Northern Tier Expedition - August 17-25, 2007
Last updated 7/9/07
7/8/07 - Change to Meetings Schedule. There will be no NT Meeting at the Wheeler's on Monday, July 9th. I need to attend the final pre-camp meeting at Squanto, at 7:00pm, as well as turn in copious amounts of paperwork and schedule the special activities for the troop. The meeting will last the better part of an hour, and there is no way that I can be back in Medfield by 8:30pm. If the Crew Leaders want to hold their own meetings that night to review issues or discuss whatever subjects they feel would be useful, please go right ahead.
Also... Here is the information on Northern Tier Routes and Wilderness Cooking that I have promised you at our previous meeting. You should print and read through both of these. Focus especially on the Cooking one, as we will all be taking turns in the preparation, cooking and cleanup of our meals.
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Routes from Ely Base (and other info) - Please note that these are examples of the types of routes that we can take. They are provided to give us an idea of what types of conditions that we can chose to do (#portages, portage distances, degree of solitude, fishing, wildlife, etc). The "Little Saganaga Loop" (page 14) sounds like the kind of experience that people were voicing at out 7/2 meeting. Our actual routes will be decided on the night we arrive at Ely Base, with each crew working with their guide. |
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Wilderness Cookery - This describes the meals that we will be having. (Note: we are a 7-day trip.) It also covers the extra cooking materials/items that we will be issued, hints & suggestions on how to prep the food, how to fillet a fish, how our trail oven is used, various other cooking & baking instructions, and dishwashing procedures. |
(Both documents all are in PDF format, just like our permission slips. (Go to the Permission Slips page if you need to download the Acrobat Reader tool.)
Meetings and Conditioning Schedule
Regular NT meetings (planning, review, discussion, as we have been having) will now be held each Monday, at 8:30pm at my house, 20 Cross Street. Depending on topics covered, meetings should last approx 45-60 min, assuming we start on time.
Hiking/Conditioning will be each Friday at Noon Hill Rd parking lot, 7:00am. (Yes, that's 7:00 in the morning. People wanted to get it done first thing in the day.) There is a 1.8 mile trail that I have been using, with varying trail conditions. I think this is a good distance to work with, as we all seemed (at least back at our beginning meetings) that we wanted to limit our portage lengths to about 2 miles or less, if possible. Bring a sturdy backpack, loaded with the weight shown in the table below. We should soak our boots in the Noon Hill pond before we head out. Later on in July we will substitute a few canoes for backpacks, to get the feel of hiking whilst carrying one.
Canoeing will be every other Tuesday, at the Charles River put-in on Rte 27, promptly at 7:00pm. We'll paddle downstream to Rocky Narrows where paddlers can switch ends, and then come back in time to reload the trailer before dark. (Round-trip takes about 60 minutes.) We may find that we have to schedule earlier, as time goes, due to darkness. We also may change the starting location for variety.
| Fri, June 22 | 20lb hike at Noon Hill Parking Lot, 7:00am |
| Mon, June 25 | NT Meeting @ Wheelers, 8:30pm - First personal gear check |
| Fri, June 29 | 30lb hike at Noon Hill Parking Lot, 7:00am |
| Mon, July 2 | NT Meeting @ Wheelers, 8:30pm - Route planning, transportation info, etc |
| Tue, July 3 | Canoeing, Charles River at Rte 27, 7:00pm |
| Fri, July 6 | 40lb hike at Noon Hill Parking Lot, 7:00am |
| * No NT Meeting @ Wheelers (Conflict with final pre-camp meeting at Camp Squanto) | |
| Fri, July 13 | 50lb hike at Noon Hill Parking Lot, 7:00am |
| * Squanto Week, No NT Meeting @ Wheeler's (See note below) | |
| Tue, July 17 | * Canoeing, Charles River at Rte 27, 7:00pm |
| Fri, July 20 | * 55lb hike at Noon Hill Parking Lot, 7:00am |
| Mon, July 23 | NT Meeting @ Wheelers, 8:30pm - Second personal gear check |
| Fri, July 27 | 60lb hike at Noon Hill Parking Lot, 7:00am - Add canoe(s)? |
| Mon, July 30 | NT Meeting @ Wheelers, 8:30pm - Crew gear check, Carpooling plans, etc |
| Tue, July 31 | Canoeing, Charles River at Rte 27, 7:00pm |
| Fri, Aug 3 | 70lb hike at Noon Hill Parking Lot, 7:00am - Add canoe(s)? |
| Mon, Aug 6 | NT Meeting @ Wheelers, 8:30pm - Final personal gear check |
| Tue, Aug 7 | Canoeing ?? will be determined |
| Fri, Aug 10 | 70lb hike at Noon Hill Parking Lot, 7:00am - Add canoe(s)? |
| Mon, Aug 13 | NT Meeting @ Wheelers, 8:30pm - Final crew gear check |
| Fri, Aug 17 | Leave for Northern Tier !! |
* - On July 9, there will be no Monday meeting at Wheeler's, as I need to attend the final pre-camp meeting at Squanto. The Friday Hike will still take place.
* - Likewise, during Squanto Week, there will be no Monday meeting at Wheeler's. However, the Tuesday Canoeing and Friday Hike will still take place, under the responsibility of Crew Leaders Luke & Patrick, and/or the remaining adult advisors.
Milestones
6/3/07 - Final Canoeing MB class #4, run by Mr Costello, at Hinkley Swim Pond.
5/14/07 - National Tour Permit for Northern Tier approved and received
5/5/07 - Canoeing MB class #3, run by Mr Costello, on Devil's Foot Island
4/21/07 - Canoeing MB class #2, run by Mr Costello, at his house
4/10/07 - Canoeing MB class #1, run by Mr Costello, 7:00pm-8:30pm, at UCC (same time as troop meeting)
1/30/07 - Information packets distributed to all NT attendees. Packet contains Info Flyer #3, Northern Tier medical form and CD containing interactive web pages covering needed personal gear, clothing, equipment, etc.
6/1/06 - Info Flyer #2 mailed to all participants. An online copy is here. (Word format)
5/23/06 - Northern Tier will be sending me updated 2007 Expedition information
sometime in July. In the meantime, here are the 2006 documents I have so
far. (They should not be very different from the 2007 versions, other than
prices.)
The documents all are in PDF format, just like our permission slips. (Go
to the Permission Slips page if you need to download the Acrobat Reader tool.)
| 2006 Expedition Planning Guide - a must for reading by all attendees and parents. (This is a large file and may take a while to download.) |
| 2006 Route Planning Guide - examples of types of routes that we can take. Very interesting, but difficult to read electronically. (In order to make this readable, you need to print it out,, cut up and re-assemble the pages in order.) |
| Equipment Lists - These lists show what gear Northern Tier will provide to each crew, what gear each crew must supply themselves, and what personal gear each attendee must bring. Note that some of the items are specialized (ie, the boots) and that all clothing needs to be synthetic. |
| NT Medical Form - A more extensive version of the form we use for Squanto. |
| NT Parental Release Form - for your parents to grant you permission to attend Northern Tier and (should we decide to) paddle into Canada. |
I've also added logs from two troops that have gone to Northern Tier in the past few years. If you read anything on this page, read these! They are fascinating and give a completely different insight to NT than does any of the official NT documentation.
| Troop 476 (Cupertino CA) - August 2003, written by adult leader |
| Troop 764 (Dunwoody GA) - July 2000, written by one of the scouts (Note: this one is in Microsoft Word format.) |
4/24/06 - Received confirmation from Northern Tier of our Aug 17-25, 2007 reservation. We're in !!
04/03/06 - Made "pre-reservation" request with the Northern Tier Ely Base today for our first-choice dates, August 17-25, 2007.