Ranger

The Ranger is the fourth and final Campcraft badge. It was around in the '70s but it was forgotten until 2005 when it was brought back by Ryan "Ryno" Massey for Sam Deeran to earn. Since 2005 two more campers have earned their Ranger badge - Ben Howard and Harry Netzer both earned it in 2008.

Badge Parts

Two campers doing their Ranger knots test

An illustration of a bow drill set

Preparing for a solo

The badge parts of the Ranger are Survival 301, Wild Food Day, Fire Master, Totem Staff, Secret Training, and the Solo.

Survival 301

Survival 301 is the third group of survival skills taught at Campcraft. The parts of survival 301 are leatherworking, cooking, and knot tying.

Leatherworking

For leatherworking you have to make something out of leather like a medicine pouch, a possibles bag, or a pair of moccasins.

Cooking

The cooking part consists of learning wilderness cooking skills like how to make bread with only a fire and a few basic ingredients. This type of bread is called an ash cake and the ingredients are:

• 3 handfuls of flour
• 2 pinches of baking soda
• 1-2 claws of sugar
• Water
• A filling like chocolate or peanut butter

Mix the first three ingredients in a plastic bag. For clarification, a handful is the amount one hand can hold, a claw is as much as you can grab with just your fingers, and a pinch is as much as you can hold between your thumb and forefinger. Add water and knead it in until the mixture has a dough-like consistency. After that, take the dough out of the bag and flatten it out. Put your filling in the center of the dough and then close it up by folding it over and pinching the edges closed. Now place the dough directly on the hot coals of a fire near the edge of the fire. Cook the bread for about 10 minutes on each side. The outside of the bread will turn black but it should not smoke. If it starts smoking move the bread further away from the center of the fire. A different type of bread you can make with these ingredients is munchkins. To make these you just make multiple smaller ash cakes with sugar inside them.

Knots

For the knots part of the Ranger you must be able to tie the zeppelin bend, double sheet bend, jug knot, bowline, boa knot, and figure eight. For the test you have to tie them while treading water and blindfolded.

Wild Food Day

To get the Wild Food Day badge part you need to spend a day at camp in which you eat nothing but wild food you gather from around camp. During the Wild Food Day you spend most of your time gathering and preparing food. A short list of edible wild foods on campus is:

• Chanterelle mushrooms
• Blueberries
• Blackberries and raspberries
• Daylilies
• Frogs
• Chipmunks
• Squirrels

Totem Staff

For the Totem Staff part of the Ranger you need to make a staff that depicts an animal you have picked as your totem animal. A good tree to make a staff out of is a Sugar Maple because the bark can be easily peeled off to make the staff smooth. The staff can then be woodburned with a picture of your animal using a piece of metal heated up in a hot fire.

Fire Master

The Fire Master badge part consists of starting a fire using a bow drill set.

Solo

The final part of the Ranger is doing an overnight solo in the woods over by the Crooked River. The camper going on the solo can bring ten items with him but no more. Most of these items are taken up by necessities like:

1. A sleeping bag
2. Tarps
3. Food
4. Water
5. A whistle
6. A knife
7. Fire making supplies