We're entering our fourth week of summer camps this week. The past three weeks were the best that I've had so far in my experience working at summer camps. Hopefully we can top it off with the final upcoming week.
White Pine Programs was founded by Dan Gardoqui and Matt Wild about 10 years ago. They run very popular summer camps for kids between the ages of 7 and 14. I've been working with older boys - ages 11 to 14- in the camp titled "Bush Craft". We've been doing a lot of flint knapping, arrowhead making and stone tool work. One group was able to finish their arrowheads and make really nice arrows from blueberry shafts that we gathered in the swamp. The arrows were fletched with turkey feathers.
Last week my group was challenged to make a bowdrill kit using all natural tools. Most of the time bowdrill kits are carved with knives and they string is a shoelace or nylon cord. Its much more challenging to use just what is found in nature. We used white pine for the kit and a fresh hemlock rootlet for the cord and we used chert rocks that I had brought up from Texas. We had great success with this kit and got a fire on the second day of the challenge.
Here are some pictures of White Pine, the nature museum/classroom and our bowdrill kit:
