A Cherokee National Forest Park Ranger demonstrates to campers from the "Outdoor Adventure" summer camp how different animals will leave different tracks.Â
A Cherokee National Forest Park Ranger demonstrates to campers from the "Outdoor Adventure" summer camp how different animals will leave different tracks.Â
On July 8, the next class of Wilderness Warriors will begin training.
By the conclusion of the “Wilderness Warriors†summer camp hosted by ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ Parks and Recreation, a group of 28 campers will have acquired the skills needed to build shelters, start and extinguish fires, survive when lost in the woods, pack the ten essentials when hitting the trails and more.
Camp Director and Park Naturalist Connie Deegan said that Wilderness Warriors is always the first of her summer camps to reach full capacity, and for good reason.
“I think on some level this kind of catches everybody’s interest,†Deegan said. “Even a person who’s not an outdoors person…and so people can relate to this.â€
Campers from the "Outdoor Adventure" summer camp happening June 24-28 identify different animals based on their pelts and scat.Â
Deegan said that she has been holding the Wilderness Warriors summer camp for a decade, and that at some point in the last 5–10 years she has observed a surge of interest in her naturalist camps.
“Parents want their kids to learn about the natural world, they want their kids to have a connection to this stuff,†Deegan said. “They want their (kids) outside because they’re concerned with the natural world, and they want them outside because they see the disadvantages that we’re all aware of with too much sitting on your butt.â€
Deegan hopes that in the long run, her campers will grow to have more of an appreciation and understanding of the outside world, which has the ability to make a global impact on the ecosystem.
Campers from the "Outdoor Adventure" summer camp participate in a scavenger hunt in the woods.Â
“It’s tiny, small changes by individuals that are going to change things up. It’s not some giant corporation or government mandating ‘we will now plant 50,000 trees’,†Deegan said. “That doesn’t work–it’s us changing how we do stuff, and the best and most important thing to change even before you stick the tree in the ground is your attitude about it and understanding why it’s important.â€
Campers from the "Outdoor Adventure" summer camp quickly found the "slithering creature" during the scavenger hunt.Â
The Wilderness Warriors summer camp will run July 8–12 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Every day, the camp will feature new activities, games and guest speakers. There will even be a few field trips on the schedule.
This year, Wilderness Warriors will take field trips to the Legion Street Pool, Sycamore Shoals State Park, Fishery Park and Rock Creek Recreation Area.
Some of their educational activities are as follows: Getting Lost and Getting Found; Wilderness and Public Lands; Shelter Building; Wilderness Fire Safety; Frontiersmen: Old Time Survival; Survival is a Mind Game; The Ten Essentials; Native Pelts; and a tour of Fire Station Number Nine.
While registration has closed for this particular naturalist camp, Deegan said that Wilderness Warriors is a summer camp that she never retires, so she urges parents to check back with parks and recreation next year to enroll their child.
For more information on ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ Parks and Recreation and their available summer camps, visit their .
