As an Arrowman, you learn to give back to the Scouting community. That’s what members of Sakima Lodge do each year when they put on their annual Iron Horse Festival. Open to all members of LaSalle Council, which encompasses northwestern Indiana and southwestern Michigan, the Iron Horse Festival occurs every year on the third weekend of October in Potato Creek State Park. The event includes a variety of activities, notably a hike through the parkland.
The hike is known as the Iron Horse Hike, named after the antiquated term for the train, and includes train-themed trivia questions dispersed throughout the trail. The festival has been an annual event since 1990 and the hike has been an integral part of the event each year, rain or shine. Rain hampered attendance this year but the festival still drew a registered attendance of thirteen hundred people. Hundreds more attended the event as guests. The event has, at times, drawn in crowds of four thousand people, making the Iron Horse Festival the largest single day Boy Scout event in Indiana, according to Sakima Lodge Chief Michael Kipp. The event also includes a specific train car patch for the year of the event. The patches for a complete set and every five years.
In addition to the Iron Horse Hike, the festival includes an amateur radio station that links the festival to the nationwide jamboree on the air. The event also includes a “Bike the Horse” ride as well as a geocaching trail, both of which provide patches upon successful completion. Another activity that has been well received is the human foosball game that occurs. For the past three years, volunteers have organized this game, where the participants hold onto piping that stretches across the field, enabling them to move side-to-side, but not forwards and backwards.
A noticeable trend in the event is the increased number of Cub Scouts in attendance. Sakima Lodge Adviser Bruce Metzdorf claims that due to this rise in attendance in recent years, activities have been put on to cater to these younger Scouts. The event sponsors crafts and s’mores making, and due to the timing of the event, it is one of the first full pack events available in the fall, making it an optimal event for packs to attend.
The Iron Horse Festival is a notable event, drawing in crowds numbering in the thousands but organized by a lodge numbering no more than four hundred Arrowmen. For 25 years, the event has provided quality programming for the LaSalle Council and its members with the Iron Horse Hike and other events including human foosball, a fleur de lis formed by Scouts, geocaching and amateur radio. Giving back to others is an integral part of the Order of the Arrow, and the effort made by Sakima Lodge in hosting the Iron Horse Festival is indicative of what it means to give back.