Ranger

Ranger Sam Deeran 2005

The Ranger is the fourth and final Campcraft badge. In 2005 it was earned for the first time since the 70's by Sam Deeran. Since 2005 two more campers have earned the Ranger badge—Ben Howard and Harry Netzer both earned it in 2008.

Badge Parts

Survival 301

Rangers Harry Netzer and Ben Howard doing the Survival 301 knots test 2008

Survival 301 is the final set of survival skills taught at Campcraft. The parts of survival 301 are leatherworking, cooking, and knot tying. For the leatherworking part you have to make something out of leather like a medicine pouch, a possibles bag, or a pair of moccasins.

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 because to make it dough is put almost directly into the fire to cook. When it is fully cooked the bread has a coating of black ash, hence the name ash cake. Ash cakes are the food eaten on the final badge part, the solo.

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 blindfolded.

Wild Food Day

To get the Wild Food Day badge part you need to spend a day at camp eating nothing but wild food gathered 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
• Various fauna including:
  • 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 give the staff a smooth surface. The staff can then be woodburned or carved with a depiction of your animal.

Fire Master

An illustration of a bow drill set

To earn the Fire Master badge part one must make and start a fire with a bow drill. A bow drill is a fire-starting device that relies on one of the simplest ways of generating energy: friction. Ancient peoples used friction to their fire making advantage with many different incarnations of the same idea including the fire plow, fire saw, and hand drill. All of these friction based fire makers consist of two pieces of wood rubbing against each other to generate heat and punk, the two components that together make an ember. Punk is fine, charred wood dust that can easily ignite. The hope is that the friction makes enough punk and heat for the heat to ignite the punk. Lit punk makes a slow burning ember that can be placed in a tinder ball to light a fire.

A bow drill physically consists of a shaft of wood that is rotated very quickly by the string of a bow essentially the same way a rope turns a pulley. The tip of the shaft is placed like a drill bit against a softer piece of wood called the fire board and the other end is held in place by a rock with a notch in it. Pressure is put on the top rock and the bow is pumped back and forth hopefully making the shaft slowly eat away at the fire board turning it into punk and igniting that punk. The ember is then placed into a tinder ball of dry, fibrous plant matter and blown on until it bursts into flame.

Solo

Preparing for a solo. Rangers Harry Netzer & Ben Howard with Ryan Massey 2008

The final part of the Ranger is an overnight solo in the woods along the Crooked River. The solo is a culmination of the Campcraft program with many of the survival skills from the four Campcraft badges like fire starting, shelter building, and cooking being necessary to staying relatively comfortable. The solo is not about survival but rather being comfortable alone in the wilderness.

The camper going on the solo can bring only ten items with him. Most of the ten is taken up by necessities including:

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