Dear Friends of Troop 187:
As the start date for 2008 Camp St. Croix nears, the Troop Committee thought it would be a good idea to let you know of a recent development at camp.
As you may know, until the past few years little was done to manage the forest at Camp St. Croix, despite heavy timber cutting on the county land that surrounds it. Several years ago with the leadership of Steve Dahl, the Committee developed a Forest Management Plan to help guide this and future generations to deal with the maturation of aspen, red oak, and jack pines, and to attempt to control oak leave wilt in the red oak population. Some of that harvest took place several years ago; Scouts and others have replanted some red and white pine.
This year, other, limited areas containing additional jack pine, red oak and aspen were scheduled to be cut. A local consulting forester, Phil Stromberg, was hired. Committee Member David Englehardt, who is the lead troop committee member on the project, coordinated the logging plans with him and TNT, the timber cutting company with whom Mr. Stromberg contracted.
We learned last week that the logger clear cut virtually all the timber from the east property line to the Sanford Lodge-Archery Range area, and from the camp road on the north to within a few hundred yards of the south property line. Also, at this hour, the camp road is impassible because of the logging operations.
Most camp operations are conducted between the Sanford-Archery Range area and the river, west of the clearcut area. You’ll recall that the troop does not own the area where the cook shack and hollow are located, but is working with national and local agency to formalize an agreement to continue to use it. Again, none of this area was a part of the timber cutting, which means that we can continue to use Camp St. Croix much as we have in the past.
There is little the troop can do immediately to address the logging mistakes made. In fact, there is much discovery work to be done. The committee will do that work and address those issues in the coming weeks. Now work is focusing on getting a road open into camp and ensuring that we give the Scouts the best camping experience possible. Consequently, be prepared to follow signs into camp following a different road, if it’s necessary to temporarily relocate the camp entrance, and be prepared to see a much-changed landscape.
Thank you for your past support; we’ll need it as we continue to forge ahead.
Yours in Scouting for the Troop Committee,
/s
Al Douglass, Chair