In our changing world, Camp Easton shines on

Stick your nose up into a gap between hunks of bark on a mature ponderosa pine, and you can tell how much water it’s been drinking: A vanilla scent means the tree’s well-hydrated, but a sniff of root beer float suggests drought conditions.

Rub the fibrous end of old rope between your thumb and finger, and with a magnifying glass and a little sunshine, you’ve got a firestarter that can save your life.

These are just two tips from instructors at Camp Easton on the eastern shore of Lake Coeur d’Alene, just north of Harrison. They are items in a trove of useful recreational, biological and survival facts eagerly dispensed by experienced Scouts who go by nicknames like Hungry, Chewie and Blue.

For seven weeks this summer, Boy Scouts from near and far are packing Camp Easton under the keen eye of second-year director Andrew Bell. There’s a metamorphosis going on there, something big, something exciting for a camp casting shadows back to 1920. It’s a transition that in many ways mirrors the shift of Scouting itself in this age of disruption, adaptation and innovation.

Maybe it’s a survival story itself.

- • •

The stunning divorce was announced in a May 11, 2017 article by Tad Walch in The Deseret News, a Utah newspaper owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. With a Salt Lake City dateline, it opened:

The LDS Church, the oldest and largest charter organization of the Boy Scouts of America, will drop Scouting from its Young Men’s program for boys ages 14 through 17.

Today, about 1 in 6 American Scouts is Mormon. Effective Jan. 1, the move will carve as many as 180,000 Mormon boys from the Varsity and Venturing Scout programs in the United States and Canada, replacing the programs with activities created for boys in those age groups by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The church will continue to sponsor Cub Scouts for boys 8 to 10 and Boy Scout programs for those 11 through 13 in those two countries, but statements released by the church about the announcement signaled that it may drop those programs in the future.

The article went on to explain that ending the 104-year-old relationship had been under consideration by church leaders “for years.” Links embedded in the story took readers to official church statements and explanations, but as recently as a month before the church’s announcement, the marriage’s rocky road was acknowledged without any indication that divorce was imminent.

From Walch’s story:

The LDS Church has been a major part of the BSA since it became the first chartered BSA organization in 1913.

“The church partnership with the BSA was a blessing to the relatively new Scouting organization,” LDS-BSA relationships director Mark Francis said last month at the annual LDS-BSA Relationships Seminar in Salt Lake City. “In addition, the willingness of the BSA to accept the church as a chartered partner during a time when there was not a favorable view of the Mormons was also an act of goodwill. Collectively, we have the capacity to solve the toughest problems and find solutions to benefit everyone.”

Well, maybe not the very toughest problems.

Though the LDS Church didn’t blink — much — when BSA voted four years ago to admit openly gay Scouts, the flinch in 2015 was unmistakable. That’s when BSA announced it was allowing openly gay Scout leaders.

And that was followed by the decision to admit transgender Scouts, with a further acknowledgment that the organization was considering opening more programs to girls.

Scouts of all stripes? Prospective admission regardless of race, religion or gender? That’s the metamorphosis now in play, and BSA’s nearly lifelong partner is by all appearances moving out.

While reaction has included regrets among the LDS and Scouting faithful, one anonymous commenter on The Deseret News story might have been speaking for many when he wrote:

As a recent convert, I was amazed and thrilled to learn that the LDS Church was so involved in Scouting. I became an Eagle Scout (OA Member and Explorer) thirty one years ago, and have watched political correctness and decades of mismanagement erode Scouting. It is unfortunate for Scouting that they have made their choices, and caused this breakaway by such a strong advocate for Scouting. The LDS Church is making the right move, because it is based on the development of the boys, as compared to the BSA changing policy to remain popular within closed door gatherings.

- • •

The Mormon exodus is going to hurt.

Karen Meier, Scout Executive and CEO of the Inland Northwest Council, expects to lose about 900 Scouts from a total membership of about 8,770. Some 2,000 of those Scouts live in North Idaho.

Demonstrating the strength of the LDS-BSA bond here, Meier says more than half of all Scouts in her council — 57 percent — are LDS. The fact that most will remain in Scouting — for now, anyway — mitigates the potential revenue blow substantially.

“With fewer members, your activities income will go down and your camping income will go down because these boys won’t be participating,” she says. But she doesn’t see financial storm clouds gathering on the horizon.

Meier says the LDS Church remains a good partner, paying the membership fees for all its Scouts and Scout leaders. And with her council recently adopting a strategic plan called Vision 2022, she sees more open doors to the future than closed doors to the past.

“Scouting is an opportunity now for communities to really bring out the leadership of these young people,” she says.

Meier adds that the LDS earthquake generated no aftershocks here. Even after she was interviewed by a TV station, there was neither a bang nor a whimper.

“Literally, we have heard nothing from our community,” she says.

And that didn’t surprise her.

“We knew it would not impact our council because we look at the individual as being given more opportunity in our community,” Meier says. “It may open up more chartered partners, now that we have no restrictions. It truly is up to that chartered organization [who] they choose to have in their membership. And now we can say, ‘Scouting is for all.’”

And many are gathering happily this summer on the shores of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

- • •

Camp Easton is 383 acres of wood, water and raw beauty. Facing west into what will be a spectacular sunset a little later on, Andrew Bell, the camp director, sounds a little like a beer commercial.

“This is the view that made Camp Easton famous,” he says as he scans Gotham Bay.

Daytime temperatures can easily surpass 90, but with a backdrop that includes isolated shotgun blasts from up the mountain, up there where survival lessons and Heart Attack Trail await, the most frenetic activity is taking place down below in the sparkling lake waters. It’s an aquatics utopia. You want 24-man war canoes? You got ’em. Scuba gear and lessons? Of course. Kayaks, sailboats, rowboats, snorkeling, big floaty things to play on? The Scouts at Camp Easton take to cool water like politicians to hot air.

It’s all about the lake, which last spring flexed its fluid muscles and wreaked havoc along the camp’s three quarters of a mile of shoreline.

“The lake giveth and the lake taketh away,” someone says ceremoniously when it’s noted that a longstanding teepee is no longer standing in the aquatics area.

As if on cue, an adult visitor addresses the small tour group. He’s sporting a Scouting T-shirt, sunglasses and the aroma of someone immersed in nature.

“This place is absolutely epic,” announces Jack Kuehn, Troop 43 from Lake Stevens, Wash. Pulled aside by a reporter, Kuehn says he and his group gladly made the seven-hour drive to experience this, the greatest Boy Scout camp he’s ever seen. And he’s seen plenty; at least a dozen, he says. “This has blown every one of them away.”

It’s not like Kuehn or any of the Scout leaders on the tour are trying to sell something. Camp is completely booked for the summer, and if the current occupants are a fair indication — 189 Scouts, 79 adults accompanying them, and 62 staff members teaching and training — all seven weeks will be pleasantly packed.

In fact, 16 Scouting units were turned away this year, with a unit consisting of 10 to 30 or more kids, plus adults, says Meier. Inland Northwest Council members pay $340 for the week, while outside members pay $350. Next year, the INC will stretch the camping season to eight weeks, a testament to the burgeoning international appeal of Easton.

But the focus isn’t just on today’s campers, or next year’s. If you think it’s an accident that the camp director has a marketing background, you underestimate Meier, Council President Paul Read and the executive board.

Bell, Meier boasts, is the first director in seven years to lead the pack back to back — two consecutive years. The others? Done after one summer; bummer.

“He’s a strategic thinker who’s thinking not just about today, but five years down the road,” she says of Bell. “He’s always looking for ways to improve the camp.”

A strategic thinker herself, Meier adds: “I think consistency in leadership is really important.”

Consistency and Camp Easton haven’t always shared the same tent. In pointing out his bright new Camp Easton logo painted on the doors of the trading post, Bell, who thoroughly researched Easton before agreeing to take the director’s job, says he found 40 different logos over 90 years of camp operations.

The trading post itself, stocked with supplies ranging from candy bars and toiletries to cool Scout T-shirts and sweatshirts, is a business as much as it is a convenience. Bell points out structural designs that blend the past with the present, which he says “shows we could do ‘new’ but still be rustic.” BSA beancounters like that formula: The post is bringing in about $50,000 per summer gross, and $20,000 net.

New composite bows for archers, soon-to-be-installed solar lights and self-healing plastic target bottles at the rifle range are standard stuff, thanks to NRA grants and tireless, generous efforts of volunteers like Mike Aagesen of Aagesen Millworks in Post Falls. Aagesen also serves on the council’s executive board.

Make no mistake, in the Scout camping world, Easton is a beast. Read, the council president, looks proudly upon what it has become and proclaims, “It’s gotta be one of the best in the country.”

It needs to be, because Camp Easton is an integral piece of the local council’s plans marching forward.

“With Easton, we’re able to get out into an environment where they can put those leadership skills into play,” says Meier, who will celebrate her first anniversary with INC next month after serving the Far East Council in Okinawa, Japan. “They’re able to give that leadership to their units in a backdrop that brings out all those skills.

“It’s a culmination of all the year’s troop meetings... It’s the pinnacle of what they’ve accomplished all year. It comes to the surface in the camp environment, and Easton just brings it out in everybody, young and old.”

SCOUT LAW

A Scout is:

Trustworthy,

Loyal,

Helpful,

Friendly,

Courteous,

Kind,

Obedient,

Cheerful,

Thrifty,

Brave,

Clean,

and Reverent.

•••

Inland Northwest Council

Vision Statement

‘Our vision is to inspire youth to become honorable men and women prepared to face the challenges of tomorrow and lead others to make a positive impact on the world.’

•••

That’s a lot of popcorn

INC income for 2016:

$2,693,832

(41 percent from camp fees)

Investment in Youth:

$2,564,896

(5 percent administration)

•••

INC Youth Served 2016

4,500 Cub Scouts

3,683 Boy Scouts

500 Venturing

77 Exploring

•••

Special thanks to

4,030 adult volunteers

•••

She said it:

‘As you know, our global society is getting smaller and smaller, and our youth are really exposed to the world.’

- Karen Meier

INC Scout Executive, CEO