2017 Klondike Derby

I havent been on here much lately, I apologize......I've been busy as a bee the past month or so.......part of that being the conception of an authentic-styled tipi (teepee) for my son's Boy Scout Klondike Derby. It had always been a dream of mine, since I was a young boy, to sleep out in a tipi with a fire in it during the winter. Well, we finally did it.....

It started out in the beginning of December when we did a big ash removal over town.......the long logs from that job made perfect poles for the project. My buddy Tony (blacksmith's cousin) milled them into long 3"×3"x13' poles for me, Joe and I later ran them through the table saw into 2.25" octagons, which will sometime soon be tapered down to almost 1.5" at the top end....but they worked fine for now.

Next was to try and find someone locally that could make the canvas cover for me, which proved too technical. I wanted it "authentic" (natural lashings, fire-retardant, water repelling, etc.), so I looked online and found what I wanted from a place called North Prairie Tipi.....they make awesome tipis, I bought the 12' Sunforger kit, which in turn was a perfect fit for my poles. It has adjustable smokeflaps, is laced together via wooden pins (which we made from ash), is water, mildew and moisture-retardant canvas, and is relatively easy to set up.

Went up to camp on the mountain Friday afternoon and put it up, here's a pic of it's setting. Perfect spot for a tipi!


As you can see, it looks quite authentic, and it feels and acts as one would expect it to. Biggest challenge of the whole job was trying to locate rocks for TWO fire rings (one inside the tipi and one outside) in almost 10" of snow!


Friday evening, camp is setup for the night....looks quite cozy, and believe me it was.....


The fire inside the tipi......worked beautifully, even with the wind howling outside at times.


Our kids enjoyed hanging out in the lodge, unfortunately there wasn't enough room for all of us. So my son and I, and a buddy's son stayed in the lodge. The fire kept it warm, even with the harsh wind and single digit Temps we had that night


Pic of the lodge just before bedtime Friday night. It looks pretty cool!


Pic with the door shut


6:30am and a balmy 9°F, the morning of the derby.....time to make breakfast...


The kids had a great derby, many of our kids stayed in tents using military-grade thermal sleeping bags....my hats off to them all. We slept with standard sleeping bags, on camp matresses, quite comfortably thanks to the fire...

As for the Klondike Derby, we finished a strong 3rd place out of around 25 troops, but we did win 1st place for best sled, 1st place for the dogsled race, and we also won our second Ironman Competition (which is a combined most points for all the years scouting activities) in our region.....

Very proud of our boys!!

 

Thanks, Woodsmoke! It was a great time. We would've stayed last night as well, but my son had a bad cold and felt lousy all day so we packed up and came home last evening. I'm kinda glad we did, I needed a good night's rest with 'ma' at my side....

 

I'm going to invest in a liner....once I recover from the cost of the tipi wrap....lol

 

That's pretty sweet setup... Congrats to your son and you, looks like some great bonding time...

 

Looks like a fun time!

 

If we come out to your place this spring, Sav, I'll probably set this tipi up!

 

Keep working with them, I'm sure they'll develop. I have to take all our friction fire stuff to the Cub Scout meeting this coming Monday evening, they cubbies have their Klondike on March 4th, we're going to get them started on learning the methods.

 

What do you mean, "if?"

I remember last year I think it was Barcroftb and someone else went with me to look at a red oak that sort of hangs over the creek and I'd like it down. How about it Brad? Do you remember it? Perhaps you'd be interested in topping it then fastening a rope or cable on it to get it down. (Creek is the property line)

I think that is about a 10' drop to the creek and the bank is really steep. We keep losing ground to the creek and that I don't like.

 

We can do that....