
A Peculiarly Dutch Summer Rite: Children Abandoned in the Night Woods - vnglst
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/21/world/europe/netherlands-dropping-children.html
======
c1sc0
I too have fond memories of droppings in my boyscout times (Belgium) ... I
remember a particular one where we had to find our way through a forest before
midnight ... it was then followed-up by midnight (catholic) mass at an abbey
close to the edge of a forest to calm us down (bummer) ... another one was a
multi-day thing where we had to find our way in small groups. As described in
the article there were adults observing us but refusing to help. There were
also staged “kidnappings” where we had to free the kidnapped at night. Pretty
crazy thinking about that today but it was pretty much normal at the time
(eighties) & I am sure a lot more vivid for impressionable kids ... overall I
give a 9/10 rating ... “would recommend let your kids get kidnapped at night
in the forest”

~~~
cure
Yeah same here, fond memories of the 'droppings' I did as a kid.

It's probably worth pointing out that Belgian (and Dutch) woods are relatively
safe: it would be difficult to get truly lost. The wooded areas are never more
than a few km from civilization. I wonder if there is a spot that is more than
10 km from the nearest road/house/suburb. Also, there are (almost?) no acutely
dangerous animals. The only thing we were watching out for were wild boar, but
there weren't that many of those around back in the 80's/90's. These days
there may be more wildlife to watch out for.

When we went on a 'dropping', there were no cell phones nor gps receivers.
Just 'stafkaarten' (topographic maps) and a compass. It's easy now ;)

~~~
Gustomaximus
We did 'escape and evasion' orienteering courses that ran 12hrs from 6pm to
6am from about 13 years old in the 90s. This was through bush and farmland in
Australia.

There were always incidents like cases of hyperthermia, being chased by wild
pig, running into things blindly etc. But the 1000's of kids partaking always
ended up ok at the end.

~~~
xtiansimon
>> ‘escape and evasion’

From who? Wow. I can’t read the article because I used up my free, so I don’t
know if this is mentioned, but ee sounds paramilitary, and not just
orienteering skill. What is the reason behind this?

~~~
Gustomaximus
Nothing that dramatic. Was school camp for cadets. Kinda like Boy Scouts but
with more of a military bent. Guys in older years would try, and usually
succeed, to catch you.

------
tdons
Don't think of this as dropping your kids in say, the High Sierras or Death
Valley ;-)

This is actually an extremely safe thing, nothing much can go wrong. Some
supporting facts:

Our entire country (The Netherlands) measures roughly 161mi by 93mi and is
densely populated. There's always a dwelling nearby. Consequently it's
impossible to get really lost.

We also have no natural dangers to speak of, no deadly animals, no dangerous
terrain, no raging rivers (we don't have mountains).

~~~
ddnb
>> (we don't have mountains).

Woah, you forgot about the Vaalserberg?

~~~
merijnv
Technically not a mountain, since mountains start at >500m and Vaalserberg is
only 322m high...

On the other hand, we do (technically) have mountains, as Saba has Mount
Scenery (887m) and Sint Eustatius has The Quill ( 601m)...

~~~
tom_mellior
There is no universally accepted definition of what a mountain is. For
whatever it's worth, Wikipedia says things like "official UK government's
definition of a mountain, for the purposes of access, is a summit of 600
metres or higher", and "At one time the U.S. Board on Geographic Names defined
a mountain as being 1,000 feet (300 m) or taller, but has abandoned the
definition since the 1970s".

~~~
benj111
"is a summit of 600 metres or higher"

I didn't think this had been officially metricised (metricated?), I was wrong.

Anyway, found an interesting related article.

[http://metricviews.org.uk/2008/09/what-is-a-mountain-
mynydd-...](http://metricviews.org.uk/2008/09/what-is-a-mountain-mynydd-graig-
goch-and-all-that/)

~~~
black_puppydog
Broken link, has a quote at the end that's too much. Here's the right one:
[http://metricviews.org.uk/2008/09/what-is-a-mountain-
mynydd-...](http://metricviews.org.uk/2008/09/what-is-a-mountain-mynydd-graig-
goch-and-all-that/)

~~~
benj111
Thanks, fixed mine also.

------
kieckerjan
I did that a couple of times in the last classes of primary school and it was
fun.

One time the organizers, seeking to spice up the proceedings, had planned a
mock-kidnapping. One of the kids (who was in on the joke) disappeared during
the hike and soon enough we received something of a ransom note. Kids excited,
kids crying. At the climax one of the organizers jumped out of the bushes with
a nylon stocking over his head. The biggest and strongest kid in the group
(who if memory serves me went on to become a bouncer at a local pub) hit him
on the head with his flashlight, almost knocking the guy out. Good times
indeed.

Of course nowadays the school would get sued into bankruptcy by angry parents
for a stunt like that. :-)

~~~
vanderZwan
It's kind of the same with "apekooien", no? At least I heard that's no longer
done either. I don't know why adults don't understand that if there is one
thing kids love more than running around screaming, it's running around
screaming while risking sprained ankles and other minor injuries

------
tiku
The Dutch woods are not very big and not very far from the cities. You could
get lost but you can always hear the highways and there is cell coverage
everywhere. And the most scary thing you could come across is a wild boar,
there are no dangerous animals. There were 2 or 3 wolf sightings the past 2
years, but they stay away from noise. Anyway I think Dutch kids are balsy
enough to scare any wolf away. (Or a human predator, if they would even roam
the woods..)

I've always enjoyed "droppings" as they are called. There were no cell phones
when I did it as a kid..I can't remember if we had a compass or not..

Oh and its not exclusive for scouting, it's also done on birthdays, I guess it
happens more in places where there are woods nearby, so more towards Germany
and Belgium.

~~~
jacquesm
Back when I was a kid, at the ripe old age of 12, we did this at the Hoge
Veluwe, and I can assure you that there were no highways in hearing distance
and we didn't have cellphones yet. It was also a pretty good experience, if a
little cold.

~~~
photonios
The Hoge Veluwe might be one of the few places where this can happen. And even
then, the Hoge Veluwe is 55 sqkm. Worst case scenario you walk for a few hours
to reach one of the edges. Just keep walking in the same direction.

Hoge Veluwe, one of the few things I miss from my home town. Such a great
place to hang out as a kid.

~~~
tom_mellior
> Just keep walking in the same direction.

AFAIK this is surprisingly difficult, many (most? all?) people end up walking
in circles when placed in a forest without any clues for orientation.

Edit: Some random sources: [https://www.livescience.com/33431-why-humans-walk-
circles.ht...](https://www.livescience.com/33431-why-humans-walk-
circles.html), [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2009/08/why-we-walk-
circles](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2009/08/why-we-walk-circles),
[https://www.cell.com/current-
biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(09)...](https://www.cell.com/current-
biology/fulltext/S0960-9822\(09\)01479-1)

"participants repeatedly walked in circles when they could not see the sun ...
participants walked in often surprisingly small circles (diameter < 20 m),
though rarely in a systematic direction"

~~~
tiku
All Dutch woods have man made paths. Most forests even have some sort of grid
of roads for logging. Check a random dutch forest on Google Maps to see it. As
far as I know we ware the only country that has this in almost every forest..

~~~
tom_mellior
Looking at the above-mentioned Hoge Veluwe I do see the grid of paths and
roads you speak of, though there also seem to be a bunch of places where there
is plenty of room to go around in 20 or even 200 meter circles without hitting
a path.

Nobody said that that you can get lost in a Dutch forest forever, but I can
totally believe that you might not immediately find out if you're dropped in
the wrong spot in the middle of the night. After daybreak you'll be out in no
time.

------
rauhl
> ‘It shows you, even in very hard times, to keep walking, to keep going,’
> [Stĳn] said. ‘I have never had to do that before.’

I recently read Dinner of Herbs and Going to the Wars, two books by a fellow
who was a British commando in the Second World War who was captured by the
Italians, escaped and had to make his way across country, living off the land
and thanks to the kindness of local peasants.

One of the things which really struck me was the mettle he & his comrades
showed. I don’t know how many folks nowadays would have the same character —
but I think young Stĳn has a better chance than most. AS do probably many
other Dutch kids.

~~~
oska
I found the book you mentioned - _A Dinner of Herbs_ by John Verney. Looks
good.

Somewhat confusingly there is another book called _Dinner of Herbs_ by Carla
Grissman which is also a travelogue describing close contact with 'peasants',
but this time in Anatolia in the 60s. It also looks good.

(There's even another book with the same title, but it's a fiction novel by
Catherine Cookson).

Edit: I've just found that the title is a reference to Proverbs 15:17, ‘Better
is a dinner of herbs where love is, than feasting on a fattened ox where
hatred also dwells’, which explains its multiple use.

~~~
jgtrosh
Is that a fancy “i'd rather eat crumbs with bums than steaks with snakes”?

~~~
vented_sinus
i might be inclined to argue that the number of things fancier than two pairs
of contextual rhymes which present a clear principle of morality in one simple
sentence could be infinitesimal.

------
pacaro
We regularly did this in Scouts in the UK in the eighties. We would have map
and compass and know where we were supposed to get to, but there was general
disorientation and disinformation about the starting location. IIRC we were
always dropped somewhere such that the obvious path would lead us away from
roads and there were certainly adults and/or venture scouts (16-21?) keeping
some kind of track of us, but usually done subtly enough that we weren't aware
that they were around

~~~
gdfasfklshg4
We did it in the late 90's/early 2000's as well.

I hope they still do it but I guess they don't.

------
gumby
My kid had a Palo Alto summer camp around 2009 where they did this. It was a
new camp for kids too old for Foothills. Just a week, and they did several
things, the last one being dropped away from camp and told to find their own
way back (in groups of three). One group made it in 45 minutes, a couple more
in an hour, and the rest...ranged from 3-5 hours later.

He thought it was great, but Palo Alto being Palo Alto that was the only week
that particular camp operated. Sadly.

------
timzaman
Can confirm (Dutch). I've been on a few droppings at night. Notice the woods
in Holland are incomparable to an American scale forest. I can even nuance
that you don't need to be a scout. This is fairly normal even to do on school
trips or any other group/club of friends. We didn't even have GPS at the time,
but just a map and a compass. You just need to have enough volunteering adults
to catch any kids that go rogue. As long as you instruct the kids to stay
together (they will, as they are typically a bit scared) it should be fine,
especially if you place a few volunteers not too far out.

------
fjfaase
Yes, I have fond memories of these. These were often seen as the highlight of
a week of camping. In my youth we did not have mobile phones, even not
everybody had a phone at home. Because the Netherlands is so densely
populated, it is very difficult to find a place where there are no lights
visible. I remember that usually, we knew within 10 minutes where we were and
in which direction we had to walk. Never met any wild animal. Never felt I was
in danger. I remember that in my youth, it was very normal to be away from
home on your own. When I was about 12, I would go on biking trips of 20 miles
and more, all on my own. When I returned after some hours and my mother would
ask me where I had been, I just told her that I had been biking and she would
be happy with the answer. Of course, she knew me and knew that I was careful
person and would not do stupid things.

~~~
fjfaase
I also remember Austerlitz. Camped there in the woods two or three times. One
time in the winter. I also remember that we biked there from our home town, a
little more than 20 miles. This was when I was 14-17 years old.

------
zafka
This gives me a little hope, knowing that some societies are still raising
their children rationally. While we never had anything formal like this, when
I was younger we were allowed to hike into the woods with a chance of getting
lost. Of course, even when I was a kid, some parents of children I went to
school with were far too protective. -- Late 60s, early 70s

------
oska
A little bit tangential to this: bushwalking at night can be a very beautiful
experience. I remember doing a ~15km section of the Abel Tasman track in New
Zealand during the night so as to catch the early morning low tide for a tidal
river crossing. It was glorious being on the track (and briefly losing it at
one point), tramping under the night sky.

------
ilamont
U.S. scouts have a special society known as Order of the Arrow ("OA",
[https://www.cityonahillpress.com/2008/04/10/the-secret-
behin...](https://www.cityonahillpress.com/2008/04/10/the-secret-behind-the-
order-of-the-arrow/)). There are various ceremonies and rituals involved, but
I remember the trial my father described to me -- being sent out into the
woods overnight with an egg, a single match, and not much else.

~~~
jlgaddis
It's been ~25 years since I was initiated and went through the "Ordeal".

Your father's story sounds about right. We were led through the woods (in the
middle of the night, after the "tap out" ceremony, with no flashlights) all
the way around to the other side of the lake at our summer camp and that's
where we spent the night. I _think_ we were given a light blanket to sleep
on/with but I might be wrong. The next morning we were "picked up" and began
the physical work part. The entire "Ordeal" lasted ~24 hours -- during which
you were not allowed to speak.

Honestly, it's a lot scarier than it sounds. I grew up out in the country and
spent a lot of free time as a kid out in the woods so that was no big deal to
me (later, I participated -- as "Kichkinet" \-- in other initiation
ceremonies). Many of the "city kids", though, did not sleep a wink that night.

I've still got my "Brotherhood" sash somewhere around here. Around the time I
received that, I "discovered girls" and my time in the Boy Scouts quickly came
to an end.

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
My ordeal ceremony was around 15 years ago and was pretty similar. IIRC I had
a sleeping bag plus tarp and and no tent (you are definitely not allowed a
tent when participating). I remember this rather vividly because the night of
the ordeal it rained and I had to roll up in my tarp like a burrito to stop
from getting wet.

Yes, you are not allowed to speak during the labor part. I remember this
vividly also as we were assembling large teepees as our given task (~20ft in
height) and we were very briefly given a rare exception of being allowed to
speak if there was some imminent danger of the teepee falling over and
injuring someone.

What they fed me in terms of food was honestly pretty gross. IIRC I didn’t get
any lunch and only got basically a nasty green hard boiled egg plus a tiny
mandarin orange for breakfast. by the time you’re allowed to talk again when
the ordeal is over there is a feast shortly thereafter though.

The “brotherhood” second stage ordeal is actually a whole lot easier, it
basically involves a night ceremony with a lot of rituals and a handwritten
letter to your local “lodge” if I am remembering things correctly.

------
ragebol
Yes, as a Dutch scouts leader, can confirm we do this at least once a year.
When I was a youth member, no GPS and no cell phone either as far as I
remember.

At our yearly JOTA-JOTI event we up the ante by going 'hunting' for the kids
by cars or bike so they try to not get spotted by the leaders until they reach
the main camp site.

For Dutch scouts here:
[http://www.hikeandseek.nl/](http://www.hikeandseek.nl/) is super awesome (but
typically fully booked).

------
SOLAR_FIELDS
Quite topical as Jamboree starts this week. I was flying out of Ecuador late
last week and saw a bunch of excited scouts on their way to Jamboree and it
made me smile. Are there any other bizarre coming-of-age scouting traditions
that other countries follow? This article immediately made me think of USA’s
similar tradition, the snipe
hunt:[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt)

~~~
bane
We had a tradition of sending new scouts over to other camps to ask for a
"left-handed smoke shifter" to better control the smoke coming off of the camp
fire. No such thing exists of course, but sending off new boys (and receiving
similar new boys from other camps) was a hilarious tradition and a bit of
light hazing that nobody ever broke.

One older scout even crafted a piece of equipment he instructed the newbie to
take with him to ask for a replacement part.

~~~
jacquesm
Other professions have similar initiation rituals: automotive mechanics get
sent out to get boxes of blue sparks and people in the clothing industry have
to find a spool of yarn with some specific pattern on it.

------
throw20102010
“with only a primitive GPS to indicate the right direction”

... so these kids are more at risk of being kidnapped than they are of getting
lost.

I’ll admit that I think it’s a bit weird to make kids walk home in the night,
but the author does a terrible job of making it sound suspenseful. This
activity has gotten a lot safer since GPS became widespread. I kind of feel
bad for anyone that went through this in the 80’s, they might have actually
gotten lost and had to knock on a farmer’s door for directions.

~~~
hondadriver
Kids being kidnapped is not the first thought of Dutch (and Belgium?) parents.

Example: We were at the Zoo with friends from the US and one of their small
kids was out of sight for minute at the very large playground.

My first thought: Will show up, but is there any water nearby? Their thought:
he's kidnapped!

(kid did show up few seconds later)

I guess you're far more likely to drown than to get kidnapped in The
Netherlands... (Most children learn to swim before they are 6 years old here)

Droppings were really cool by the way and in the eighties when I grew up we
only got a compass or nothing at all (no gps or cell phone). I was no boy
scout, it also happens at school trips and birthdays.

~~~
wpietri
I just got back from visiting a friend in Amsterdam, and it was a delight to
see how much everybody just assumed kids would be safe on their own.

I'm pretty sure the US had the same attitude when I was growing up; I know I
spent the bulk of my summer days roving the neighborhood. It's weird to me how
much that has changed. Especially given that kids can be constantly tracked
and contacted via cellphones, you'd think that they'd be roving farther!

------
gillesjacobs
My scouting group was fond of "dot-arrow" droppings. We were dropped
blindfolded in the woods and only given a piece of paper with arrow symbols on
it indicating the turns to take on the route. Of course we missed turns and
got lost, but we had a radio for calling in for hints. In bigger forests, we
would get survey maps of the area. Then it was a matter of figuring out where
you are on the map at the drop point.

I have fond memories of those nights.

------
bane
Grew up in the U.S. mid-atlantic, and spent many weekends camping out during
my teens with the boyscouts -- at various levels of difficulty. The
culmination was the annual "winter survival" campout where we were dumped
miles off in the woods in the middle of the winter for 3 days with food, a
sleeping bag, a box of matches and our pocket knife and had to survive for
three days.

As it was often at freezing and sometimes snowing, we had to build warm
shelter (fast), start a fire, dig a latrine, find water, and get a meal
prepped before dark on the first day and basically survive the cold with
everything we knew. Our shelter had to be weather resistant, warm and
sustainable enough to make it a couple of nights.

Boys below a certain age and rank weren't allowed to participate as it was
simply too dangerous. Night temperatures often went far below freezing and I
remember waking up with my camp mates to see who's shelter had fallen in under
the snow, and who had the most leaves stuffed into their sleeping bag for
warmth -- despite that we'd all not be able to feel our feet for a few hours
until we got moving. It was an amazing lesson in how the body's survival
mechanisms work.

We had two adult chaperones along who "glamped" in full gear and were
available for emergencies. More than once boys had to leave early due to the
cold, or a shelter falling in on them or simply giving up and throwing in the
towel.

This was all way before cell phones were common. At the end we'd have to break
camp, clean it up as if we had never been there (leave no trace), hike and
landnav our way back out of the woods with a rough map and directional
reckoning using nature (no compass!) where we'd be treated to a hot meal, a
hot shower (in that order) and an immediate blow-by-blow of what went right,
what went wrong and awards were given out for exceptionalism in various facets
of the camping arts. Most boys also earned various scouting badges and things
during the event just by way of making it the entire way.

I didn't care much for the Boyscouts, but I eagerly looked forward to that
activity the years that I could do it.

I'm pretty sure we were all secretly being trained for a Red Dawn scenario.
The in-joke in my troop was that the Scouts were America's premier youth
paramilitary organization.

~~~
jcranmer
> The in-joke in my troop was that the Scouts were America's premier youth
> paramilitary organization.

... That's not terribly inaccurate, actually. Baden-Powell was influenced by
his experiences in the Siege of Mafeking, where boys of that age were
organized in effectively a military unit, albeit a noncombat unit that was
operating closer to a civil defense role. There's a heavy military context to
scouting, and it shouldn't be surprising that a lot of scouts go on to join
the military or that a lot of military brats end up joining scouting.

------
kart23
Many fraternities do this in the us, but here it's considered hazing and gets
you expelled if you're caught.

------
mettamage
This isn't done in other countries (except Belgium)?

Who knew!

I did droppings many times as a kid. Never did I feel unsafe. We did walk
quite far. I remember it was 4 hours, we walked next to a highway for quite a
while once. Since I was a kid, I have no clue whether we _actually_ walked 4
hours.

------
solidsnack9000
The writer calls it peculiarly Dutch, but then describes it taking place in
Belgium, as well.

~~~
mobilemidget
As a dutch I've only been dropped in Belgium forests.

------
gnicholas
This remind me of the Wilderness Survival merit badge in the boy scouts. We
had to survive a night in the woods with no gear except a pocket knife and the
clothes on our backs.

~~~
bluewater
Good call on that merit badge! I remember vividly we got to bring along a hot
dog and a fire starter (maybe flint and steel?). We had rain so the forest was
soaked. Despite our best efforts there was no fire and we dined on cold hot
dog.

~~~
gnicholas
You got food? Pretty sure ours was without food. But our forest was dry (Camp
Winton in the Sierra Nevadas, in the summertime).

------
apexalpha
Ah yes we would do this in the Ardennes with a compass and some instructions!
Few hours of hiking and drinks and snacks by the campfire at the end. Good
times!

------
module0000
These sound like night exercises from infantry school.

------
aerophilic
As someone that would want this for their kids: Is there am equivalent in the
United States? Perhaps through scouts, or another org?

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
I left this in a sibling comment that we (I’m an Eagle Scout with long history
of scouting) used snipe hunting as a somewhat equivalent rite of passage:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt)

In my experience it was somewhat less dramatic than described in the article
(I wasn’t left alone more than a half hour hike from camp and the few times I
did it I never let the “victims” out of sight). It seems like these teens from
the article are expected to put in a good few hours hike before getting back
to a certain location. It was still a similarly formative and fun experience
for me, especially because I got to do it with a couple other kids my age.

------
lstodd
How very beautiful.

If I ever have kids, I'll drive them off a thousand kilometers or two. A
measly forest next door is no challenge.

It is suprisingly easy to travel without money nowadays. But it takes some
communication with the world, and children must learn that. I'm of opinion
that hitch-hiking is one of the most effective solutions.

So, make them travel 2Kkm in a weekend, repeat that some times.. like we had
back then. There even were sports - competitions over 3-4-8K km distances.

------
Insanity
In Belgium we do this as well. It does sound a bit strange perhaps, but for us
it's not something worrisome.

------
smartbit
[http://archive.is/xJnkK](http://archive.is/xJnkK)

------
bryanrasmussen
I have a premonition what Ari Aster's next film will cover.

