This weekend, our Scout District is holding their annual Klondike Derby. I know lots of BSA councils run these around the country, sometimes by other names. The idea is to have teams of boys pulling a sled around a large camp with several "towns" that they will visit along the way. Each town has a mayor, and the mayor will ask the team to perform some sort of Scout Skill. Examples are firebuilding, first aid, cooking, rescue, woodcraft, knots, etc. They receive "gold" nuggets for performing the task correctly, and some are also timed events. They have to carry everything they need on their sled, spare clothes, shelter, firebuilding, first aid supplies, food, etc etc etc. They can only use what they have on the sled, and are encouraged to improvize. The team with the most gold wins. Of course, they all have a ball, so even if they don't win, they sorta win anyway.

Predictably, the "favorite" event is firebuilding. They have to bring some firebuilding items, good tinder, starter (other then matches or lighter), and build a fire that can burn through some hemp rope that's suspended at a certain height above the base that they are working from. Saturday, we held a practice for next weekend. At some point, the boys were trying various flint/steel combinations, and then explored the wonders of steel wool and a battery as a quick fire starter. You should have seen their faces. They couldn't understand how the metal was burning. Then I showed them how the magnesium shavings work on that bar they were making sparks with. Letting them explore, in a safe way, is really rewarding.

We'll be camping Friday and Saturday nights at the event. We always do a couple winter trips. The forecast is for light snow, 20's. Should be cold enough to feel like they accomplished something, without it getting too dangerous. We have them all bringing their gear to our meeting this week to have them checked out, particularly sleeping bags and pads.

I'm looking for any words of wisdom from the crowd on learning opportunities for the weekend. We've been doing it for a long time, but, it's always nice to change things around, inject a new idea, something like that. We try to have things that the older boys can teach to the younger ones. It's good for both of them. (Hey, it's fun for the dad's too! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />)