Circle Ten Council - Order of The Arrow

Order of The Arrow

Mikanakawa Lodge is the local extension of the Order of the Arrow within Circle 10. It was founded in 1937 by L. L.Hotchkiss after Scouts from Circle 10 Council came back from the 1937 National Scout Jamboree. On April 26 Hotchkiss, himself a distinguished Arrowman, mailed a letter to the National OA Secretary about starting a Lodge. On June 22, final approval for the lodge was given and within seven days of the letter, the first Ordeal was held at Camp Wisdom. The lodge gained its name when the Mikanakawa Tribe, a group of Scouts acting outside of the Order of the Arrow but with similar activities, was merged by Circle 10 into the official Order of the Arrow lodge and allowed to keep the name Mikanakawa. The Lodge lacked the traditional "patch flap" until 1950 when it was designed by Bill Jordan in preparation for a trip to a National meeting. In 1994 the Mikanakawa Lodge acquired the Okiciyapi Lodge. Okiciyapi was allowed to keep its totem making Mikinakawa one of the few OA Lodges in the country to have two totems: the owl and the thunderbird.

The lodge holds many events, including five annual ordeals, a Native American Pow-Wow, a Fall Fellowship, Annual Dinner, a leadership development conference and is charged each year with organizing and staffing the council's winter camp at Camp Trevor Rees-Jones (formerly known as Camp Cherokee). The lodge also sends delegates to the annual Southern Region Section 2-3 North Conclave and regularly sends at least 100 delegates to National Order of the Arrow Conference (NOAC)