Day 14

To make packing up easier we decided to clear the tents away on Friday before the camp fire and build small shelters to sleep in on the last night.

The weekly international camp fire is held on Friday nights in a bowl shaped arena. The audience can exceed a couple of thousand people! Everyone is encouraged to participate so we were treated to acts from all over the world.

 
The Leaders were pleasantly surprised to see our Scouts volunteering themselves spontaneously to appear in front of the crowd.
 

 
Two of our explorers, with the help of the Scouts entertained the audience with a bear hunt.
 

The leaders being the evil beggars that they are, decided that the last night of camp, when the Scouts were sleeping under a shelter with three sides completely open, was the best time to revive an old 3rd Gidea Park Tradition. A historic story with a spooky element. Kandersteg International Scout Campsite is built on what was the work site for the building of the nine-mile long Lötschberg railway Tunnel. The Northen portal of the railway tunnel was less than 100m from where we were sleeping.

In July 1908, whilst the tunnel was being built, the miners broke into a deep fissure below the valley above, and the tunnel flooded with water and glacial deposit. 25 Italian minders died. The Scouts had even seen the memorial to the miners at Goppenstein station on the way back from our overnight hike across the Lötschenpass.

This story prompted a last minute reshuffling of positions in the shelter.  The identity of those who suddenly refused to sleep on the end, will remain one of those “what goes on camp, stays on camp”  secrets known only those six Scouts.