New Scout Home Amid the Mountains

New Scout Home Amid the Mountains By N. Alvin Pedersen, Dept. of English, U. A. C. Logan is building a new home, the most important one she has built in many a day. Its peculiar significance lies in the fact that this home is to be the shelter and rendezvous, not of a family of six or ten but of six hundred boy scouts when on their "outings" into the wilds, whether it be in the "leafy month of June" or in snow-covered January when the owl "for all his feathers is a-cold." Six hundred of them, a noble band of boys is this, whom Logan and her environs have mothered. And now a new Scout home is being erected for them in which to conserve these boys and implant in them the ideals of Lincoln and Roosevelt. A unique project it is: our hearts and hopes of future years are all with it. The citizens here are enthusiastic; the boys them- selves are eying every hammer stroke of the builders. And when the last shingle is laid there will be a fathers and sons' outing in Logan Canyon such as a poet might dream of. In the course of a month that dream should come true. The building of this home is a community project. Peo- ple of Logan and vicinity gave of their money freely, usually the sums that were asked by the committees, and in addition they gave labor and material gratis. For instance, a large stack of hard-wood shingles, costing approximately $250 is now upon the grounds ready for use. This material was the gift of the Logan Kiwanis Club, the members of which had already made their contributions through other channels. Similarly generous was the action of the Rotary Club which is paying the hire of three logging outfits that ply daily between the timber four miles away and the building site. Likewise, a further illustra- tion of community cooperation might have been seen last Sat- urday when a merchant, an attorney, and three professors from the U. A. C. formed one timber gang— all giving volunteer ser- vice. The Scouts themselves built road, felled trees, and are now in the process of making small money contributions. United we stand, is our motto. # . The camp is fifteen miles up Logan Canyon, oft in the right hand fork where the strictest privacy can be maintained, a con- dition essential to Scout discipline. In every direction lies in- viting hiking territory. Through the canyon to the east, an easy

1000 IMPROVEMENT ERA day's jaunt, lies Bear Lake, which now attracts tourists by the thousands from all parts of the country. Mt. Logan, nearly 10,000 feet high, beckons from the south and west to its easiest approach. Mountains Gog, Magog, and Naomi lift their heads BUILDING THE LOGAN SCOUT HOME Top: View of the giant tree where it fell. Bottom: The scout building, with the first row of logs laid on their rock foundation. to a similar elevation on the north, with mountain streams jumping for hundreds of feet down their rocky sides to the blue mountain water of White Pine lake. The camp is thus a genu- ine hiker's El Dorado, the center of which is the Scout Camp, in a dry, open place yet with a scenic background of mountain and

NEW SCOUT HOME 1001 forest, part of the delightful Cache game preserve. Elk and deer are not far away; wild birds are plenty; and many a tree shows the imprint of Bruin's long claws, the results of a climb for food or fun. The camp building or home, is to be of rustic pattern. The timber is sawed on three sides only, leaving the round bark side to face the weather. The logs thus dressed, the beginning rows of which are now laid, rest upon a rough rock formation three or four feet high. The structure when completed will thus be seen to fit its setting, a mountain home amid the mountains. When the Scouts return to camp from a vigorous hike there will be in the home a kitchen, in which to cook their rations; a hospital room in which to bandage a wound; a library from which to get Treasure Island, or A Little Boy Lost; and, if it chance to be a cold night, they can all gather after supper in a thirty-six by forty-two assembly room, made cozy by glowing, crackling logs in a ten-foot fire place, while the Scout master reads to them Sohrab and Rustum, The Revenge, or The Ballad of East and West. In a mild night they might sit on the large porch and tell to one another great stories of today's heroes, or climb to the balcony and hear related the story of how Phaeton drove the sun chariot. Above the Scouts would be the dark beauty of the night and the quiet mystery of the stars; around them would encircle the ancient everlasting hills; in their hearts would dwell gratitude for the largeness of life and consequent reverence for God and his handiwork.