Chue Shee of Boy Scout Troop 100 climbed halfway up the 25-foot-tall artificial rock wall with ease.
Down below, fellow troop member Johnny Her gripped a belay rope to help control Chue Shee’s movement and protect him in case he fell.
“I got you,” Johnny Her yelled to Chue Shee. “Find an opening. You can do it.”
A few minutes later, Chue Shee reached the top, looked down and gave Johnny Her a smile.
It was the type of team-building experience that leaders of the Boy Scouts of America Northern Star Council envisioned in 2008, when they bought a century-old former cavalry drill hall near Historic Fort Snelling with the intent of turning it into an “urban base camp” for youth.
Visitors can get a look at the new $9 million facility at an open house Saturday.
The Northern Star Council will hold its annual meeting at the camp today — the 100th anniversary of its founding.
“I’ve been working for the council for 34 years, and this has to be one of the more exciting times we’ve had,” said Kent York, Northern Star’s director of marketing and communications.
The facility is different from the council’s eight other camps, in that it should give a boost to its outreach efforts within the core inner cities, CEO John Andrews said.
“Right now, if you want to see our remarkable summer camps, you have to be a member and travel anywhere from an hour to four hours,” Andrews said.
The site, just south of Minnesota 55 and near the Hiawatha light-rail line, is ideal for a Scout camp, he said. Kids can get there by light rail and take advantage of nearby Fort Snelling State Park, Minnehaha State Park, hiking and biking trails, athletic fields and the Mississippi River.
Those amenities make the urban camp the first of its kind in the United States, Andrews said.
“It would be difficult to replicate this elsewhere,” he said.
The 35,000-square-foot facility is not exclusive to Scouts.
“This property is open to the community,” he said. “We expect it to be filled with school groups during the day.”
DIRT FLOOR, WILDLIFE
The drill hall was built in 1907 as place for mounted Army troops to train cavalry horses.
Later, it served as sleeping quarters for soldiers being processed before heading overseas during World War II.
In 1946, the building was transferred to the Veteran’s Administration, which used it for storage and office space, according to the book “Honor Bright — a Century of Scouting in Northern Star Council.”
The Minneapolis Park Board bought the building in 2000 with plans to turn it into a skate park. But funding fell through, and it sat vacant.
The council used $4.25 million from its Shaping Tomorrow’s Leaders capital campaign to buy the building and 6 acres in 2008.
“There was a dirt floor and pigeon poop everywhere,” Andrews recalled. “There were even a few groundhogs in here.”
Located in a National Register Historic District, the council used old photos and relied on the state’s Historic Preservation Office to bring the red brick building back to its original appearance.
“It’s one of the largest examples of missionary architecture in the country,” Andrews said. “We wanted that historic appearance.”
The council raised an additional $4.75 million to transform the building into the base camp.
It has three climbing walls replicated after rock faces in Taylors Falls and a sunken amphitheater that holds up to 200 people for performances and presentations.
On the second level, kids can learn flight skills on a NASA space shuttle simulator — one of only eight in the nation.
Outside are two 32-foot-tall simulated rock- and ice-climbing towers available for use year-round.
It turns out the new home is part of the council’s history. During research for their centennial book, employees learned from old newspaper clippings that, after its 1910 incorporation, Scouts were told to take a trolley trip to the drill hall and head to a campsite at nearby Cold Spring.
“You talk about full circle,” Andrews said.
MEMBERSHIP GROWING AMONG LATINOS
The council was established in 2005 when the St. Paul-based Indian Head Council and the Viking Council, based in Golden Valley, merged. It now serves more than 75,000 young people in 21 counties across central Minnesota and four counties in western Wisconsin.
Despite nearly three decades of declining participation nationally, Northern Star has been able to keep membership at a flat level for the past five years — mainly because of an increase in numbers from low-income and immigrant populations, Andrews said.
In the council’s El Sol District there were 50 Spanish-speaking members in 2007, before the council hired its outreach executive. The number should hit 520 by the end of the year, Andrews said.
Troop 100, the nation’s first all-Hmong Boy Scout troop, was founded at Minneapolis Edison High School in 1981 by then-teacher Dave Moore. Troop 100, which draws from all over the metro area, has turned out 87 Eagle Scouts.
Moore, 74, who was selected to be Northern Star’s inductee into the Boy Scouts of America National Hall of Leadership and will be honored at tonight’s meeting, praised the council for its financial and emotional investment in the base camp.
“Kids don’t have enough positive outlets,” he said, while watching Chue Shee scale the rock wall. “Scouting gives them experiences like this.”
Nick Ferraro can be reached at 651-228-2173.
