A recent photo gallery in our pages showed the results by a small army of Lac La Biche-based Junior Forest Wardens to make a giant compass design in a snowy field. The carefully etched field-art took on the shape of a compass — a compass with a 250-foot diameter.
Cool. Nice. Wow! The organizers of the big snow project heard a lot of great compliments. But how did they do it?
The easy answer is with an intricate sketch on a notepad, a compass, a protractor and 21 little pairs snow-shoe covered feet.
"It might have looked like a bit of organized chaos," said Lac La Biche Junior Forest Wardens group leader Robin Smith-Mandel, "but it was mostly organized."
The organization of almost two dozen youngsters ranging in ages from six to 12 was taken on by the three teenage members of the Adventurer Challenger group. Olivia Dyment, Nathaniel Mandel and Hannah Bergeron spent hours planning out the event that took place on a sunny Saturday two weeks ago on a lakeside field in the Key-Way-Tin subdivision just north of the Lac La Biche hamlet.
Broken up into groups of 10, youngsters from the Junior Forest Wardens' youngest groups of the Wanderers and Pathfinders, joined the Trail Blazers in creating the giant piece of snow art. With each participant given a pair of snowshoes to walk around their portion of the design, there was a lot of 'hands-on' instruction says Bergeron.
"We were directing a lot of traffic," joked the 16-year old, explaining that her group of leaders had to pre-think how the youngsters would walk onto the field, how they would create their portion of the giant compass, and how they would leave the project. They also had to account for some of the participants having some troubles getting used to the snowshoes they were wearing.
Her fellow organizers said they were pleased to that afternoon project went smoothly.
Dyment, 12, said her own developing skills on snowshoes was quickly overcome as she helped others navigate their assigned trails using directions mapped out with a compass.
"I kind of thought it was going to be pretty hard because I've only used snowshoes once or twice before, but once you got the hang of it, it was really good," she said. "Everyone seemed to like it. We measure everything out before-hand and made sure they were all walking in a straight line by using the compass. It was a great way to show them how to use one as they walked."
Mandel, 13, said he figures the leaders walked about 10 kilometres over and around the giant snow art during the afternoon and each of the youngsters probably logged at least five kilometres each. When the youngsters weren't walking the lines of the art piece, they were having fun tobogganing and playing on an adjacent playground.
"It was a busy afternoon, but we had a good plan and it went well," said Bergeron, who plans to use her Junior Forest Warden skills to continue on a path towards schooling and a career in forestry, agriculture or "anything where I can be outside."
JFW leader Smith-Mandel says the art project was a great lesson for leadership training for the older participants, as well as orienteering and snowshoeing for all of the youngsters who took part.
The Saturday project took about four hours to complete ... and one snowy and windy night to erase. Fortunately some aerial photos were taken of the project. The photos surprised the leaders.
"We were excited to see what it looked like. Everyone did all that work, but it's hard to tell how it's going when you are on the ground. When we saw the pictures, it was great," said Bergeron.
The Adventurer-Challengers often work with the younger groups in local JFW activities, but each group also carries out their own activities during the September to May season.
"We are always accepting new members every September," said Smith-Mandel, explaining that there are meet-and-greet events held at registration time for families to learn more about the club. "It's a family-oriented club where the parents participate with the members."
More information about the club can be found at www.AJFWA.ca
