Article 4 – Remembering Our Teachings

Kelly Laybolt

The gate was closed when Brent and I pulled up to the scout camp. I parked in the grass on the side of the dirt road and grabbed my cap off of the dash. It was summer, and even though we’d be under the tree canopy, I knew my bald head would still burn without it. The engine died as I took the key out; I looked at Brent and said, “Man, it’s been a while since we’ve been here together.”
“Yeah, it has! I’ve only been here a few times since I started working on my heavy-duty trade in Brandon three years ago.”
“I’ve been here quite a few times, but I’m always happy to come out here for a hike. I really enjoy coming to the scout camp and walking on the Shoreline Trail. It brings back memories of being here as a kid and scouting in general.”
“Same here bud, when was the last time you were out here?”
“Uh… I think I came out here with my brother a month ago?” I replied, putting on my cap.
“Nice, well, let’s get going. I’m excited to get some food at the Marina when we’re finished.”
Brent and I had been friends since we met in the scouting program almost a decade ago. He always liked to try and get out of doing stuff that he didn’t like at all, but overall, he was a good guy. He was in Thompson visiting family and we thought it would be fun to check out the trails again. Brent hadn’t been to the scout camp in almost a year and we were hoping to take advantage of the warm August weather and enjoy a nice walk through the forest. Brent wanted to explore the hiking trail that looped around the property again and see if it had been changed at all. He and I loved hiking this trail when we were kids and always enjoyed each other’s company. Then, after we were done at the scout camp, we were going to head to the Marina, a restaurant close by, for dinner.
The Shoreline Trail is a fairly easy hike and only twenty minutes from town. It’s also a great way to hang out and kill a few hours walking while out enjoying nature. The sun had just passed its highest point in the sky, but we knew that we still had at least eight hours of daylight left before the sun would dip below the tops of the trees. As I got out of the truck, I took a deep breath and savored the scent of the black and white spruce trees. The grass on either side of the road was higher than the bumper, but I parked in it anyway so I didn’t block the one-lane road. The yellow gate was few meters ahead. There were trees on either side of it to block any vehicles from driving around, and we could see the road snake through the trees until it made a sharp right-hand turn about twenty-five meters away. We walked around the gate and started heading down the road to the scout camp itself. The road seemed longer when we were kids, but I think that was because we had shorter legs back then, and today the camp quickly came into view through the trees. There were four buildings: the cookshack, bunkhouse, biffy and a cabin that was only used for storage. The road continued through the camp with the cookshack and storage cabin on one side, the bunkhouse on the other and the biffy stood by itself surrounded by more trees. Inside the cookshack, there was a woodstove in the middle of the main room with long tables and benches along two of the four walls. Separated by a half wall, the kitchen was set up to cook for a large group and had two fridges as well as three stoves. The bunkhouse was long, as long as the other two cabins combined, and there were about twenty wooden bunkbeds inside. The storage cabin was piled almost floor to ceiling with things for outdoor activities, tents, stoves, snowshoes and a bunch of old junk no one had gotten around to throwing out. As we walked through, I turned to Brent and asked, “Do you want to stop in and look inside any of the buildings?”
“Nah.” He replied. “I’m sure it’s the same tables, benches and yellow walls. I would like to check out the time capsule we left at the campsite on the top of the hill, though.”
“Ha-ha, that’s a good idea. I wonder if anything inside the time capsule actually survived or if it’s all been ruined by weather over the years.”
It wasn’t officially a time capsule, a container that is normally filled with things like newspapers, letters and other important things for people in the future to discover. Time capsules are also usually sealed containers buried underground with a specific date to dig them up and open them. I had even heard of a car being placed in a time capsule in the 1950s and opened fifty years later. Ours was an old electrical box that we found lying in the grass behind the storage cabin, brought up to our old camping spot and filled with stuff we thought was cool when we were teenagers. The box we used was originally red, but it had turned a rusty orange after being left outside in the elements for so long. So, eager to see if anything we had left inside had survived over the years, Brent and I headed towards the trail
We walked down the steep hill to the shore of the lake, the water shimmering in the sunlight. We then passed the large firepit and up the trail into the woods. As soon as we made it off the gravel road, we walked single file to keep the ground as undisturbed as possible. As scouts, we were taught to respect the land and everything on it, which included staying on the marked trails and taking care not to break or vandalize anything we found or used. The trail to the camp wasn’t very long, and there wasn’t much to see of interest along this part, but after about fifty feet there was a steep hill that was always daunting to walk up when I was a kid.
“This hill is still hard to climb,” Brent said, huffing a little bit.
“Phew!” I said as we got to the top of the hill, “Yep. Trying to haul those
twenty-liter water jugs up to the top was exhausting, but it was always easier to carry two and balance the weight out.” We had made it to the campsite and sat down on the stumps around the old oil drum that we used as a fire pit.
“I can’t believe that the kitchenette is still in such good shape!” Brent exclaimed as we surveyed the campsite. The only structures there were the outhouse and the kitchenette we built to store our cooking utensils and put the propane stoves on. “We slapped this together in like what? Half a day?”
“Yeah! That was my first scout camp. I remember thinking Scouter Aaron was crazy when he said we were going to build a kitchenette, but looking at it now, it doesn’t look like such an intimidating task.” I observed as I walked closer. The time capsule that we left was on a shelf underneath the counter and looked like it hadn’t been moved since we left it there. I appreciated that the kids in the scouting program now seemed to still be taught practices of respecting the land, such as not to litter nor leave garbage on the camp ground, the same way that we were taught all those years ago.
“Well, I remember Souter Aaron was the one who did most of the building. He just wanted us to haul the wood up so he wouldn’t have to.” Brent replied as I handed him the time capsule.
“Yeah, and I totally remember you only carried like one piece of wood and walked really slowly while the rest of us took a few at a time.”
“Come on, I helped!”
“Yeah, totally,” I said half-jokingly.
We pulled the latch and the rusty, orange box opened. Inside was the Alberta flag from a trip to British Columbia that we went on when we were 15, some old raffle tickets that were left over from a fundraiser and an old scout handbook.
“I wonder who put this in here?” Brent asked while pulling out the handbook.
“Well, see if there’s a name inside. It looks like an older version, so it was probably someone from our scout troop.”
Brent opened the cover of the book, “Look. It belonged to Garrett.”
“Nice. He probably left it here during our last camp in 2011, before we went to Sweden for the World Jamboree.”
“Yeah. We spent so much time looking through this book trying to get badges,” he said flipping through the pages. “I feel like I know what’s on every page: The Arts badge, Weather badge, Collector badge, Music badge ….”
“Individual Sport badge, Team Sport badge, Winter Sport badge, Swimming badge. I could list most of them if we sat here long enough.” I mused.
Brent put the book on a stump that was between us. I picked it up and started flipping through from the back of the book to the front. I stopped on page 50, which is the chapter of the handbook that explains the history of scouting, “Okay, pop quiz time. Who was Robert Baden-Powell, and what did he do?”
“Uh,” Brent said. “He was the founder of scouting, he trained scouts for the British army, in 1907 he took a group of boys into the woods to see if they could be self-reliant, and that’s how scouting was born, I think?”
“All correct,” I replied. “But you’re missing two things. What are the two things that the scout leaders always drilled in our heads?”
“I have no idea, dude,” Brent said flatly.
“Come on, man! No trace camping and always leave the area better than you found it. Remember?”
“Oh yeah, I forgot about all of that.”
“Shocking,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Come on, we better put all this stuff away and keep going. It’s hot out here and we’ve barely started this hike.”

We put everything back in the box and put the box back on the shelf on the bottom of the kitchenette. I wiped my hands on my jeans and led the way through the campsite to the spot where the trail continued. We walked in silence for a bit and listened to the sounds around us. The dirt crunched under our hiking boots, and I listened to the leaves whisper around us as the trees swayed back and forth in the wind. Brent and I had walked this trail so many times as kids, we didn’t really need to pay attention to where we were going. As we were walking, I was thinking about those two ideals that were drilled into our heads as kids, running them over in my head when I felt like a lightbulb suddenly turned on in my head. I looked to Brent and exclaimed, “Dude! You’re never going to guess what I just realized!”
“What’s that?” he asked inquisitively.
“So, you know how I’m taking some Aboriginal and Native Studies classes in university, right?” I asked.
“Yep,” Brent confirmed simply.
“Well, Baden-Powell’s ideals about how to treat the land in scouting totally align with Indigenous teachings about respecting the land and nature around you,” I said proudly. I couldn’t believe I had never made that connection before, as it seems so obvious now.
“How does it do that? I’m not too familiar with Indigenous teachings.” He admitted sheepishly.
“Okay,” I said. “So, Indigenous teachings encourage people to respect the earth because it is a living, sentient being that Indigenous people call Mother Earth. The teachings also say that everything in nature is equal, humans aren’t the dominant species, and we need to respect all plants and animals. That’s why Indigenous people use every part of an animal that they’ve hunted and pray after killing it to say thank you for the animal’s sacrifice.”
“Really, that’s quite interesting in that those teachings line up so well considering the colonialist agenda that the British had when they came to Canada,” Brent observed.
“I know, right? Baden-Powell seemed to really respect the land around him, which is no surprise as he was a scout for the British army. In fact, he was ahead of his time since environmental conservation wasn’t really practiced back in the late 1800s and early 1900s.”
“Mhmm, that’s a good tidbit of information, Nick. We’re close to the end of this part of the trail, right?” Brent asked.
I looked around as we walked, and I could see the lake through the trees again. That’s how you knew that the Shoreline trail would connect with the snowmobile trail that led onto the lake soon. Although you basically followed the shoreline of Liz Lake all the way until the two trails connected, you couldn’t see the water itself for most of the hike because the trees and brush were so dense. “yeah, we’re close. Do you want to sit down when we get to the clearing and chill for a few minutes?
“Yeah, that would be great. My shoelace is starting to come loose and it’ll be good to sit down and hydrate before we carry on.” Brent replied.
I pulled my cap down more to protect my head as we stepped out of the trees into the clearing between the two trails and both of us gasped. Usually, this clearing was full of grass with very little garbage. Hikers could sit and relax, maybe even see a duck or two because most people didn’t come down here and if they did, it was only in the winter so snowmobiles could get onto the lake. Today, the clearing was different. It looked like there was a party here at some point. I couldn’t tell how long it had been like this, but there were alcohol and mix bottles, beer cans and other garbage spread everywhere. My stomach lurched: there was so much garbage! Even though we had grown too old for the scouting program when we turned 16, I still felt that the land that the scout camp was on and the land around it was special.
“What the hell?” I said, throwing my hands in the air. “I have never seen anything like this here.”

“Same, it looks like it was quite the party. That fire must have been pretty big considering the size of the circle scorched into the grass.” Brent replied.
“Yeah. Do you think it was a grad party or something? School ended about a month and a half ago, I think.”
“I don’t know. It could have been anyone around here, or even someone from town because the highway is only a couple kilometers away from here.”
“What should we do about it?”
“What do you mean ‘what should we do about it?’ Nothing. We didn’t trash the place, why should we clean it? I’m hungry and I want to go get food, not spend hours cleaning this mess.” Brent replied, clearly becoming annoyed.
“Well,” I said. “I think we both know what the right thing to do is. I have a box of garbage bags I keep stuffed under the back seat in my truck. It’s going to take a couple of hours and it’s going to be pretty crappy to haul all of that garbage out of here, but I think we should clean this up as best we can.”
“No, let’s just go.”
“Listen, Brent. You’ve always taken the easy way out when it comes to work. You slacked off when we were kids and only helped others when it benefitted you. I’ve always stuck up for you, dude, but you need an attitude adjustment.”
“Hey man, stop putting me down like that.”
“Is it putting you down when all I’m really doing is speaking the truth?” I said, “let’s just get this done, and we can go get food after. I might even have something in my truck to snack on.”
“But it’s going to eat up my entire day.” Brent began to protest.
“No, it won’t take all day, but it is going to take a couple of hours of good, honest work. On the bright side though, when we’re done, we can sit on the patio at the Marina and feel good that we are still respecting the land like we did when we were younger.”
“Fine,” Brent said reluctantly. “Let’s get this done. You’re buying the first round, though.”
“That I can do, and it’ll be well deserved after we get this garbage cleaned up,” I replied as I continued on down the rest of the trail. Brent followed behind me, we didn’t say much as the trail led us in the general direction of my truck, but I knew that we’d both feel better about it once the clearing was cleaned up and we were on our way to get some food. After about fifteen minutes of silence, Brent spoke up.
“You’re right, Nick. I really do need an attitude adjustment. This was supposed to be a fun and relaxing day and my laziness ruined it. I’m sorry.”
“Listen, dude. We don’t have to dwell on it. You came around…although you didn’t have much choice because I drove.” I replied, chuckling.
“Ha-ha, yeah, I guess that’s true. So, there was absolutely no way I was going to win that argument, huh?”
“Absolutely not. You were going to be stuck cleaning with me or hitchhiking home, and no one would pick up your ugly mug.” I said jokingly.
Brent started laughing and only managed to blurt out, “rude!”
By the time we stopped laughing we had made it to the truck. I unlocked it, opened the back door, grabbed the box of garbage bags and a bag of trail mix I keep in case of an emergency. I threw the bag at Brent, stuffed the box of garbage bags in my backpack and we began retracing our steps back to the clearing. By the time Brent and I finished collecting all the garbage and hauled the trash bags out of the woods, there were five bags in the back of the truck. Although the sun had sunk fairly low in the sky, my hat was still soaked in sweat from the heat. We both hopped into the vehicle and I immediately turned the truck on to get the air conditioning going. I threw my cap on the dash and said, “Holy smokes. That was a workout, wasn’t it?”
“Yep.” Brent replied, “I am exhausted. I need a burger and a cold brew!”
“I fully support that idea. Let’s head over to the Marina and get a table.”
I put the truck in reverse and backed out onto the main road. The Marina was only a couple of kilometers away and we made it there in a few minutes. I parked in the gravel parking lot and we made our way up the flight of stairs leading to the front door. Once inside, we walked through the main restaurant and onto the patio. There were six tables set up and most of them were free. We picked one closest to the railing so we could watch the boats go by as we ate. The Marina was on the shore of another lake called Paint Lake, and the patio provided a great view of the docks. I was famished. Brent must have been as well because we both ordered a burger, fries and an appetizer. We sat in silence for a bit enjoying our drinks and the view before Brent spoke.
“What are we going to do with the garbage?” He asked.
“I’ll leave it in the back of the truck and take it out to the dump tomorrow. I’m sure if I tell the employees what happened today, they will let me through without paying. They’re pretty good that way.” I replied.
“Are you going to need any help with that tomorrow?”
“No, I can offload the bags myself. Thanks for offering, though.”
“No problem. I have to admit, you were right.”
“Right about what?” I asked, a little confused.
“About feeling better after cleaning up the trash. I feel a sense of accomplishment, like we made the world a better place.” Brent said before taking a sip of his drink.
“Oh yeah. I feel better too. I was really upset when I first saw all the trash that was there, but we did our best and the clearing looks way better now.”
As we talked, our food arrived. We didn’t say much as we ate, but the food was delicious. After we finished, we paid our bills and walked back to the truck. I couldn’t see the sun anymore, but you could still see some orange, pink and purple in the sky. As we drove back to Thompson, we listened to one of my Spotify playlists and Brent was scrolling on his phone. I reflected on the amount of garbage we cleaned today and felt great knowing we stayed true to our teachings and left that area cleaner than when we found it.

Author’s Bio: Kelly Laybolt is currently enrolled in his second year of the Bachelor of Arts Program at the University College of the North. After the completion of his Arts degree, Kelly intends to enter the Education program and would like to teach at the elementary school level. Kelly participated in the Scouts Canada Program from 2007 to 2013 and has many fond memories of scouting as a youth and an adult. Presently, he frequently visits the Liz Lake Scout Camp, Thompson, and enjoys walking along the hiking trails that surround the property. In the future, Kelly hopes to incorporate the teachings and skills he learned from his time spent in the scouting program into his work to inspire other children to spend time learning about the nature that surrounds their community.

Instructor’s Remarks: As an adult student, Kelly Laybolt has to work full time and take courses online. He enjoys the course Major Authors and Works of the 20th Century. He holds the highest record of exploring the course website and completing all assignments with high standards. He also shares his remote learning experience with his peers and helping other students with their remote learnings. His memoir of camping in the north shows readers how Scout members in Kelly’s days were taught to respect the land. Kelly has carried the teaching into his adulthood. (Dr. Ying Kong)