Camp Easton--More information

Information for Camp Easton (Scout-owned)

Camp address	Contact Information
23516 S Hwy 97 Harrison, ID 83833 Forecast for this area (at weather.com)	Inland Northwest Council Council contact information Contact email Website

Map using camp address (sometimes accurate)	Map using coordinates: (always accurate) Lat: 47.60045, Lon: -116.7754629
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Comments for Camp Easton

Located on Lake Coeur d'Alene. The most beautiful camp I've seen. Highly recommended for water front activities.

(posted on Mar 8,2000)

Very Beautiful Camp, wonderful scenery, very nice place.

(posted on Mar 8,2000)

Of all the scout camps I have seen or that I have been a staff member of, Easton is by far the best. The scenery is breathtaking and the opportunities are endless. And if you like to sail.this is your place.

(posted on Oct 24,2000)

Camp Easton is the best of the 3 camps owned by the Inland Northwest Council. It's got swimming and boating on beautiful Lake Coeur d'Alene. The water is warm enough to swim in starting around the 4th of July. There are many campsites under the huge pine and fir trees. Hike up the mountain to get to the rifle and archery ranges. Stop on by!

(posted on Jan 4,2002)

We visited Camp Easton in its first week of camp this year.

We've visted camps in the first week before and know historically there will be bumps as they work the details of the first week. I've taken that into consideration with my review.

Program: Average all around. Program staff was friendly but was out of sync with what the SM were being told in the SM meetings by the Program Director. This caused a lot of confusion for the scouts.

Food: The food was good but serving size was inconsistant between participants. Small and cramped dining hall even though they just added on. Changed to a "one sitting" time slot instead of two.

Campsites: Beautiful and spacious. New tents and platforms in majority of sites, (didn't visit all to validate 100%).

Kybos: Multi stall with no privacy. It made a lot of us leaders concerned about Youth Protection and the Two Deep Leadership as it's to protect the adults too. A good solution would be to just put door on each stall so each could enter from the outside.

Hazards: The road that separates the camp. A real problem that the council is aware of. Scouts must cross daily for program activities, (all range sports, nature activites and scout craft). campsite also located there too.

Camp property overall: Beautiful and picturesque. Adaquately maintained.

Adult leader rating: 4 out of 10
Scout rating: 8 out 10
Overall rating: 6 out of 10

Will we return? No

(posted on Jul 24,2003)

We went to Camp Easton for the first time this year -- all we can say is WOW!

This was our best camping experience in 25 years.

The facility is beautiful, located on Lake Coeur d'Alene, with an absolutely fantastic waterfront.

The program is outstanding -- clearly geared to make your patrols function as patrols with leadership opportunities, competition and games. Our patrols grew in their ability with this experience.

Along with this is the wonderful way in which advancement is conducted. Everything from the method of sign-up to completion is absolutely fair and adheres to the advancement policies. There are no "give-aways" here, yet Scouts were able to attain what they set out to accomplish for the most part.

The staff is the model for a Scout Camp: they live the Scout Oath and Law. While we were there, I became aware that they were 7 staff members short, yet it was completely invisible to campers. It meant the staff was working very hard to deliver the program.

The waterfront program is the draw with nearly every aquatics-related MB covered. They have a fleet of canoes, including 30 foot "war canoes" used for 4-1/2 mile one-way overnights across the lake. Supervision is outstanding.

A highway does run through camp, to the camp is divided into upper and lower sections. All shooting sports, nature and Scoutcraft are located in the upper camp, as are a number of camp sites. The lower camp contains camp sites, waterfront, handicraft, a well-stocked trading post, and the dining hall. New shower houses with individual shower rooms and individual toilets easily address youth protection and shy boys, as well as meeting the needs of female Scouters. These are located in both the upper and lower camps. Camp sites still have kybos nearby, so bathroom needs are easily met.

Camp sites are a bit primitive in some respects, but most tents have full platforms. It is a steep climb into some of the sites, but roads are available to haul in your heavier gear. You will get your exercise!

The food is outstanding. We were fed too well by our previous experiences elsewhere. They even had a salad bar available at lunch and dinner. No one can possibly go hungry, unless they flat-out choose not to eat. Even my finicky eaters were happy! Our Scouts' consumption of candy from the Trading Post was pretty low due to the wonderful meals. The dining hall is open 24 hours a day for people to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if they are hungry.

The camp is also the base for a whitewater program for older Scouts. They leave from the camp on Monday morning and return Friday afternoon, spending the week rafting further South from the camp.

The only thing this camp is missing is a COPE program, but I heard that is on the way.

In short, if a Scout doesn't have fun at this camp, it's because he doesn't want to participate. if he's hungry, it's because he chose not to eat from the excellent varied menu. It has to be a jewel in Boy Scout camps in the United States.

(posted on Aug 26,2005)

we are going there next year

(posted on Jan 23,2007)

Here is an article that appeared in the Cd'A Press back in '94 detailing the history of Camp Easton:

Easton Offers History, Pride

By Gordon Giles, Special to the Press

Printed in The Coeur d’Alene Press – Special Souvenir Edition

July 29, 1994

On one of the most beautiful lakes in the world is located Camp Easton for Boy Scouts and Explorers of the Idaho Panhandle Council of Boy Scouts of America.

The camp, with an area of 214.9 acres and a waterfront of one-half mile, Is located on the east shore of Lake Coeur d’Alene between Echo Bay and Driftwood Point, and has a small bay of its own, Gotham Bay.

The present Camp Easton will be 65 years old this summer, but this was not the first Camp Easton. The first permanent Boy Scout camp on Lake Coeur d’Alene was established in 1920. At that time there was a formal Boy Scout Council in Shoshone County and businessmen in Kootenai County were promoting Boy Scout troops without an established organization and without any professional assistance.

The Shoshone Council had used a site on Rose Lake for camping. On June 8, 1920, Scout Executive R. Frazier of the Shoshone Council and five Boy Scouts started permanent improvements on ground known as Boothe’s Landing.

It was on the north shore of Lake Coeur d’Alene, east of Bennett’s Bay and five and three-fourths miles from the city of Coeur d’Alene.

Frazier and the five Scouts built a dining hall 20 feet by 30 feet, floors for five tents, cleared a parade ground, and cleaned the beach of logs and driftwood. Cost for materials was $321.71.

Camp opened July 6, 1920 for a four-week period. A total of 58 Boy Scouts with five Scouters used the camp. The fee to attend was 85 cents per day. During the camping season 120 visitors came into camp and if any visitor desired a meal it cost him 60 cents.

Pictures of the waterfront of this first camp show a long dock and boathouse. The dock was a fit to the camp by the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce and was 240 feet long, valued at $250.

On January 5, 1921, a meeting of representatives of the Shoshone County Council and representatives from Kootenai County was held at the office of Shoshone County Prosecuting Attorney H.J. Hull.

Attending were Stanley A. Easton, manager of the Bunker Hill Co.; Dr. C.R. Mowery, prominent Wallace physician; Platt P. Morrow, owner of Morrow’s Retail Store in Wallace; Huntington Taylor, manager of the Rutledge Timber Co., Coeur d’Alene; Walter S. Rosenberry, manager of Winton Lumber Co., Rose Lake; Coeur d’Alene attorney Robert H. Elder; and Hull and Frazier.

The men decided to join the two councils into one, and the Shoshone-Kootenai County Council of Boy Scouts of America came into being.

Kootenai County Scouters were to pay the Shoshone group $628.94 to cover cost of half the property and fixtures owned by the Shoshone Council. This would have included the camp at Boothe’s Landing. Scouters of Kootenai also were to raise $3.825 as their share of the 1921 council budget. It was also agreed that Frazier would be hired as Scout executive, headquartered in Wallace.

A new field executive was to be hired under Frazier’s supervision, to be headquartered in Coeur d’Alene. A.D. Dayton, an employee of the Rutledge Mill in Coeur d’Alene, was given the post.

Eight years after formation of the Shoshone-Kootenai Council, a meeting of the Coeur d’Alene District Committee proved very important to Scouting history in this area. Present were G.T. Morken, president of the council; Walter S. Rosenberry; Robert H. Elder; Eugene H. Ware; H.P. Glindeman; T.S. Cope; H.A. Sampson; Neil Coventry; Dr. John T. Wood; Fred W. Fitze; O.W. Edmonds; W.F. McNaughton; and Scout Executive W.D. Rounsavell.

They met to discuss the possibility of purchasing land owned by Fred W. Fitze at Gotham Bay as a new Boy Scout campsite.

There was noted in the written minutes of the meeting the following paragraph:

“Mr. Fitze announced that it was his desire to present the site to the Idaho Panhandle Council as its summer campsite and that we accept it from him as a gift to the council and the boys of our area. His only wish was that it should be accepted with the understanding that it was his desire to have it sued perpetually as a camp for boys.”

A further quotation from the minutes;

“Mr. W. W. Rosenberry stated that he would be glad to join with any other men who might desire to participate in furnishing money for the camp buildings. He stated that in his opinion the public should not be asked to bear this expense and that the matter should be left to the members of the council or men interested enough to voluntarily bear this expense.”

A week later, on May 27, 1929, the council met again, decided to build at once, and hired Frank James to assemble a crew and begin work. Arrangements were made with the St. Joe Boom Co. to furnish a working cookhouse and bunkhouse for the workers to be tied near the site of the Mess Hall on May 29th.

James presumably was a very competent and skilled contractor and he also had gathered together a very workable crew, because by July 6, 1929, the camp was ready for occupancy. Scout Executive Rounsavell was the first camp director.

In the early years of Camp Easton a man by the name of Bill Ritchie appeared. He was a single man and owned a small float house, which he moved from place to place on the lake. In the fall he would move into the swimming area with his floathouse and remain all winter.

Someone gave Ritchie permission to live in the small of the two log cabins for the winter. For this privilege he repaired the Scout boats and took care of the camp buildings. He later was hired by the council as the camp ranger, until he became too elderly to be alone in the camp. For years he was a part of Camp Easton.

From 1929 until 1940 n major buildings were constructed for the camp. The normal repairs on the original buildings and water system were made each year. Four war canoes and several two-man canoes were acquired by the council or given to the camp by interested citizens or organizations.

A storage place for the boats became essential and about 1940 a boathouse with storage above the main room was built. In the winter it was used to store boats, paddles, oars, life preservers and waterfront paraphernalia.

During camping periods it served as a shop and office for the waterfront director. In 1970, an addition was added to the boathouse solely for the purpose of storing boats. The original boathouse was remodeled into a shop to repair boats and keep tools. A space heater was installed to keep the shop warm for work in the winter months.

In 1944 one of the area’s strongest Scouting supporters, Anton Moen, was elected president of the Coeur d’Alene Lions Club. He proposed that the club begin a sponsorship of Camp Easton for camp improvements and major repairs. A group of members and their wives visited the camp to make a survey of improvements they could make.

Their first work party included 16 members who went to the camp on Sunday, November 12, 1944.

They built outdoor washrooms, laid 200 feet of water pipe, and dug cesspools. The Lions Club furnished materials and labor.

From this first project to the present, members of the Lions Club have donated hundreds of hours of labor and given several thousand dollars to the development, improvement and repair of Camp Easton.

Major projects in camp where the Lion members furnished most of the labor were: construction of the cook’s quarters in 1946; three Adirondack-type cabins in 1951; new camp ranger’s residence in 1963; addition to the boathouse in 1970; and building of the new storage and commissary building in 1976-1977. The club also furnished $4,000 material in this last building.

The Adirondack cabins built in 1951 were located north of the dining hall with a beautiful view of the lake and Mica Bay. They have never been used extensively because the interiors were found to be very drafty from cold from an almost constant breeze of the water.

In recent years there has been a continuous remodeling project of enclosing the buildings, refinishing the interiors with wood paneling, covering the cement floors with carpeting and installing small wood-burning heaters. The Adirondacks are now used for family housing.

The council, realizing they would have to replace the old camp ranger who had given many years’ service to the camp, decided a new ranger’s cabin was in order.

Plans for a two-bedroom house, fully modern in services, were made. It was decided to locate the house on the south end of the parking lot, giving a good view of the car parking areas and the main buildings of the camp.

Mature trees were logged off the camp land and traded to the Stowe Sawmill located not far from the camp for lumber. The Coeur d’Alene Lions, assisted by some labor from other service clubs furnished the labor. The cost to the Idaho Panhandle Council was approximately $3,500, and the building was valued at between $8,000 and $9,000. The residence was completed May 28, 1964.

Also in 1951, an $11,000 fund was set up by the Athletic Round Table of Coeur d’Alene for improvements in Camp Easton. It was provided that the fund would be administered by S.C. Sanderson, representing the A.R.T., and Tony Moen, chairman of the camping and activities committee of the Idaho Panhandle Council, Boy Scouts of America.

From these funds the three Adirondack cabins were built, a new water pump house built, a new water pump installed, and a new redwood water tank purchased. Bunker Hill’s Stanley Easton appointed one of his company’s engineers, Victor Tang, to design a steel tower for the new water tank. The tower was fabricated in Bunker Hill shops.

Tang took four Bunker Hill employees to Camp Easton with the tower material and erected the steel tower on a concrete base. The tower continues to stand at the camp near the large dining hall.

In 1962, a new gateway was designed and built for Camp Easton.

The featured part of the gateway was a bronze plaque with a picture of Easton etched into the bronze and a short history of this great Scouter.

The plaque is mounted on a masonry monument covered with slabs of colorful native rock and surmounted with a skillfully carved totem pole. Master of Ceremonies for the dedication was James Evenden, a recipient of the Silver Beaver Award with Easton in 1932. As honored guest was Ruth Easton Rogers, eldest daughter of Stanly A. Easton.

In 1970 a Camp Easton Redevelopment Capital Campaign was planned an inaugurated. Duane Hagadone of Coeur d’Alene and Wayne Knudtsen, also of Coeur d’Alene, were named general chairman and vice-chairman, respectively. The five district chairmen were Harry Magnuson, Shoshone; Duane Edmonds, Kootenai; Cy Chase, Beneway; Bill Nixon, Selkirk; and Jack Parker, Moyie. The projected improvements and redevelopment costs were divided into three phases of work for a total cost of $145,830.

Faithful Scouters, friends of Scouting, businesses and parents of boys contributed generous amounts of cash. Many firms gave material of various kinds and many individuals, members of service clubs and the Sea Bees, gave unrecorded hours of labor to the redevelopment campaign.

The first project undertaken was the building of the central shower for the use of all boys in the camp. The Gyro Club of Wallace provided all the material for the building and the Sea Bees constructed it.

The largest undertaking was the enlargement and modernization of the dining hall. Jim Benning, Coeur d’Alene, for many years owned and operated a sawmill, planer mill and chemical treating plant in the Kellogg area specializing in mine lumber and timbers.

Benning provided all the lumber for the enlargement of the building and hauled it to camp. The Coeur d’Alene Lions Club furnished all the labor. In the main dining area, sliding glass windows were installed and interior walls were covered with wood paneling. A large fireplace was built and face with slabs of native stones.

New fluorescent lights were installed. The kitchen area was a completely new addition to the hall. New equipment was installed, including gas stove and grill, electric ovens, refrigerators and mixers. The walk-in refrigerator from Farragut days was relocated and food storage areas built. Special work tables and cabinets were built by John Davis of Kellogg, for many years a Scoutmaster in the Idaho Panhandle Council.

One facility that had been noticeably needed for a long time was an adequate beach dressing room. Scouters Floyd Clemans and Ray Turner built a completely new building. It has a concrete floor that can be easily washed, clothes racks and toilet facilities.

This facility is handy for all Scouts but especially for the boys in camps located up on the hill.

The last building to be built was the much needed storage building and the new commissary appropriately named “The Lion’s Den.” The Coeur d’Alene Lions Club gave $4,000 for the expenses on the building and furnished all the labor. The Atlas Building Center and Diamond International Corporation gave generous supplies of lumber, doors and building hardware for the building.

The interior walls of the commissary are of special red cedar given and installed by Scouters of the Moyie district.

Carl Wulff Jr., manager of the J.C. Penney Co. store in Coeur d’Alene gave substantial steel shelving for the storage area.

Maintenance and improvements at Camp Easton are continuously with us. Unfinished from the Redevelopment Campaign are a family are central washhouse, remodeling of the health lodge, camp staff latrine and showers, a critically needed underground electrical system and the major undertaking of building and administration building.

Time, effort and money will control the speed with which we complete these projects, but with Scouters like Tony Moen and Floyd Clemens the projects will be completed and the camp continuously improved.

The summer of 1994 marks the 65th consecutive session that Scouts at all levels, adult Scouters and special groups have utilized the picturesque 215-acre site with one half-mile of lake shoreline.

Situated near Gotham Bay, about four miles by boat and 20 miles by car from Coeur d’Alene, Camp Easton is ideally located to serve Scouters from the entire five northern counties of Idaho.

(posted on Jan 4,2012)

Has Easton ever thought about offering Citizenship merit badges as an opportunity. A lot of our star and life scouts like the camp, but most the required merit badges they already have. Fly Fishing merit badge as well might be an added attraction, as well as Fish and Wildlife Merit Badge. Just some thoughts. Our scouts had a wonderful time, some are even adding Easton on the list for next year to return. However, we always make sure out scouts take at least one required merit badge at camp, one reason for asking about citizenship merit badges

(posted on Jul 18,2014)

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