Orienteering USA

By Gord Hunter (Suncoast Orienteering)

The United States is a huge country with a huge variety of topography. Some topographical
areas are considered very suitable for orienteering. Some are not.

Louisiana with its many miles of lowlands, often swampy, sometimes flooded, often filmed as a
great habitat for alligators and dangerous snakes is seldom mentioned as a great venue for
orienteering. But perhaps we are judging too harshly and dismissing Louisiana too quickly
without a proper look.

Consider that:

• For several years back in the 1980s an ROTC team from Southeastern Louisiana University would come to and win the OUSA National Intercollegiate Championships.
• For many years now a club called ALTOS – Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas Orienteering Society has been conducting events in those three states including NW Louisiana, around and north of Shreveport, where the terrain gets a little hillier and more inviting.
• Now thanks to an active JROTC leader who seems to have spent the last three years learning orienteering from scratch, orienteering in SE Louisiana is coming back to life.

The leader is LCDR Aaron Bates who joined the staff of St Amant High School in Ascension
Parish in 2023. Back in 2023 the JROTC leaders in the Parish got together to hold an activities
camp to interest their cadets in various competitive activities. Bates, it seems, was the ‘new guy’ amongst a group of leaders who know little to nothing about orienteering. Inevitably he ‘drew the short straw’ and was assigned to teach orienteering. “At least I knew a little bit about land navigation from my military career,” offered Bates in a recent exchange of e-mails.

Through a mutual JROTC contact Bates wrote to me asking about making orienteering-style
maps in his area. I made two (remotely), one their school grounds and one of some nearby but
seemingly quite wet forest. Apparently, the maps were put to good use as in 2026 St Amant HS
JROTC is seen representing their area at the Navy JROTC Orienteering Nationals held near
Gainesville FL, a rapid growth for a relatively small school in an area where orienteering is not
the hot topic of conversation around many dinner tables.

But here’s bigger news. I hadn’t heard from LCDR Bates in some time. Then a message comes:
could I make an orienteering map of a Scout camp some hour away from St Amant as the
parish JROTC were going to be holding an orienteering teaching and training camp culminating
in a competition at Avondale Scout Camp. “Of course, I can make a map,” I wrote back.

Given my foregone opinion of southern Louisiana terrain, I wasn’t expecting much. But what a
gem! Contour lines: real contour lines. Line features and point features: the area had them all.
With Avondale as an example, with several large university campuses there is a future for
orienteering even in southern Louisiana.

How did the camp go for the JROTC? See the St Amant NJROTC Facebook page report.
Check the photos. LCDR Bates believes the camp experience will give a great boost to
orienteering among the JROTC population in the area, “I believe the thing that mostly attracts
team members to orienteering is the experience of travel, sightseeing and camping which
normally comes with an out of state competition. We try to make the trips as fun as possible to
entice the students into wanting to participate,” wrote Bates.

He continued, “Once they actually learn how and develop some proficiency, the motivation to
participate changes from wanting to participate in a fun outing/activity to a passion for the sport and an exciting competitive drive.” I guess we have all experienced that. Orienteering grows on you, doesn’t it?

Are you interested in having an orienteering map made of your school, local park, or campground? Check out Orienteering USA’s Youth Mapping Program!