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The Kybo, that humble wooden facility elemental to our camping memories, can be a little terrifying at first.
Eventually all of us must go at one time or another.
“Kybo” is a common name throughout world Scouting. A moniker that may hark back to filling Kybo brand coffee cans with powdered lime sprinkled in the facility to alleviate odor and promote decomposition. Have you heard toilet paper called “Kybo Tape” or “Kybo Wrap”?
Australian’s may call it a “dunny” or by the delightfully musical appellation “thunderbox”.
The Kiwis of New Zealand speak of the “long-drop”.
Girl Scouts in the U.S. call it the biffy. (Could this be from the “BFI” (Browning-Ferris Industries) portable toilets? Or the acronym for “Bathroom in the Forest For You?”)
In the back-country campsites of national parks of Canada one finds ‘the box’, an aptly named facility with no walls or ceiling. Initially the exposed feeling is off putting, but the remote, often scenic, location of the box and the open air of the experience endear most to the arrangement.
Ostentatious facilities of brick gave rise to a familiar simile “Built like a…” (you know the rest).
At our Scout camp we use the particularly military term ‘latrine’; a centuries old term the French derived from the Latin word “latrina”, contraction of “lavatrina”, from “lavare” to wash.
Sailors proudly call it the ‘head’ while land-based armed service speak of ‘going to the can’ recalling that a can (a cut-off steel drum) was often used to contain the object of the exercise.
Europe’s highest (at a height of 13,976 feet ) serves 30,000 skiers and hikers annually. Located on France’s Mont Blanc , periodically emptied by helicopter, the facility alleviated a spring thaw problem that caused some to call Mount Blanc ‘Mont Noir’.
A retrete fuera de casa in Colca Canyon Peru is purported to hold the title “the world’s highest.”
Vaudevillian Chic Sale penned a monologue featuring carpenter Lem Putt who made a career of building these humble structures. “The Specialist” was published in book form and became something of a sensation in it’s time
Tsi-Ku also known as Tsi-Ku-Niang is Chinese goddess of the latrine and the Etruscan goddess Colacina became beneficent Roman goddess of efficient drainage systems.
James Whitcomb Riley (or James T. Rankin) penned the poem ‘The Passing of the Backhouse‘ I have the following stanza committed to memory for entertainment on winter camping trips:
But when the crust is on the snow and sullen skies were gray
Inside the building was no place where one could wish to stay.
We did our duties promptly, there one purpose swayed the mind;
We tarried not, nor lingered long, on what we left behind.
What lore or experiences have you to share?
Comments for this post will be assiduously moderated.
I heard that the term KYBO came from the vets of WWI when their sons started entering Boy Scouts. The version I heard was that during the War they had a program of “Keep Your Bowels Open” to prevent dysentery (spelling?). When the outhouses were at the early camps they referred to them by the old WWI name and that program. At least that is what I was told.
As a Scout in Missouri, we called them latrines. Here in Oregon, they are KYBOs, and the acronym is what I learned. I am old enough to have also heard them referred to as Chic Sales, but never knew why; thanks for the learning, and the link to Chic Sale.
first year as a scout leader we went to a camp in MO where they called them “lollies” . i had to laugh as we had a burger shack in the town i grew up in with the same name, the food there wasn’t crappy at all!
River runners are familiar with the “groover” – so named from it’s origins as an empty ammo can and the effects of sitting on the opening (ahem). The modern day groovers have plastic seats that eliminate the “grooves” yet the name has stuck.
At Camp Geronimo in AZ, some of the old wooden latrines have been replaced with ones with corrugated steel walls over the past few years. The unknowing victim goes inside only to have his private moment disrupted by the incredibly loud sound of other boys pelting the outside walls with stones. They are now calling the metal-clad latrines “thunderdome” as a result of this. After I read the Aussie term “thunderbox” above, I was suddenly struck by the potential dual meaning of the term “thunderdome”!
This past summer at Philmont we had an Air Force Academy cadet as our ranger, so the “facilities” were known as bombers — or duo-bombers to be exact since they always came in the two seat variety. Philmont has both pilot/co-pilot duo-bombers (side-by-side) and pilot/bombadier (back to back) duo-bombers. Both come in closed cockpit and open cockpit version. If you had to grab the “mission papers” and complete five missions in a single day, you were considered an Ace!
I had not heard the term KYBO in Scouting until I moved to Ohio 20 years ago and became reinvoleved in the movement (so to speak!). When I was a scout in the late 60’s in the East it was always referred to as a latrine. KYBO seemed to be everywhere I visited west of the Alleghenies and even as far north as Haliburton, Ontario!
My own research agrees with Blaise Vitale’s that it was an acronym derived from “Keep Your Bowels Open” allegedly promoted for health reasons within the British military as they occupied an empire on which the sun never set.
Given the birth of Scouting in England by as well travelled officer as Baden-Powell, I suspect the term trickled down, er, (sorry),…was common parlance in the early days of Scouting and remains as an intersting and instructive replacement for latrine etc.
Our former troop went to the same camp each year. We’d often try to upgrade the outhouse. One year, we installed a lightswitch, the next, I installed a socket and lightbulb above the toilets. I’m not sure if they ever got around to putting up the satellite dish and flatscreen monitor.
The medical officer at camp calls it the “two-holer”…
I asked him “Is that because you do #2 or because there are 2 holes in the body or because there are 2 stalls to go in?”
“Yes” was his reply…and he walked away.
We have always called the “boxes” in the provincial parks “treasure boxes” but that might now be widespread.
I haven’t heard that one yet – I will use ‘treasure box’ this summer when we are in Algonquin!
This Canadian has been calling them ‘thunderboxes’ since the dawn of time (Aussies aren’t the only ones who appreciate music).
I’m with Larry on this one. Latrine, a host of terms never to be said in front of a Scout and since I’m named John, I usually retaliate with “going to the George!”
I heard the term “BIFFY” from a Camp Fire USA camp that we used to use from time to time. The outhouses are so noted on their map and the legend explains “Bathroom In the Forest For Youth.” Otherwise, we just call them latrines or, unglamorously, pit toilets.
Good grief Clarke! Whatever dude.
I believe that I was introduced to the term “KYBO” when I watched that Boy Scout movie that was on your list a while back. Outhouse and Latrine were the only terms that I recall hearing before reading your dissertation above.
I was taught that the term came from the mnemonic “Keep Your Bowels Open”.