The First Encampment

Wonderful Storytelling about a Critical Piece of Scouting History
Director Blake Cortright has given our country a wonderfully researched film documenting the little known, yet critical, first encampment of the Boy Scouts of America in August 1910 at Silver Bay, NY. Why was the Silver Bay camp so important? Well, that's because it was here that the Boy Scouts of America decided their final philosophical direction. The two possibilites being presented at camp were the Native American model based on BSA co-founder Ernest Thompson Seton's Woodcraft Indians and the backwoodsman based model of Sir Robert S.S. Baden-Powell. Baden-Powell's concept would eventually win out but Seton's work would be incorporated 5 years later as the inspiration for BSA's Order of the Arrow national society of honor campers.

But what makes this film so truly impressive is that it was researched, written, and directed by a teenage cinematographer making his first major outing. Using professional production facilities and pro voice actors, Cortright created a work...

TFE Viewer's Observations
The First Encampment is an informative well produced documentary that records events in American History that were practically lost regarding the origin and early days of one of the pillars of modern American culture, the Boy Scouts of America. The story unfolds in the spectacular Adirondacks alongside a cove in historical Lake George, in a place called Silver Bay which can boast of its own place in history as one of the most remarkable and beautiful places on earth. Blake Cortright, a young Eagle Scout at age fifteen was so moved by the accounting of the remnants of the first encampment that he took on a personal mission to uncover the hidden truths and create a continuum of the scattered fragments of the mosaic that portrays the history of the first encampment of the Boys Scouts.

His passion for unearthing its truth caused countless hours of phone calls, and days on end of scouring through archives to locate any surviving photos or documents surrounding this event which...

Historical Documentary that makes history
The First Encampment is not only a very well conceputalized, produced and edited documentary, it preserves the historical roots of Boy Scouts of America. Information that was scattered through old, almost forgotten, books and photographs, and also by word of mouth, was brought together to show how men who were interested in the welfare of young boys in America worked to form the Boy Scouts of America. Taking these collected photos and ideas and putting them in such an excellent format will teach others and preserve history for future generations.

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