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One of the Greatest Gifts a Father can give his Son or Daughter is Time spent together.

Wilderness Journal

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Starting a New Season / Food Drive

The 2022-23 season is here! Our Scouts, Princesses, and Big Braves are all excited to be kicking off yet another year of a time-honored tradition of bringing Dads and their kids together. You can learn about us and sign-up now HERE.

Along with the normal campouts, tree sale, and regular monthly get-togethers, we will be hosting our Food Drive again this year. We’ll be bringing needed supplies to the local community. It happens on Oct 15-16, so mark your calendars. Below is the flyer with all of the relevant info, including recommendations for donations as well as drop-off locations.

Looking forward to getting together with everyone again!

2022-PRWSP-FoodDriveDownload

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Christmas Tree Sale 2021

The long-running tradition continues this year. Come on out and bring home a Fraiser Fur or perhaps Balsam tree, choose a nice wreath from three different sizes, or pick up some garland.

It all starts on Black Friday, Nov 26th at the corner Touhy Ave and Western Ave in Park Ridge.

Remember, it’s for a good cause; everything we make goes to local charities. We accept cash or check.

See you there!

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Winnebago Fall Campout

The Winnebago Nation made it to their Fall campout this past weekend at Camp Nageela in Ingelside Illinois, and it did not disappoint.

The Apache, Illini, Blackfoot, Chippewa, Cherokee and Sauk tribes brought over 150 members to the campsite and enjoyed every minute of it. Football games, deer sightings, nature walks…

…swinging from the trees, exploring the Sacks Family Accessible tree house…we did it all!


The Sauk won the Nation Plate Hunt, the Chippewa won Nation trivia, and Apache and Illini both had members win our Patch Competition.


Dinner was great, but once the sun went down, the Dads’ BBQ was even better.

As with every Fall campout, we welcomed many new members to the Nation at our Induction Ceremony and look forward to adding many more in the Winter when we go to Camp Duncan on the first weekend of February.

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Algonquin Fall Campout

The weekend of October 23rd was an eventful one for the Algonquin Nation of the Park Ridge Wilderness Princesses, as it was the first overnight campout for the Nation in over a year and a half due to COVID-19.  Over 120 strong, the five tribes of the Algonquin Nation (Apache, Cherokee, Huron, Ojibwa and Yuma) had their Fall campout at Camp Nageela/Henry Horner in Ingleside, Illinois.

Over the weekend, they participated in the first-ever Amazing Race competition (the Huron/Ojibwa tribes who teamed up won the event) and bingo competition where virtually all of the princesses won prizes.

The traditional Nation Council Fire welcomed the many new (or first-time camper) princesses to the Nation and was a blast for all in attendance.

“When is the next campout?”, you might ask. Continuing the father-daughter tradition in the PRWSP of overnight campouts, the Algonquin Nation looks forward to their scheduled Winter Campout at Camp Duncan (also in Ingleside) the last weekend in February 2022.

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Fall Food Drive

The Park Ridge Wilderness Scouts and Princesses (PRWSP) wanted to thank all of those residents and businesses who graciously donated to the 2021 Fall Food Drive!

The Food Drive this year was for the benefit of the St. Paul of the Cross and Maine Township Food Pantries and for those families they support.  The generous donations were very much welcomed by the two food pantries which traditionally have lower donor contributions during the month of October.

Based on the communities generosity, the PRWSP hopes that this event will become an annual tradition in helping those hungry and in need in the area.

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Iroquois Spring Campout 2021

Finally!! It has been too long since the Tribes of the Iroquois Nation of the Park Ridge Wilderness Princesses have been able to enjoy the thrice-yearly experience that has been our tradition for decades, but — at long last — we were able to host an honest-to-goodness Spring Campout to close out our 2020-2021 season.

This event took place at Camp Duncan in Ingleside, IL, which is normally our Winter Campout location, but given that our usual Spring camp was not available due to the ongoing pandemic, we decided to give Duncan a try in the warmer May weather. One of the benefits of this, we discovered, was the ability to enjoy their impressive climbing wall, archery range, boating activities, and the camp’s brand new playground.

Also, the camp gave us the green light to pop up some tents for those hardy enough to brave it, allowing for some additional social distancing. This gave the weekend a different feel than the usual cabin-based experience. And happily, Mother Nature was kind enough to cooperate, giving us lovely warm days and cool and comfortable Friday and Saturday nights.

As is our custom, we enjoyed some spirited games, this time hosted by the Comanche Tribe. These friendly competitions included:

  • a good ol’ balloon toss
  • a slingshot-tennis ball-bucket launch and catch competition that has become a standard in recent years
  • a downhill bocce ball toss into hula hoops
  • a relay race while balancing a tennis ball

(BTW, that’s our outgoing Nation Chief Kevin and his daughter Kate who are graduating after many years with the Iroquois – we’re going to miss you guys tons!!)

The five Tribes also competed in our other traditions: the Plate Hunt, Dad’s and Daughter’s Trivia, and the Sculpture Judging.

On Saturday evening, as we gathered for the Fire Council ceremony to recognize our new Elders, Super-Elders, and Graduates, we enjoyed a roaring fire prepared by the Navajo.

At the ceremony, we also welcomed a new set of Tribal chiefs who have promised to carry on the tradition of keeping our Tribes organized and productive through the next season. Also, we honored our new Nation Chief who runs the whole PRWSP Iroquois like a well-oiled machine and new Fire Starter, who keeps the spirited spark alive.

Last, but certainly not least, the big finally of the season comes just before close on Sunday morning: we find out who will be the coming year’s Honor Tribe. The trophy goes to the group of dads and daughters that pulled in the most honor points based on having quality monthly crafts and outings, their performance in the campout competitions, and (barring pandemics) their golf cart decoration in the parade. For the 2020-2021 season the Chief Winnebago trophy was passed to the mighty Nez Perce.

All in all, it was a lovely return to our campout tradition, and we very much look forward to the kick-off of the 2021-2022 season in August and the Fall Campout this September.

What’s our motto? To be together forever as father and daughter!

Learn more about PRWSP –or– JOIN!