At its 1972 peak the Boy Scouts of America registered 6,524,640 members, a figure that includes adults and is often misread. The episode then narrows to the Canal Zone, where machetes were standard kit and the military taught jungle survival to boys. It follows Scouts across the isthmus on the old Spanish gold road in 1964, in a troop chartered to a desegregated Army post.
Who's who
- Harry S. Truman+14 more episodesPresident whose Executive Order 9981 desegregated the armed forces
Where it happens
- Balboa, Canal ZoneHome of Canal Zone Council 801
- Madden Lake, PanamaSite of Camp Chagres, opened in summer 1963
- Fort Clayton, Canal ZoneU.S. Army post that chartered Troop 17
- Camino Real and Las Cruces Trail, PanamaOld Spanish gold road walked ocean to ocean
- Puerto Bello, PanamaAtlantic end of the crossing, where a Navy craft collected the party
Timeline
- 1923Canal Zone Council founded at Balboa as one of the earliest overseas councils
- 1947Non-American Scouts moved to the separate International Boy Scouts of the Canal Zone
- July 26, 1948Truman signs Executive Order 9981
- Summer 1963Camp Chagres opens on Madden Lake
- December 1964Troop 17 crosses the isthmus on the Camino Real over the holidays
- 1972BSA peaks at 6,524,640 total members
Still debated
Accounts differ on the day the 1964 party left, either 17 December or the week after Christmas. No sourced council membership total exists for the Canal Zone, and the youth and adult components of the 1972 peak are often conflated.
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