Family Rifle River Canoe Trek & Venture Gauntlet

Our Annual Canoe Trek is always a favorite of Scouts, Leaders and Parents. We travel to Cole Canoe Base in Alger, Michigan (just south of West Branch off I-75). We camp in tents and patrols do their own cooking for the weekend. Parents & Siblings camp and eat with the GOATs.

Adults are needed in great numbers this weekend; with all the new Scouts this spring we will need adults (leaders and parents) to help them with their first aquatic activity. BSA and Troop Procedures are greatly in effect for the weekend due to the inherent risk of being on moving water. A short synopsis of these are:

1. Must be a 2020 BSA Swimmer in order to canoe without an adult (2 youth in a canoe). We will hold swim test nights for youth needing to test prior to the canoe trip. See Information below.
2. All Scouts who took the test and passed either the Beginner or Non-Swimmer swimming status must be in a canoe with an adult. You can retake the test if you would like to see if you can get to Swimmer status.
3. All Scouts who have not been on a canoe trip with 179, regardless of swim test ranking will canoe with an adult. The test will tell us your swimming ability but not your canoeing ability. Please try to make the test being offered. All Scouts must take the swim test for summer camp and taking it in the JCC's pool is much easier than in Cole Canoe Base's lake.
4. All canoeing adults also need to take a Swim Test. There is no sense in putting our children in canoes with adults if in an emergency they are not strong enough swimmers themselves.

We need many adults on the trip to cover the number of Scouts in Canoes, parents please consider coming if you have experience canoeing.

SWIM TESTING: Each year every Scout and Adult must take a swim test so that as we do activities in the water our Aquatics committee has a good idea as to the Scouts ability in the water. We are working hard to find a pool to support testing, otherwise we will do swim tests at Cole Canoe Base in the lake.