for the next week or so i'll be a volunteer at a local nature center.the schools are bringing out bus loads of grade school students to take part in a Voyageurs and Trappers program.
there are four parts and each kids takes part in all of them.
a snowshoe hike,a vist to "trader jims" which is a wonderful collection of trade goods items that a local reenactor has put together.then meeting the voyageurs for a trip from Quebec to the Grand Portage in Minnesota.the canoe is an outline on the meeting room floor and the staff in compleat outfits tells the story and the kids take up little paddles and sing and get to try out carrying a bundle with a tump line..OK--as i don't have a story all worked out and i just got into this without any kind of reenactors outfit i got the task of the "fire keeper" at the trappers camp which had all the items you would expect.while the staff went thru what it was like to winter over i kept a pot of wild rice warm for everyone to have a taste of..



so now the point of this post...here and at other site we have all read of how kids these days don't get to do the same sort of things as we did--like make fires and handle knives--
well here they did.after trying out flint and steel and have a demo of a fire bow the kids got into groups of three and made a fire--tinder and birch bark were provided and they got down to it with just minor adult supervision.



this group was just about leaping up and down--"we did it! we made a fire"--wood kitchen matches were handed out,one each and they all had a go at it. i would say the future is in good hands--