Backwoods Skills badge
Scout proficiency badge

Backwoods Skills

Survival skills for the Scout Cord: shelters, fires, rescue signals and first aid, then a survival exercise cooking without utensils.

  • Collective Achievement
  • Syllabus page 8

What you need to do

This is a requirement for the Scout Cord.

  1. Demonstrate the knowledge of the following:

    1. Exposure and its treatment.
    2. The first aid treatment for external bleeding and shock, the correct method of applying mouth to mouth ventilation and the dangers involved in moving injured people.

    3. Construction of different kinds of shelter:

      1. With minimum equipment
      2. Having no equipment available but using natural material
    4. Types of fires and burning qualities of different kinds of wood.
    5. Rescue signals involving whistle, torch, Morse, air rescues and ground signals to aid a search party.
    6. Signaling from one island to another island.
    7. Signaling for help from a dhoni.

  2. With a group of not more than three Scouts take part in the survival exercise, during which the group will:

    1. Construct a shelter with natural materials and sleep in it.
    2. Cook all meals over a wood fire. Apart from a knife, cook meals without utensils or aluminum foil.