How the Order of the Bow in Scouting began

During the winter of 1956, I was a scout master in the Point Grey area of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Like many of the scoutmasters of that era in time, we were painfully aware that many of our boys, upon reaching 14 years of age, were leaving scouting and joining army, air or sea cadets where they would have the opportunity to ride in tanks and shoot guns, fly in planes and sail in warships. I practically had to beg to get their approval to let me take my boys to the firing range in HMCS Naden the previous year. That was something that was frowned upon by the Scout commissioner in principle.

A committee had been formed comprising of about ten scout masters including the son of one of the Commissioners who was the chairman of the committee. I was appointed the vice chairman. The Boy Scouts commissioners in Vancouver invited our committee to study the problem and suggest to them the means in which we could keep our boys in scouting after they reached the age of fourteen.

It was agreed by the members of the Committee and the chairman that one person should design a new scouting organization within scouts and after submitting it to the committee, the members of the committee would make the necessary changes if any and submit the draft of the new organization to the Commissioners for their approval. It was further decided that I would be the person given the sole task of designing the new organization.

The chairman and I took our two troops to Seattle, Washington, USA on the train in January 1956 to meet officials and boys of the American Scouting Organization who were part of an organization within the American Scouting Organization called the Order of the Arrow who were having their annual meeting in Seattle. To become a member of the Order of the Arrow, a youth must be a registered member of a Boy Scout troop or Varsity Scout team and hold First Class rank.

We also spent several nights at a residential school and went overnight camping in freezing weather for two days in the hills behind Seattle.

When the chairman and I returned to Vancouver, I was full of ideas for a new Canadian Scout organization, having picked up many of the ideas from the American organization. In three months, I finished designing the new scouting organization. It was designed as follows:

It was to be called, the Order of the Bow. Membership of the new organization would be open to boys who were already scouts, who were also first class scouts and those who had earned the Queen's Scouts award. It was also open to patrol and troop leaders. All members had to be 14 years of age or older with the exception of Queen Scouts. They also had to remain with their scout troop to be a member of the new organization.

The meetings would be held once a month. When they turned 18-years-of-age, they would leave the Order of the Bow and could join Rovers. The members would come from the various scout troops within the area that the new organization was located. The first group of scouts came from the Point Grey area of Vancouver. (West end of Vancouver)

The boys were divided into three groups called companies. Each company would choose its own leaders that were called, Director and Assistant Director. The companies were called Explorers, Surveyors, and Pioneers. The Explorers would search for new campsites in the mountains immediately north of Vancouver upon the suggestions of other scout troops or on their own volition. They would then report their findings to the main group. If the rest of the membership agreed that the site had potential, they would instruct the Surveyors to take photos of the site, mark a trail to it and provide maps to it and make sure that the site could be built on. They would report their findings to the membership and if approved by the members, the Pioneers would go out and build up the site.

This organization was to be overseen by two scout masters who would act in an advisory capacity and as such, they were to be called Advisors. They in turn were answerable to the scouting council which comprised of all the scout masters in the area where some of their boys were members of the new organization.

The name Venturers was not originally given to this organization. I chose the name, Order of the Bow which was in effect, a counter part to the American Scouting organization, the Order of the Arrow. Quite frankly, I like the name Venturers and I wish I had thought of it.

We called a conference for all the scouts in the Point Grey area (approximately 150 boys) that would be qualified to join the new organization and I explained my idea to them. After explaining to them how the organization was to work, I closed with the following comments;

"When Lord Baden Powell created Boy Scouts, he wasn't in an era when he could envision that other organizations for young boys would compete with his idea of a youth organization. Many of our boys during those years have chosen to leave scouting and join army, sea or air cadets. I was given the task of finding a way to keep boy scouts within scouting but in doing so, I am mindful of the responsibilities and great adventure that awaits you in cadets. And that is why you are here today--to consider my proposal that a new organization within scouting will fill your needs for responsibility and adventure. I have created for you, an organization for those of you who are capable of trust, responsibility, and equally important, a willingness to continue in scouting. The new organization is called, The Order of the Bow. It will be run like companies in which there are directors whom you will elect. You can join any one of those companies that you feel will meet your ideals and in which you feel you can best serve in. The scout masters will be playing a different role than you are accustomed to. They will act as your advisors but it is your organization and it is up to you to make it work. If you are successful in your participation in this new scouting organization, you will learn at an early age that responsibility is a direct result of self discipline and with many of the responsibilities you will undertake in your future, they will be fraught with risk but the rewards for taking those risks will be a sense of accomplishment and the respect of your peers. If in joining this new organization, you achieve those two attributes, then this new organization will have achieved its own goal; being a catalyst in making good citizens and great leaders out of you all and giving each of you the opportunity to reach your full potential as adults."

The boys spent several hours talking amongst themselves and then called me, their scout masters and the Commissioners back in to meet with them. They said that they liked the organization and didn't want any changes.

The main purpose of the Order of the Bow was to find campsites for all the scouts in the Greater Vancouver area. East, North and West of Vancouver on the other side of the Burrard Inlet is where the mountains are so potential campsites was unlimited.

I designed a patch for the new organization and we permitted the boys attending Order of the Bow functions and on parade, to wear satin sashes---blue for regular members, red for the directors and assistant directors and purple for the two advisors. This was the first time that sashes were permitted to be worn by scouts in Canada.

I left Vancouver shortly after that to work in the Interior so I never saw the fruits of my labour so to speak. As the years went by, I was hearing scraps of news about the organization on how it spread to other communities in British Columbia and finally in other provinces in Canada. From what I was told, the name of the organization was renamed, Venturers. Its purpose also changed to one of service to the community and later Venturers became co-ed in 1997. It later became international. The only things that did remain from the Order of the Bow was that its members had to be 14 years or older and the term, ‘Advisors’ who were the scout leaders who were running the organization.