The Scouts Canada Great 8 Challenge - Week 2 - Tarp Troubles (An Outdoor Survival Adventure Video)
Channel: Monster Hobbies Online
Date: 2021-04-27

Week 2 Challenge : Build a sturdy, safe shelter with the materials you can find around you. 

In today's video, I will show you my solution for The Scouts Canada Great 8 Challenge - Week 2 - Tarp Troubles. This is an outdoor survival adventure video.

What is the Great 8 Challenge? Here's some background reading!

Les Stroud, aka Survivorman, will be hosting this epic 8-week challenge and all the participating Scouts Canada groups will be competing for not only bragging rights, but to accumulate weekly crests and earn a coveted Ghost Crest!

With the challenges introduced weekly by videos from The Survivorman himself, it's going to be an adventure filled week you won't want to miss!

This series of challenges was developed by Les Stroud and Scouts Canada as activities that could be done either in a group or on your own during the pandemic of 2020/2021 to help get all the Scouts and Scouters out and doing something fun under their provincial restrictions.

About myself :

I am Scouter Trevor, (A Scout Leader) in our local community, as well as the owner of Monster Hobbies, a local hobby shop. As a youth, I was involved in Scouting and my Dad was also a Scout leader. Both my wife and daughters are also involved. I decided to try and make as many of these videos about what I am doing to solve the weekly challenge as I can. 

About our group :

We have a group of Scouts and Scouters that met online and decided that we would meet this challenge virtually in a Zoom meeting on our regular Tuesday Night meetings. Due to the pandemic regulations, we could not physically meet as a group at our regular camp site for this challenge, but I wanted to meet the challenge anyway, hence this video. Instead, I filmed this video at a forest/bike park near our house on my own to show a real forest shelter building situation.

Also, as a group, we decided not to cut branches off trees to build our shelters. Everything we use has to be found on the ground. 

About this video : 

Although these videos appear to be short and easy, there was a lot of research, development and trial and error in creating items like the emergency shelter and trying to present the information in a way that's easy to understand. 

There are also some suggestions that you think of after you film the video, and some other issues that come to play as well. 

Les Stroud, aka Survivorman, posts the "Challenge" videos each Monday, but there is also a hand-out at Scouts Canada that the Scouters have that talk about the challenges for each level and what materials and requirements the Scouts have for their age group. (Beavers, Cubs, Scouts to Rovers)

I made this video following the outline in the hand-out in a situation for the time the video was filmed, mainly April 26th - May 2nd. Springtime.

However in Les Stroud, aka Survivorman's video that released on Monday, he was talking about -40 C winter weather, the coldest night of the year, and building a shelter with no materials. That's not what I filmed in this video because the hand-out said the senior levels could have the rope, and there was no mention of it being winter conditions. Well...what can I do? The video I filmed is for springtime before the blooming season. It is what it it. 

Another thought....Les Stroud, aka Survivorman, said that we couldn't bring any "Outside" or "Man Made" materials to build our shelter with. That's not a problem because it can be done. 

Realistically however, if a person does go on a day hike, they will bring items with them that, although not intended to build a shelter, can be used to build a shelter. These items could include a pocket knife, blanket, black plastic garbage bags, shoelaces, backpack, scarf, bandanna, extra clothes, and many other items.  To not use these items, even if these items are limited, to build a shelter would be a wasted resource.

On a technical note, if a Scout didn't have a rope or tarp, but brought a blanket as something intended to sit on the ground with and used their boot straps, intended to keep their shoes on, as twine to tie down the blanket like it was a tarp to some trees, that technically wouldn't break the challenge requirement because a blanket technically isn't a tarp and shoe laces are not rope. - just my thoughts.

In the end, everything worked out, and that's what Scouting is all about. 

Do Your Best!
Be Prepared!
And always have fun!

Thank you for watching The Scouts Canada Great 8 Challenge - Week 2 - Tarp Troubles (An Outdoor Survival Adventure Video). It means a lot to us!

#SurviveWithLes #ScouterTrevor #ScoutsCanada