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Young Knights of the Empire

76 of 87

So I can well advise Scouts to have a taste of both. A patrol or troop can easily take up Sea Scouting for one season if they like, just as a change. But, of course, it means that each one of them must learn swimming first, if he is not already a swimmer, and must know his knots really well, for actual use, and not merely for passing test examinations. It is well worth the trouble, for Sea Scouting, with its adventures and its games, is full of enjoyment and fun. * * * * * WHEN SEA SCOUTING HELPED ME. When I was last in Canada I had to do a lot of my travelling by canoe, because the forests there are almost impassable with their thick undergrowth and boggy soil. There are lakes and streams everywhere, so it is comparatively easy to go by water. But there are plenty of adventures to be met with by the way, in the shape of snags and rocks and rapids, and out on the lakes gales spring up, with a heavy sea, in a very short time. So a fellow has to know how to manage a boat and how to face risks if he is going to get on at all, and it is just as well that he should be able to swim, as otherwise he is not likely to arrive at the end of his trip in the way he had intended! [Illustration: A SEA SCOUT] Well, Jim and Ben and I were paddling in our birch bark canoe across a good-sized lake where there were a lot of small islands, when suddenly we scrunched on to a submerged rock, which brought us to a full stop and bulged in the bottom of our vessel, so that the water began to run in and flood the floor. So the canoe was quickly turned, and away we paddled as hard as we could for the nearest island, and just reached it in time to scramble ashore before our boat began to sink. We quickly pulled her up on the rocks, got our baggage out, and rolled her over, so that the water could run out and we could get at the hole to repair it. This was done in quite a neat way. Ben and I scraped away with our knives some of the "gum" or natural pitch with which the seams of the canoe were caulked. Jim meantime had made a little fire with driftwood. Then Ben took a bit of rag, which he had used as a bandage for a wounded hand, and stretched it over the hole in the boat, and fixed it there with little bits of "gum," which he melted down with a red-hot stick taken from the fire. In this way he made a watertight patch over the leak in a very few minutes, and we soon had the canoe afloat again. We loaded her up, and within ten minutes of the disaster we were on our way again as happily as ever, but we kept a sharper look-out than we had done before for snags and rocks just below the surface of the water. * * * * * THE SEA SCOUTS IN WAR. Thanks to so large a number of Scouts having taken up the training as Sea Scouts we were able to supply about 1400 useful and efficient fellows to act as Coastguards directly the war broke out. This enabled a large number of the regular Coastguards to be sent to man the Fleet. Since then, the Admiralty have been so satisfied with the good work done by the Sea Scouts, who have been guarding our coasts from the extreme north of Scotland down to the Land's End in Cornwall, that they have asked for more of them, and we now have about 2000 employed on this duty and as signallers on board mine-sweepers, coaling and supply ships. The Sea Scouts have won for themselves a very good name by Being Prepared before war broke out. HOW TO BECOME A BACKWOODSMAN Any fellow who means to be a backwoodsman, whether it is for pleasure or for work, should first of all get some practice at it at home. For eight years of my life I hardly ever slept in a house and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But to enjoy it you must know how to make yourself comfortable in camp. * * * * * TENTS. The first thing to consider is what kind of substitute for a house you are going to have to protect you from bad weather. This depends a good deal on what kind of country you are in. In a forest you can, of course, get plenty of timber out of which to build huts, but it is not much use being able to build a log-hut and then to find yourself in the open desert of the Sahara.

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