1st Stanstead Abbotts and St. Margaret's Scout Group

An Attempt on the North-West Passage - by Alastair H - Scout Leader

A brief account of the illustrious leaders attempt to reach the North West Passage starts at Holming Beam, in the middle of Dartmoor. We were there to test our mettle, both physical and mental, navigating our way across bleak moorland to find the North-West Passage, similar in some ways to its rather more well known namesake to the north of Canada in that it offers a safer route through a perilous region.

Half a day was spent navigating from one obscure landmark to the next: a Tor to a barely visible ancient enclosure to knoll and so on with cloud occasionally rolling across the moor threatening to make wayfinding more amusing. Along the way were bogs, where the call of 'man down' was heard when the apparently solid ground on which someone trod sank below them to their knees.

We found Browne's House, a heap of stones where allegedly Mr Browne had taken his beautiful new wife away from all temptation to a spot which so desolate it is hard to imagine anywhere less hospitable. Rising above Browne's House and cresting the brow, we found it. The distant horizon seemed miles away across bleak brown moorland. Over there, somewhere was the North West Passage. Taking our bearings for a nearer 'peat pass' - a path dug through the peat bogs by those industrious Victorians to allow them to hunt on horseback without becoming 'bogged down', which is what the North West Passage is too - we passed a gnome casually fishing on the bank of a pool. Shortly afterward, we saw a battleship sailing across the moor. Interestingly, although the pool is not on the map, it does appear on Google Earth, although you can't see the gnome - reassuring me, at least, that we had not succumbed to delusions brought on by the weirdness of the moor. The battleship, incidentally was a strange arrangement of rocks and a military control point (we think).

By this time the ground was beginning to take its toll on our feet & knees so the search for the North West Passage was abandoned for the Royal Oak, reached via the Beardown Man, a tall standing stone, solitary in the middle of the moor and a minibus ride back to South Brent. Thus in due course, refreshed and well fed, the throng retired to a campfire and a well earned bed.

Most of the day had been spent at nearly 600m above sea level, on the highest land in Southern England. It remains to be seen how many will return!

- Alastair H