Elk Creek Ranch™ offers teenagers a unique summer camp experience in the western wilderness through a traditional ranch setting combined with a wilderness backpacking program. It is a summer of enjoyment, with groups sharing the camaraderie of youth and the recreational opportunities of the West. It is a summer of challenge, confronting each individual with rugged wilderness surroundings and a rustic life style. It is also a summer of involvement, with each teenager participating in a small camp community.
Sunlight Moments July 2011: Logs, Draw Knives, and Elk Creek Ranch
Since Elk Creek was founded in 1957, we have found ourselves building fences, gates, cabins, and furniture with logs and poles. One step in the process is debarking the logs with draw knives. The original bunkhouses were built by a construction crew out of Cody. Although they used draw knives for the finishing touches on logs, they had a powered log peeler. That device left Sunlight Valley with the crew, and all of our peeling work since has been done the old-fashioned way—by hand.
The roughest of guesses would be that half of all Elk Creekers have grabbed onto a draw knife and gone to work peeling a log or pole. The work has its satisfactions for your progress is clear, but it also can be a bit monotonous. Some good music, lively conversation, ranch scuttlebutt, and a zany streak help make the bark chips fly.
The new cabin for the Trek Program has been one of our most challenging and ambitious projects. In the tradition of the ranch, we have cut our own logs. We purchased a portable saw mill and cut all of the lumber for the cabin from the beetle-killed spruce trees on the ranch. This year’s efforts have focused on the chinking between the logs, and we are using small saplings that need to be peeled and fitted in the cracks between the logs.
Elk Creekers started experimenting with pole furniture a couple of decades ago building great couches for the porch of the rec cabin, but this year’s ranchers have raised the bar. The draw knives came out once again to debark slabs and poles for cabinets, shelves, and beds. As we approach the finish of the project, we look back with great gratitude and admiration to the work, talents, and creativity of all of the recent ranchers who built this new home for our trekkers.
