Historic Trails Award

The BSA Historic Trails Award is rarely awarded in our Council. That might be because there are only two area trails on the approved list. This is a worthy award, and it’s one of the check-the-box items on NESA’s scholarship app. That shouldn’t be the only reason you work on it, but it’s certainly a valid one. If you’re studying Washington State history, see if you can count hours on the trail or learning about the trail for course credit.

Here are the official requirements:

To earn the award, members of your unit must plan and participate in a historic activity. A unit historic activity requires members to:

1. Locate a historic trail or site and study information relating to it. (The information may be obtained from an adult historic society, public library, or people living near the trail or site.)
2. Hike or camp two days and one night along the trail or in the vicinity of the site.
3. Cooperate with an adult group such as a historic society to restore and mark all or part of this trail or site. (This may be done during the hike or overnight camp.) Or cooperate with such a group to plan and stage a historic pageant, ceremony, or other public event related to this trail or site – such event should be large enough to merit coverage by the local press. See below.
4. Your unit leader must then file the Historic Trails Award application with your council service center.

The first choice listed for Washington is the O’Neill Pass. If anyone has any current information on this trail and the award requirements, I’d appreciate getting it. We could not find anything relevant.

We had better luck with the Press-Expedition Trail. What an interesting story! What’s nice about this is that Olympic National Park has its own volunteer coordinator. If you’re looking for a project restoring part of the trail, he can hook you up with something suitable. Of course, if you’d rather do the pageant option, you’re on your own. Frankly, I think that’s more suitable for Civil War trails, but I’d be interested to see what troops can come up with. Contact David Merritt, the volunteer coordinator for the park, as far out as possible for the best project match. Park regulations require that he be with the group, so the more advance planning, the better.

As you pencil in your next year’s activities, consider making the Historic Trails a priority. This “Fun with a purpose” outing combines community, history, and education.

Here’s a resource from Scott: Olympic Park: Historic Resource Study. A lot of great information!