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="" />)

Have fun, Some of my favorite memories from my Scouting days are the winter camping trips. Especially the sub zero ones.

I don't think that we'll get below zero this particular weekend, but, we do have snow predicted for Friday night, and temps in the teens Saturday night. That's still a good test for most of these younger boys.

It's always fun to watch the first time winter campers as they wake up in the morning and their Nalgene bottles are all frozen. The boys are freezing as soon as they get out of their toasty sleeping bags, desperate for a cup of hot cocoa in the morning, but, can't figure out how to get the block of ice water into the pan of their mess kit to heat it up. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> We kinda let them fiddle with that for a while, it usually results in a fire getting built, which is good practice anyway! The older boys seem to learn to keep one bottle of water under the end of their sleeping bag to keep it from freezing. (It sometimes takes a few cold mornings for them to make the connection, but, they are teens after all.) Some of them even notice the old salts boiling water by the fire before lights out, and realize that those lexan bottles filled with boiling water turn into nice foot warmers for the bottom of the sleeping bag.

My old troop (now defunct) would camp every month. In the winter we had "polar bear" camp outs. First time on a PB you HAD to sleep in the cabin. Wood stove and fireplace for heat but if you were on the bottom bunk of the 5 high bunk beds you might as well have been outside! On your next trip you were able to sleep outside. If you were one of the ones staying outside it was a point of pride to not go inside the entire weekend.

We used to play capture the flag in the dark with colman lanterns right by the flag.

"sigh" good times.

Will your Scouts have time to look for and analyze animal tracks/markings in the snow? I still love doing that; maybe your kids are too old or it is done on another trip, but it can be so fun in the winters when the snow makes tracks easier to see. I incorporated stuff like that into my nature art classes, and the kids would get pretty excited about reading and learning more about the wildlife afterwards.

Sigh, I wish I could've been a Boy Scout. They had all the fun. I'm old enough now to volunteer with the Boy Scouts, but how can someone who is still learning be of any use to kids whose skills more than likely surpass mine? Then again, it could be like that episode of "Seinfeld" where Kramer was learning karate and quickly rose to the top of his dojo of 8-year olds... <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Will your Scouts have time to look for and analyze animal tracks/markings in the snow?
I don't know if they are doing a track identification event this weekend, sometimes they incorporate that into one of the stations. Funny experience with tracking... we had two boys track an animal that had come into our campsite the night before, and tear through some bags that had food in them and were left out. Probably something healthy, like Pop Tarts or Slim Jims.

They thought they were tracking a racoon, but, it was a skunk. At some point, one of the older boys went and chased them down before they found the den, and created another set of problems...

My 10-year old daughter wants to be able to camp like my son's troop does sooo bad. She plans to join a Venture crew as soon as she turns 16. At least that is her plan right now.

Please do consider getting involved with a local Boy Scout troop. I'm sure they'd love to have you involved and it is a great program. You'll find a healthy spectrum of experience and youth & adult leaders who love to teach and provide experience.

I'm very happy to say that I've seen no "sexism" in my pack/troop (I'm very sensitive to that having grown up with a twin sister who felt herself the equal of any boy/man). Women are treated with the same respect due to any other adult leader. Help and advice is offered to anyone in need without ridicule ... unless you do something real funny ... then the humor is with the best of intentions.

Christina,

I would suggest that if you're interested in helping, don't be shy. For example, you could offer to be a merit badge counselor for areas that you have some interest and expertise. Most Troops and Councils need qualified Merit Badge instructors that can work with the boys.

Also, if you have a local troop, they might welcome another adult to help. I meant to get back to this after our weekend to mention that one of the adult leaders that camped out overnight with us Friday and Saturday night was the mom of a boy in my troop. Get this, the boy couldn't attend the overnight part due to hockey, but, his mom stayed and camped anyway, she loves it. (Of course, she didn't want to stay in the lean-to adirondack shelters with the dad's, we have some nasty habits after eating health food like baked beans, linguica, onions, etc... it could be considered an explosion hazard with the open campfires I suppose <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />... so she brought her own tent)

Anyway, some of us were in these pretty primative open shelters, and others were in tents. The wind chill was below zero both nights, and most of the day Saturday. Nobody was more prepared than our female adult leader, she has a lot of hiking and camping on her resume, and always helps the boys prepare for dealing with what nature delivers.

If you have an interest, and can contribute, I'm sure some lucky Troop would welcome your help.

"She plans to join a Venture crew as soon as she turns 16."

Why wait?

The lower age/grade limit for Venturing is 14 and completed 8th grade...