Key organizations and businesses worked together to present “Let’s Go Camping with Cabela’s” a free event held Saturday, May 9, at the Kernsville Dam Recreation Area in Hamburg. Participants learned important safety tips, had opportunity to try skills like archery and bird watching, and enjoyed the area’s beautiful trails throughout the afternoon.
Donna Reed, Public Relations and Marketing Coordinator for the Berks County Parks and Recreation Department, manned the stand which welcomed visitors. The event has been held for several years at Kaercher Creek in Hamburg, but this year, organizers moved it to Kernsville Dam and with good results.
“We’re seeing a lot of people,” Reed confirmed
Each visitor was handed a list of stations scattered on the park’s “Cabela’s Wetlands Trail” with views of the Schuylkill River. Participants could check off each stand they visited then enter completed forms for a chance to win handmade rope trivets or a door mat created by Tom and Yvonne Davies. The couple also manned a station on knot tying, with cotton rope samples for youngsters to try a tricky knot or two.
“How do you become a knot-typing expert?” one parent asked. Yvonne chuckled and answered, “I don’t call me an expert. But we did volunteer for 20 years on the crew of the Kalmar Nyckel out of Wilmington, Delaware.”
She proudly displayed a picture of the ship, a replication of a 17th century Dutch Pinnace. Nearby, her husband walked two siblings through some knots. As their fingers pushed the clumsy knots together in the familiar “chase the rabbit through the hole” pattern, he laughed. “I once heard an angry first mate say, ‘Shoot the rabbit and tie the knots.'”
A local Girl Scout troop was selling refreshments near the entrance of the trail. Also on hand were representatives from Blue Mountain Wildlife Inc., the group which maintains the Kernsville Dam area. Representatives from business sponsor Cabela’s manned an archery stand and also had a table stocked with the latest camping equipment.
“Our organization does off-site events all the time,” said Bill Rogers, a product trainer for the outdoors outfitter. Rogers helps with these events and also trains outfitters from the store to do the same. He encouraged youngsters visiting his stand to take the “disconnect pledge,” a promise to spend a day free from phones and other devices.
“It’s all about taking a day disconnecting from your electronics and spending the day connecting as a family,” he said. A nice thing about the pledge is that families can pick a day that best suits them to follow through. More about the “Disconnect Pledge” can be found online at www.mydisconnectday.com.
Ideas for how to spend such a day were easy to find during “Let’s Go Camping.” The Berks County Amateur Astronomy Club station had powerful scopes trained to observe the sun. When cloudy conditions made that impossible, visitor were instead encouraged to watch birds perched on nearby birdhouses. A nearby station held information on bird watching in general.
Youngsters were encouraged to use senses to touch, hear and see different species at the Sensory table. Other stations included information on area hiking trails, the opportunity to try geocaching (using global positioning coordinates to find hidden containers and treasure caches), and an outdoor skills “Jeopardy” game highlighting dangerous plants, emergency responses and other outdoors skills.
Representatives from “Leave No Trace” reminded visitors of all ages to be aware of items they take into wild areas, and to be cautious about taking away objects found in nature. “If you were to take a snack and leave the paper wrapper on the trail,” said volunteer Peter Wallace, “it would take two to four weeks to decompose. A glass bottle would take one million years.”
Rangers from Blue Marsh Lake offered water safety tips at one station, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission had another with samples of bugs, larva and other critters found in local waterways. Youngsters were eager to visit a stand featuring the beloved Smokey the Bear. This site also offered tips on fire safety.
