Wilderness Voyage
After the success of the Trail Crew program, the Order of the Arrow established another program following the same model at the Northern Tier National High Adventure Bases in Minnesota. Instead of hiking and backpacking as in Trail Crew, the participants use canoes for transportation. Their work occurs in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in the Superior National Forest. Since its inception, the program has worked on some of the most treacherous portage trails in the area including the notorious Birch to Frog and Ensign to Boot portages. In the summer of 2007, the program did its first work in Canada on the Big Knife portage on the US-Canada border.
Participants are led by Foremen of the Northern Tier Conservation Department. Participants do conservation service for seven days and then go on a seven-day canoe trip. Crews have traveled all the way to International Falls and the Grand Portage National Monument on Lake Superior in only a week. The program also draws a lot from the history of the area, as many of the trails were previously maintained by the Civilian Conservation Corps and crews often map their treks around historic routes often including the Height of Land Portage.
In 2003, the program and the Order of the Arrow received the US Forest Service Chief's Volunteer Award for Youth Volunteer Service.
Read more about this topic: High Adventure Programs Of The Order Of The Arrow
Famous quotes containing the words wilderness and/or voyage:
“Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The world’s a ship on its voyage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)