Hints Cut-outs

Pages 633 & 634
The Leader, May 1988

Fixing Fire Damage

Look around any spot that has been used as a campsite and you will usually find half a dozen fireplaces. Man seems to have a nesting instinct that requires him to make his own personal hearth before he is at home in a place.

A recent study conducted by the Sierra Club Outing Committee shows that, each time a camper uses an open fire, 1.2 square metres (4 square ft.) of ground is destroyed and 5 kg (11 lbs.) of wood consumed. We can not continue to use open fires indiscriminately.

Help fix fire damage. If you come across a site with several big or little fireplaces, you can obliterate many of them. Where fires were built on grassy spots, clear away the ashes, litter and rocks, then place a thick layer of fallen evergreen needles over the burned-over spot. Your efforts will go a long way to help restore a damaged area.

Thanks to Mike Marlow and The Grapevine, Fruitbelt District, Ont.

One Minute Boil

Save fuel, time, and the possibility of boil-over damage to your camp stove by practising the One Minute Boil. Bring food to a boil, reduce heat and boil gently for one minute, then cover the pot tightly and remove from the heat source for 10 minutes or so. The food continues to cook by its own heat and both you and your stove are free to prepare another course.

from Daymar Adventure Centre, Ont.

Save the Popcorn Pot

• To avoid burning the pot when you're popping popcorn, line the bottom with foil, shiny side up..

(Daymar)

Coffee & Eggs

• Save having to use another pot in the morning. After the coffee has finished brewing, put an egg in the coffee pot for five minutes. Result? A soft boiled egg, ready to eat. Good coffee, too.

Hazel Tagg, Red Deer, Alta.

Cocoa Powder Tire Trick

• A puncture in your bicycle tire? When you are repairing it, pour in about a teaspoon of cocoa powder through the valve hole. The next time the tire gets a puncture while you're out riding, the air rushing out will draw the powder with it and quickly choke the hole, giving you only a slow leak. As a consequence, rather than having to push the bike home for repairs, you will be able to replace the air lost in the initial rush and ride back.

Thanks to Scouting in New South Wales, Australia.

Get the Ketchup Flowing

• When you open a fresh bottle of ketchup and can't get it going, insert a drinking straw and push to the bottom. It admits enough air to start an even flow.

(Hazel Tagg)

Camp Repairs

• To banish paint odour when repainting the cookhouse, add two tablespoons vanilla extract to each quart of paint. A large cut onion placed in a big pan of cold water will also absorb paint odour. (Hazel Tagg)
• Use a match stick to fill out a hole where a screw needs tightening. (Scouting U.K.)
• Rub candle stubs along the edge of a saw to help it glide better.
• Sticky drawers also respond to this treatment. (Scouting U.K.)

Hints Cut-outs

Page 649 and 650
The Leader, December 1992

A Nice Warm Fire

• Use hardwoods for fire-making. Softwoods catch quickly but also burn very quickly and throw off lots of sparks.
• Dead branches on evergreen trees are drier than any wood on the ground. You'll find dead wood near the base of most of these trees. The twigs make great tinder; use larger sticks once the fire is burning well.
• Break open dry cattails for an excellent source of tinder.
• Check inside hollow logs, stumps or small caves for dry leaves you can use to get a fire started.
• If worse comes to worst and you can't find dry fire-lighting materials, check your toilet kit. A stick of solid deodorant burns well.
• Survival experts recommend that campers and hikers carry along two or three self-lighting emergency flares. They burn as long as 20 minutes, which means you should be able to start a fire with them under almost any conditions.
• If you're out of matches, on a sunny day you might be able to ignite tinder with the reflector from your flashlight. Remove the reflector and stuff some cotton wool or paper into the bulb hole. Hold the reflector to catch as much direct sunlight as possible. Like a magnifying glass, it will concentrate the heat until the cotton or paper catches fire.
• To get a fire going quickly, toss a couple of candle stubs into the kindling before lighting.
• To make it less likely smoke will follow you around your fire, build a short wall of rocks behind one part of the fire ring and sit on the opposite side of the fire. The smoke will rise towards your wall and leave you alone.
• Now that you've got a nice roaring fire, why not bake a cake? You don't need an oven. Put the mixed batter in a metal baking pan. Rake aside the fire coals and place the pan on the hot ground. Cover with a metal dish and rake the coals back around the pan. Your cake should be baked in 25 to 35 minutes.
• And to help keep your feet warm in winter, even when you're not cozied up to the fire, make insulators from foam meat trays. Trace the shape of each foot on a tray, cut out the shapes, and insert into your boots.

Fundraisers

• This winter, have Scouts plant and tend flower and vegetable seeds in flats. In spring, they can sell the bedding plants they've grown.
• Hold a Dutch Auction. Solicit donations of goods and wrap every item, from comb to hairdryer, in a separate package. Advertise your auction widely, stressing that it's an afternoon or evening of fun for a very good cause. Charge admission and give people play money with which to make their bids.
• Looking for something fairly simple to make and sell at a craft show? How about scented candles? Add cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, or another favourite spice to the hot melted wax before you pour it into the mold. The candles will give off a warm spicy holiday scent as they burn.

Hint Cut-outs

Pages 637 & 638
The Leader, June/July 1989

Mealtime Hints

Scouter C. Herbert Page, 1st Fredericton Scouts, N.B., shared our first two hints.

Activity Place mats:

When our group decided that each section plus the group committee would rotate as hosts of the annual Parent & Son banquet during Scout Week, we also started using place mats printed with activities for all ages to encourage the boys and their parents to be seated when they arrived at the hall. To make such place mats for our turn, the troop prepared and photocopied an 8 1/2 x 14 sheet with a quiz from the Leader as the centre focus and a Word Find and Dot-to-Dot puzzle for the younger boys.

Zip-lock Sausages:

We were planning a winter camp when we saw your recipe for zip-lock bag omelette (Feb.'89), and decided to zip-lock bag sausages for breakfast. We cooked the sausages at home, packed eight to 10 in each zip-lock bag, and froze them. At camp, we simply placed the bags in boiling water and heated them for about five minutes. The result was piping hot sausage that stayed hot, with no messy griddle and stove to clean up. These features are value important on a -25 degrees C morning outdoors!

Woodsman Skills

• How much time left before sundown? Hold out your hands in front of you at arms' length and, with the edge of a palm lined up at the horizon, see how many fingers you can fit between the horizon and the position of the sun in the sky. Each finger width represents about 15 minutes.
• You foolishly forgot your compass, the day is cloudy, and you want to find directions. Place your knife point gently on your thumbnail. Turn the knife slowly and carefully, and you'll see a faint shadow. Keep turning until the shadow is thinnest. It points east in early morning, north at midday, and west at dusk.

This & That

• For fishing days, keep a small magnet in your tackle box. It's very handy for retrieving hooks, swivels, etc., when they fall into the grass or shallow water.
• Duct tape is handy for making minor repairs on tents, canoes, pants, and boots at camp. Instead of carrying a whole roll, wrap tape around a pen 10 to 15 times and carry it in your pack.
• To keep score papers, announcements, etc., on a clipboard from flapping in the wind outdoors, modify the board by sawing notches in the two sides of one of the lower corners. Hook a rubber band in the notches and snap it over the corner of the papers. The elastic holds down the papers but lets you remove them easily.
• The next time you want to tack up signs, posters, or pictures in an activity room, reinforce the corners to make them less likely to rip by covering them with transparent sticky tape before poking in the thumbtacks.
• When Cubs collect pine cones for crafts at camp, you can open them fully and remove sap by placing them on a foil-covered cookie sheet and setting them in a 250 degree F oven for awhile.
• To make an all-purpose hiking stick, try this idea. Cut 25 mm diameter plastic pipe to your preferred length. Put a plastic cap on one end and a removable curved piece or knob on the other. You can use it as you would any other walking stick, but there's a bonus. You can carry your fishing pole or important maps inside.

Last edited: February 22, 2004
The NetWoods Virtual Campsite, Steve Tobin, Campmaster