Meghan Hansen - a portfolio
Klondike Derby, 1995-2007
A brief history of Klondike
Without going into too much detail, Klondike is an event held the first weekend of March. It involves a day's worth of outdoor activities, for Cubs, Scouts, Guides, and Pathfinders. The Scouts and Pathfinders, aged 11-15, run on the Saturday, while the Cubs and Guides, aged 8-12, participate on the Sunday. The event has been hosted in the past by the 4th Wpg Scout Group, but is now an event put on by Scouts Manitoba. The event takes place at Camp Amisk, a scout campground just outside the Winnipeg Perimeter Highway. The 38th Annual Klondike Derby will be held on March 7th and 8th, 2009.
Each time consists of 8 participants, who pull a sled around a course. The start and finish lines are at Headquarters, or Dawson City. There are 10 "towns", each named for an actual prominent place during the Yukon Gold Rush and run by a "mayor" and staff, where the teams perform tasks that are related to winter skills and survival, such as first aid, identification, or fire-lighting. Each task requires that the team show good teamwork and cooperation.
Klondike is run as a competition. Each team is scored on how well and quickly they perform each task as well as how quickly they complete the course. There are trophies for the top finishers in each category, and the competitive spirit runs high between the teams. Follow this link for the results from the 2008 Klondike Derby.
Volunteer Involvement
I have been a volunteer at the Manitoba Scouts Klondike Derby since 1995- the last year I was also able to run as a participant in the event. In the beginning, I was there as the "extra hand", to help wherever help was needed. Eventually, I began taking on responsibilities of my own. First, I became the starter's helper- helping get the teams ready to go, and setting them off on their day-long adventure. Then, as the former starter slowly withdrew from participating in the event, I took his place, in turn running not only the starting gate, but the whole Start/Finish and Scoring portions of the event.
Eventually, I brought a team together to run the Starting gate and Scoring with me, especially as I had made the decision to go away to go to grad school, and did not expect to be able to take time off to return to Winnipeg for the event. In 2006, I had assembled a team of 5, including myself.
Our new activity
At this time, an additional activity was added to the roster of activities that the Scout and Pathfinder teams were undertaking. Each team was given an egg, and told that they were responsible for carrying it, unbroken and unfrozen, through the day's activities. The mayors at each town were to check on the egg, and make sure that it was still whole as the teams arrived in their towns. My team and I were given the responsibility of organizing this activity.
At first, we thought we would simply put the eggs into ziplock bags and hand them to the teams. But this seemed impersonal. The teams were to be responsible for the eggs, and so we thought they should have names. And, well, why stop there? Two of us spent a day coming up with names and faces for the eggs. As shown below, we drew much of our inspiration from pop culture- something that the leaders found amusing, even if some of the references had to be explained to the kids.
The following year, the "Egg-vent" was expanded to include all the teams on both days, and the Scout and Pathfinder teams were given an additional challenge- they now had a pair of eggs to take care of. Unfortunately, I did not have pictures taken of the inventive pairs that we created. But the event was a hit with both age groups, and I certainly hope that it has been kept going in my absence.
I have missed participating in this event since leaving for school in Montreal, and hope that I will be able to rejoin the Steering Committee and start working with them again once I have finished my degree.