Narragansett Council

Narragansett Council
Owner	Boy Scouts of America
Headquarters	East Providence
Location	Rhode Island, Massachuetts
Country	United States
Founded	1916
Scout Executive	David S. Anderson
Website http://www.narragansettbsa.org/
Scouting portal

The Narragansett Council of the Boy Scouts of America serves all of the state of Rhode Island and some of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Its several camps include Camp Yawgoog and Camp Cachalot.

Organization

The Narragansett Council uses a unique structure as of 2010.^[1] Instead of being divided into districts, there are 20 community groups which form three service areas. Each service area is led by a council vice president, a service area commissioner and two service area executives.

The Southeast Service Area serves Bristol County, East Providence, Newport County (except Jamestown), Bristol County, Massachusetts and Plymouth County, Massachusetts. The community groups are New Bedford, Fairhaven, Dartmouth Marion, Mattapoisett, Rochester, Wareham, Fall River, Assonet/Freetown, Somerset, Westport Swansea, Seekonk, Rehoboth, Aquidneck Island, Tiverton, Little Compton, East Providence, Bristol, Warren and Barrington.

The Southwest Service Area serves Kent County, Washington County, Jamestown and Pawcatuck, Connecticut. The community groups are Coventry, West Warwick, East Greenwich, West Greenwich, Exeter, Frenchtown, Warwick, Block Island, Narragansett, Wakefield, Westerly, Misquamicut, Bradford, Ashaway, Matunuck, Pawcatuck, Charlestown, Richmond, Hopkinton, Hope Valley, Peacedale, South Kingstown, Kingston, West Kingston Davisville, North Kingstown, Quidnessett, Wickford and Jamestown.

The Northwest Service Area serves Providence County (except East Providence) and Blackstone Valley, Massachusetts. The community groups are Burrillville, Scituate, Foster/Glocester, Johnston, Smithfield, North Providence, Providence, Cranston, Woonsocket, Blackstone, Bellingham, North Smithfield, Millville, Uxbridge, Cumberland, Lincoln, Central Falls and Pawtucket.

Camps

• Camp Aquapaug (South Kingston, RI)
• Buck Hill Reservation (Pascoag, RI)
• Camp Buxton (Rehoboth, MA)
• Champlin Scout Reservation (Cranston, RI)
• Cub World at Feinstein Youth Camp (Pascoag, RI)
• Sandsland Reservation — Block Island (New Shoreham, RI)
• Yawgoog Scout Reservation (Rockville, RI)

Cachalot Scout Reservation

Camp Cachalot
Coordinates	41°48′41″N 70°38′58″W / 41.8115°N 70.6495°W / 41.8115; -70.6495
Founded	1946
Website http://www.campcachalot.org/

Camp Cachalot was founded 1946 as the campground for the former Cachalot Council. It is located in the Myles Standish State Forest near Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Camp Cachalot is frequently the site of the annual Moby Dick Council Klondike Derby, which, in 2002, was renamed the Massasoit/Cachalot District Klondike Derby. In the annual derby, teams of patrols compete in competitions about wilderness survival and teamwork skills. The event is intended to recreate winter conditions of Alaskan gold-seeking teams, and often does if January snowfall has been high.

Eagle week occurs each summer, usually during the fourth week of the camping season. Eagle week is set aside for aspiring Eagle Scouts to work on required merit badges. The usual Merit badges are still offered as well.

Many projects and buildings at Camp Cachalot have benefited from grants made by the George W. Magee Memorial Trust Fund.

History

A large portion of the camp burned to the ground during the spring camporee in 1964, when multiple fires were set in the adjacent Myles Standish State Forest by an arsonist. As of 2005, the property has substantially recovered from the fire, and is in most areas more heavily forested than it had been prior to 1964. The sandy soil still turns black not more than two inches below-ground.

When the Cachalot and Massasoit Councils merged in 1972, the choice to sell off Camp Noquochoke stemmed from the size of the barren Cachalot property. At 880 acres (3.6 km²), the camp was able to better accommodate the larger resulting Moby Dick Council.

In 2001, Moby Dick Council merged with Narragansett Council. Camp Cachalot remains open as the only council-owned camp property. Other camps operated by Narragansett Council, including Yawgoog Scout Reservation, sit on property owned by the Rhode Island Boy Scouts.

Cabins

The campsites at Cachalot exist in four forms: cabins, adirondacks which are in the style of Baden-Powell, campsites, and outposts. Adirondacks are three-walled semi-cabins with open fronts, and they sleep four people. Cabins sleep between 10 and 20 people. The most famous cabin is the 21 Club, with a maximum sleeping capacity of 20 people. In addition to the 21 Club, there are Cabin 1, Cabin 2, the Duplex, the Health Lodge, the Cook's Cabin, and Magee Village, which is a group of small cabins for summer camp staff adjacent to Noquochoke.

Some campsites have platforms for setting up summer camp tents, while others have a "house" frame with a platform to set the tents on. Campsites include James West, Dan Beard, Noquochoke, Acooshnet, Sippican, Sconticut East, Sconticut West, Assonet East, Assonet West, Witch's Circle, Nemasket, and Dragon's Landing.

Outposts are merely clearings in the woods, suitable for pitching standard tents. One campsite, Dragon's Landing, borders on being an outpost: It is located within the main camp, but is secluded and suitable only for pup-tents.The primary outpost is in the southwest corner of the camp, located off the Green Trail, and called Frontiersman's Clearing. Witch's Circle and Dragon's Landing are also sometimes considered outposts because of their out-of-the-way locations, even though they're in the main camp.

Facilities

The 21 Club is the oldest building in the camp, having been moved to the facility from its original site at Troop 21's campsite off Drift Road in Westport, Massachusetts sometime before 1948. It was used for several summers as the first camp Trading Post, as well as being used for year-round camping. After being moved to Cachalot, a fireplace and a smaller back room was added. The building underwent major renovations in the mid-1980s.

Prescott Dining Hall, adjacent to Prescott Field, is one of the oldest structures in the camp, constructed in 1951. It is one of the buildings in the main camp property that survived the 1964 fire, and has over 100 plaques hanging from its rafters crafted by Scout troops to show they attended summer camp. Prior to its construction, a large tent on the same site was used as a dining facility during summer camp.

The Boy Scouts of America Narragansett County Scout Center Building in Providence, Rhode Island, dates from this time. It was built 1965 to the design of Providence architect D. Thomas Russillo.^[2]

The Covill Chapel is a small, outdoor, partially-enclosed sanctuary located not far from the mess hall and the Cook's Cabin. It was dedicated in 1968 in the memory of Raymond Covill, who had been instrumental in the purchase and development of the Cachalot property.

The Trading Post was originally a cement-block structure covered with a pine façade. An earlier, wood-framed trading post/administration building on the same site burned in the late 1980s. Across Tom Cullen Field are the rifle and archery ranges. The trading post has been renovated and became the new location for Handicraft. The subsequent confusion, from many campers and staff knowing the building and referring to it as the Trading Post for so many years, earned it the nickname "The Handipost."

The Silver Fox's Den has been a lounge for scoutmasters, recently completed by longtime Cadre Scoutmaster "Big Al" Langlais (it was originally the camp showerhouse.) However, recently it has been renovated to be the camps new Trading Post. The name, however, remains — as do many of the Scoutmasters. Nearby is the former Camp Commissioner's Corner, which is now a maintenance shed. This building was originally used as a trading post, and predates the 1964 fire.

The Boathouse is a large waterfront structure in the parking lot, near the 21 Club. In the summer it hosted Handi-Craft for many years. In 2006 it became the new location for the Nature area. The Boathouse also houses the Cycling Center, and the Welcome Center.

Abnaki Lodge

The combination of four Order of the Arrow lodges ( Wincheck,Agawam, Noquochoke and Nemat), Abnaki lodge #102 was founded in 2002 and is the current Order of the Arrow lodge for Narragansett Council. The lodge adopted the peace pipe and Bear as its official lodge totems. Consisting of three chapters (Blackstone,Wampanoag and Metacomet).

See also

• Scouting in Massachusetts
• Scouting in Rhode Island

References

1. ^ "New Council Service Delivery Structure and Organization". Narragansett Council. 2010. http://www.narragansettbsa.org/openrosters/ViewOrgPageLink.asp?LinkKey=38638&orgkey=1213. 
2. ^ "Domenic Thomas Russillo" American Architects Directory, Third Edition (New York City: R.R. Bowker LLC, 1970), p.790.

External links

• Camp Cachalot Alumni Association website