Merit Badge Corner – Pathfinding

This weeks merit badge corner is a merit badge I earned last week at Summer Camp and is also one of the historic merit badges. It’s the pathfinding merit badge!  The pathfinding merit badge is very interesting and easy merit badge to earn and really only takes at most an hour to complete. So here are the requirements:

1. In the country, know every lane, bypath, and short cut for a distance of at least two miles in every direction around the local scout headquarters; or in a city, have a general knowledge of the district within a three-mile radius of the local scout headquarters, so as to be able to guide people at any time, by day or by night.
2. Know the population of the five principal neighboring towns, their general direction from his scout headquarters, and be able to give strangers correct directions how to reach them.
3. If in the country, know in a two mile radius, the approximate number of horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs owned on the five neighboring farms; or, in a town, know, in a half-mile radius, the location of livery stables, garages and blacksmith shops.
4. Know the location of the nearest meat markets, bakeries, groceries, and drug stores.
5. Know the location of the the nearest police station, hospital, doctor, fire alarm, fire hydrant, telegraph and telephone offices, and railroad stations.
6. Know something of the history of his place; and know the location of its principal public buildings, such as the town or city hall, post-office, schools and churches.
7. Submit a map not necessarily drawn by himself upon which he personally has indicated as much as possible of the above information.

Since we were at summer camp we used the Camp’s Office as our “scout headquarters” and worked from there. We used the internet in the office to research the population and discussed everything in relation to our camp and the nearby towns. All in all this was a very fun and easy badge to earn and it gave us a view into the past were a scout needed to know this information to do day to day things.

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