By Fred Fuller
On Sunday, September 14, from 1-5 pm, the Friends of Silver Trails will be holding an “End of Summer Picnic” at the Grant Township Park, 7942 Wildcat Road, in memory of John Hardie, the long-time and much-beloved Ranger who cared for and managed Silver Trails Scout Reservation on behalf of the Blue Water Council of Boy Scouts.
The picnic will offer “food, fun, laughs, fellowship, friends.” For more information, you can call Carla, John Hardie’s daughter, at (810) 488-0130.
Silver Trails Scout Reservation was two miles west of the community of Jeddo, in Grant Township, in northern St. Clair County. It consisted of some 300 acres of forest and picturesque ravines along Silver Creek, where it flows into the Black River. The camp was established in 1945, with the help of many charitable organizations and volunteers. Local landowners donated the land; local clubs like the Rotary and the Exchange Club helped build structures like the dining lodge and bunkhouses. Many local Scout troops also helped create campsites, latrines, pavilions, and a bridge over Silver Creek. John Hardie led the volunteers in the work they did.
Boy Scout troops, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, and many other groups, from as far away as Detroit and Saginaw, came to the camp for weekend outings, summer camp, and special events. Weddings and christenings were held there. It was a beautiful and special place that is still held in the hearts of many people. And John Hardie helped make it special, because he was such a friendly host who cared deeply about each Scout. He listened to them and took them seriously, no matter how busy he was. He counseled them when necessary and trusted them when appropriate. He put up with a lot of Boy Scout shenanigans, too, of course. He was an embodiment of the Scout Oath and the twelve points of the Scout Law – he was Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent. But he wasn’t pious, and was quite a colorful character—an enthusiastic storyteller, with a hearty laugh and funny old-fashioned sayings.
For those reasons, John Hardie is as fondly remembered as is Silver Trails. He managed the camp for 30 years and was a role model for thousands of Scouts. He retired in 1996 and moved back to Minnesota, where he was born. He died in July 2024 at the age of 90.
The Blue Water Council, headquartered in Port Huron, created Silver Trails Scout Camp and built up an endowment fund to take care of it in the future. The Council was governed by board members from the Blue Water Area. But in 2012, the Blue Water Council was dissolved and
merged with most other Michigan local councils into the Michigan Crossroads Council (MCC), based in Lansing. Control of Silver Trails and its endowment fund was taken over by the MCC.
In 2019, the MCC announced that it had signed an agreement with a gravel mining company to sell Silver Trails for gravel mining. Mid-Michigan Materials had been mining gravel in a northern part of the camp for years. But in 2019, the camp was shut down, and the entire property was sold by MCC for an estimated $1.8 million.
This sale came as a complete surprise to the local Scouting community, and many Scouting families were outraged. There had been no prior public discussion about a sale, and the camp was not publicly listed for sale.
The Friends of Silver Trails was formed to try to save the camp, but the MCC said it was too late; the purchase agreement had been signed, pending only an assessment of the amount of gravel present on the property. It was a business decision, said MCC Scout Executive and CEO, Don Shepard, and MCC Board President, Brad Arbuckle, an attorney with Miller-Canfield specializing in mergers and acquisitions. “Silver Trails’ value was as a monetary asset only,” they said, and “We can’t continue to subsidize camping.” The MCC and the Boy Scouts nationally were hurting financially, and they could not continue to run so many camps. There were not enough new Scouts to use all the camps. The MCC was reducing the 26 Scout camps in Michigan to just six.
Many Scouts saw this as an unfortunate result of the consolidation and corporatization of Scouting. The Blue Water Council, under local control, had been financially stable and served the youth in the area well. But the MCC took away their endowment and their camp, and sold it off for gravel mining. This seemed incredibly contrary to the ideals of Scouting.
It turned out that there was apparently not enough gravel on the Silver Trails property to make it worthwhile for the gravel mining company. In February 2025, the southern half of the Silver Trails property was put up for sale again. The north half contains a lake created by past gravel mining, which could be developed for home sites.
As of August 2025, the sale of the south half of the camp is still pending, and the Friends of Silver Trails are still hoping that the camp can somehow be saved and resurrected as a nature sanctuary and recreational facility. If you would like to help in this effort, please contact the Thumb Land Conservancy at mail@thumbland.org or (810) 346-2584; or better yet, attend the John Hardie Friends of Silver Trails End of Summer Picnic on September 14.
