. Then before dinner we take our troop pictures so we had to show up earlier than usual. After dinner at 7:00 is the fire hose competition. I’m not feeling my best so I go up to the Nurse and get some medicine. By the time I get down to the competition it has already started but I don’t mind that I miss it, I can still watch. There are two teams going at once and they have real fire hoses. There is a bucket on a sort of clothes line and the point is to get it past the other teams marker by hitting it with the water from the hose. Our team won the first round but I missed that one. They then win the second round they were in but lose the third. I wait for everyone to get dried off and ready and then head back up to camp with them. We have a small fire and I take a shower and go to bed around 9:15 and I’m asleep by 9:30.

Thursday morning I wake up at 6:15 for the polar bear swim. In lifesaving we practically freeze because of the cold water and 13mph winds. Fishing goes well with the knots and soon it is lunch. I head down and have a good meal. I rest after lunch and then go to astronomy which goes well. I then head up to camp with Tim, Peter, Peter and Andrew. They are going up to the climbing tower so I go with them after I drop my pack and grab a thing or two. By the time we’re done climbing it’s time for dinner.

After dinner Ryan insists on going to the range for some shooting before going to the island to sleep. My senior patrol leader, Tim, signed our troop up to sleep on an island in the lake — what we do is row out with our sleeping bag and some clothes and spend the night under the stars. After shooting I head back up to camp and by 7:45, I have everything I don’t need in my tent and everything I need I my backpack. I grab a mattress and Ryan, Derek and I sprint down to the water front. We are there just in time so we put all of our stuff in a row boat and Ryan starts rowing to the island until he admits he doesn’t know how to row. I get into the rowing seat and start trying to learn how to row. Finally we make it to the island and with only nine people there we get a super good fire going have a blast, see some ducks and go to sleep, around 10:30.

I wake up early Friday morning around 5:15 so that I can row back to the mainland to be able to hold the pole for Jake when he does the mile swim. I’m in the rowboat with Brandon at 5:55 a.m. Brandon rows while I hold a red and white pole in case Jake is in danger. Jake and Ryan complete the mile swim. Mr. Ackell and Mac are Ryan’s safety team. We get all our stuff ready for our merit badges and then go down to breakfast.

In lifesaving we do CPR and a lost swimmer search. I then go to fishing with lots of doubt because I knew I wouldn’t catch a fish and would end up without the merit badge. A quarter way through class I get a bite and reel in real fast. There is a small sunny on the line and I call over my teacher to help me get him off. I then end up going to lunch real happy because I got two out of my three merit badges so far. Merit badge class starts right after lunch because of the land and sea games. I hand in the home work and sit through class. I and two other boys from troop 9 were the only ones that got the astronomy merit badge because we were the only ones that did the homework.

I go down to the waterfront get changed into my bathing suit and find Tim. I’m in the PB&J relay. I wait for that while watching our other teams win and come in close to first. I have to cross the white area which is fairly small and shallow so when they say go I run and jump. I come about 8 inches from the dock and give the plate to the next person. We end up winning this event by at least half a minute. In the end you have a piece of bread that has peanut butter and cream cheese on it. All a leader has to do is take a bite out of it while holding a plastic knife and you win. You have to be the first team to have the leader take a bite, sometimes the sandwich looks pretty nasty.

There are a couple more events but that’s all for me in the sea games so I get changed and get ready for the land games. First in the land games for me is the softball toss. You have to see how far you can through a soft ball. The team and I did pretty well but we didn’t place. I was then sitting around and Tim comes running over for me telling me I was in the tug of war. So we sprint over and we come in third in that event. The last event that I was in was the sprint relay. Mac runs first and he is in fifth; I then pick it up to third but then slip into fourth; I hand it off to Peter who keeps that position; finally he hands it off to Tim, who picks it up to third but there is someone on the track by the curve so he has to slow down and ends up coming in fourth. We didn’t win the land and sea games but we did do well.

Dinner was delicious. We then go to the camp wide campfire around 7:15. The troop heads back up to the campsite, for our last night, we play some cards, make a fire and have some s’mores that I brought from home.

Saturday morning Ryan and I wake up a bit after seven, we slept late because the polar bear swim is over. We get dressed in our class As because we need to wear them when we leave. I start getting packed up and have everything ready and am sweeping our area of camp. My dad shows up right before 9:00. We head down to the buffet breakfast and get some delicious food. At about 10:00 we go and watch the closing ceremony where they award super troop. We didn’t get super troop. My dad and I put my stuff in the car and by 10:45 are heading out. I am soon at home. I had a great week at Boy Scout camp and am looking forward to our monthly camping starting again in September.   

Overall Troop 135 had 16 scouts and 2 leaders in attendance. We had 62 merit badge classes, 49 Complete, 13 Partial and 6 Scouts completed all merit badge requirements.

Written by,

Nicholas Palmer

Troop 135 Historian

For more info. about scouting in Brookfield please contact the following people: Cubscouts - Rob Libbey Pack 5 at 203-7445-2412, Rob Janofsky Pack 135 @203-775-9578, Boyscouts Kirk Lauri Troop 135 @ 203-470-9050, Jonathan Gibney Troop 8 @ 203- , Tom Tyrell, Troop 5 @ 203-775-4448.