"Old School" navigation pre-GPS

During the five years I worked at the Charles L. Sommers Wilderness Canoe Base, a new Outward Bound program started in the Boundary Waters. The new program hired several of our guides.

During one of my five nine-day trips in 1965, I encountered an Outward Bound crew paddling rather enthusiastically directly towards mine. As they got closer, it became apparent their guide was anxious to meet with me. I recognized him as he was older than the rest of his crew, and he may have been aware that all of our guide staff paddled dark green wood and canvas Seligas or Oldtowns, and of course, there was the large Sommers emblem on the bow of each of our canoes. As we came to a stop stern by stern, we exchanged greetings, and he soon commented on my cool map case, which I had purchased for about $1.25 at Fisherman's Headquarters.

He seemed very uneasy, and I figured he was lost and was hoping my map case would give him some idea of his location. I handed it to him, and he turned ashen white as he looked at the area to which it was folded with my Pathfinder Compass on top. I leaned close, so his companions wouldn't hear and said, "Are you lost?" He said he had been confused since the last portage they took, and my map was folded, showing an area nowhere near where he thought he was.

I smiled and quietly told him that it was folded to the last part of my previous trip, which included our return via Basswood, Wind lake, and then the Scout Base on Moose Lake. I told him that my Scout crew was doing an excellent job navigating and that I was familiar with this area and didn't need the map. Boy, did he look relieved. We were a good twenty-five miles from where the map was folded. I refolded the map and showed him where we were, and he immediately saw his mistake. They had taken the wrong portage, two portages back.

He was a bright fellow because, rather than trying to figure out how to cover up his mistake, he used it as a learning experience for his group, illustrating how vital map reading skills were. Their error, which resulted in backtracking that would cost them about two hours, provided a good lesson about navigating.

I learned map reading at our local camps Lewis and Clark, Newton Hills, and Camp Shetek. That skill was a part of the intertroop competition at many camporees, and I also learned on the grounds and parking lot of the First Baptist Church that chartered Troop 23 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We used the BSA Compass Game cards that your troop, no doubt, used if you are an "Old School" navigator.