By Owen Jacobsen, Eagle Scout Troop 359 Hartland, Wisconsin

Hello, Nashotah House! My name is Owen Jacobsen and I am part of Eagle Scout Troop 359 from Hartland, Wisconsin, and for my recent scout project, I built a kayak and canoe rack for the Nashotah House community.

To let you know more about me: some things that I like to do are sports and robotics.  I play football, swim, run track, and also bike. Some things that I do in my free time are hang out with friends, build things and mountain bike. I am currently the Shield patrol leader in my Troop. I am currently working on my eagle rank which is scouting’s highest honors.  To earn this rank you have to complete a service project that you have set and run.  For my eagle project I decided to help build two kayak racks for the Nashotah House community.  

I got this idea after Fr. Matthew and Kristen Olver, who work at Nashotah House, mentioned that the waterfront was in need of some racks for canoes and kayaks. I thought that it would be a great idea for my eagle project as I was still looking for something to do, and I was happy to do something for Nashotah House which has been great to our troops, allowing us to camp on the ground multiple times in the past. We also have a lot of connections with Nashotah House: the Holtzen, Buchan, and Olver families have all been very involved in scouting over the years.

I started the eagle project by first going over to Nashotah House and meeting with Fr. Jason Terhune to discuss what would need to be built. After discussing it, I decided to build two racks, each able to hold six kayaks or canoes. I then designed the kayak racks on a 3-D modeling software and created a set of plans so that I would be able to build and cut the wood to match the designs.  

When cutting the wood, I got some help from the rest of my family members to get everything cut. One thing that I decided to do was to get all of the wood cut before assembling it with the younger scout so that it would go faster when doing the final assembly. Working with younger scouts to build the racks was very rewarding, as they all seemed to have fun while building it and I could tell that they all learned something in the end, which was also very cool to see.  

While assembling it on site, I put myself in charge of making sure everyone knew what to do instead of doing all of the work myself. As the designer, I was able to add things such as eye hooks to allow people to tie down their boats when they store them. This was one of the things that was suggested to me by Fr. Terhune as many people in the past have tied their boats to trees, and they would want their boats tied to the racks as well.  

Adding these kayak racks will encourage more people to use the waterfront by providing a place for people to secure and store their canoes and kayaks off the beach, making more space available for families to hang out there. 

In the future I hope to continue to use Nashotah House’s great campus for scouting events, and I am glad to help out in the community.