:: Running from the Thought Police ::

:: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 ::

What's Being Lost

Note: This is a description of Owasippe Scout Reservation, whose sale prospect is mentioned below.

Owasippe Scout Reservation was originally purchased in 1910 on lands near Crystal Lake (now called Owasippe Lake). The original purchase was partially organized by the nearby Whitehall Chamber of Commerce. The camp was built in 1911 and camping commenced in 1912. The camp has been in continual operation since that time. As the Chicago Boy Scout council acquired more property in the area, three section camps were set up around Owasippe Lake: Camp Stewart, Camp Dan Beard, and Camp West. Like many schools and universities, each camp had it's own cheer and set of camp songs. The Council continued to acquire more land in response to the growth of scouting and the properties on which Camps Wolverine North and South, Blackhawk, Wilderness, Family Camp (later Reneker), Sauger Lake (later Carlen), and Robert Crown were bought and built on. Two lone troop camps, Hiwatha Beach on Big Blue Lake and the imaginatively name Camp Bass Lake on Bass Lake, were also created for those troops who preferred to run their own summer camp program. A color-coded trail system was created to connect the various camps and, when Cleveland Creek was dammed to create Lake Wolverine, an additional trail ringing the lake was also made. In the late sixties, when Scouting was running at peak membership, the camps hosted over 16,000 scouts and leaders in the course of each summer.

Fifty years of use had taken its toll on the older camps, though. So, when numbers started to fall off, the Owasippe Lake camps were sold for development and the Reservation was consolidated around Lake Wolverine and the southern shore of Big Blue Lake. The money from the sale was, supposedly, put into an endowment for the camp. Numbers continued to decline, though, and Camps Carlen and Robert Crown were mothballed by the end of 1990. However, in the mid-nineties an upswing in numbers caused the council to re-open Camp Carlen in 1996 and to convert Crown into a High-Adventure base. Due to money problems, Carlen was closed again after the 2002 season, but is slated to reopen again this summer as a Venturing camp.

While much focus is placed on the camps themselves, the majority of Owasippe is undeveloped. Like most of western Michigan, the soil is very sandy. In the 1870s-'80s the area was heavily cut to provide wood for the rebuilding of Chicago after the Great Fire; the reagon was clear-cut again in the 1920s in response to the building boom after World War I. While a few areas survived both cutting events due to the nature of the local terrain, most of the forests on the reservation are relatively new, with areas of Oak and Maple interspersed with areas consisting largely of pines. Owasippe is home to many species, endangered and common, including the Karner Blue Butterfly. Other species include five-lined skinks, thirteen-lined ground squirrels, black bear, and a number of nesting pairs of bald eagles. Groundwater springs permeate the area, giving rise to Cleveland Creek, the Quaking Bog (which is really an alkaline fen), and Paradise Valley. The entire camp sits within the watershed of the White River, which drains into Lake Michigan via White Lake. Glacial action seems to have missed the area, leaving Owasippe as one of the only hilly areas in rural West-Central Michigan.

:: The Squire 12:50 AM :: email this post :: ::
...