LeatherworkMeritBadge: September 2017

Conclave is a weekend long event (for the Boy Scout's Order of the Arrow), filled with a wide range of activities, great food, training and shows, with the goal of uniting the scouts.   for details visit; www.sectionw1s.org/conclave/

It was held at Lane Community College in September 2017 in Eugene, Oregon and included 3 groups / lodges. Participants numbered between 450 - 500 people ranging from Washington to Medford, OR.

Mountain Man Haversack project!
Our team was invited to teach leatherwork - we taught 2 classes on Saturday morning with a dozen students in each. Each student created a leather "Mountain Man Haversack" bag from elk, deer, or pronghorn antelope pelts. With leather working tools the scouts assembled a front and back piece and long strap - many finished off their creation with a leather name tag and leather lace / deer antler button.

After lunch our team gave a presentation which included games and word searches/crossword puzzles related to the perusal of pelts & skins of over 100 different species of animals, birds and creatures from the sea. The roughly 40 -50 scouts were able to handle, feel and inspect all of these various examples of these amazing creatures.

Here are select comments received throughout the classes and presentation;

"Great / Very cool / Fantastic collection / Really cool project / Amazing collection / Wow, that's really shark/stingray/lizard/muskox/reindeer/moose/kangaroo/elephant ??!?? / Yeah, this is fun!/ I've never seen this before / This making leather tags was a good afternoon activity / I wanted to make a haversack bag, but didn't know it would be this big - the other guys are gonna be jealous / Yeah, this is a lot of pelts / Hey, thank you for doing this -setting up this class for us / Love my bag / This isn't easy / Yes, I'm happy with my bag / Really cool class - thank you / Definitely would do it again / Hard but worth it / The collection is so huge and varied / I learned several new things today / Making this bag - this project - it made my whole weekend! / I did it - it was hard but now I feel a sense of accomplishment "

Kudos to the team of teachers / helpers who contributed;