Polar Bear

On January 16-17 Troop 175 held there annual Polar Bear at Mauthe Lake. The purpose of our troop Polar Bear is so the boys can experience what it is like to sleep in a snow shelter and have fun in the snow.

At this year's Polar Bear the boys found a buddy to make a snow shelter with and started their mound of snow (snow shelter). The heights of our snow shelters ranged from 6' to 7' tall. When our mounds were the correct length and height we waited for the mounds to settle. We waited by eating a hearty lunch, and warming up by the fire. When the mounds settled we began to hollow out the interior. We first sized a door so we could crawl in and then dug until we were 1' away from digging out through the other end. Second we started to make the ceiling go up till 1' from the outside and our walls go out till 1' from the outside. Then we put our sleeping bags inside and we were free to go goof off.

The two big highlights of the Polar Bear were spoons and destroying our shelters. You may be thinking how do spoons have anything to do with the Polar Bear. Well I'll tell you it doesn't, but half of the boys and leaders forgot their spoons. Then my friend had a crazy idea to take pine wood and cut 1'' pieces of it, and in the end almost everyone who forgot a spoon was using my friend's idea. But destroying the shelters was the best, everyone was jumping through their shelter's roof, and running into the walls until they colapsed. I have to say it was pretty fun.

We had a great time. Reminder our next outing is Eagle Cave on Febuary 12-14. See you there!

Troop 175 JLT

JLT is "Junior Leader Training" and is for training Troop 175's boy scouts for their new positions in the troop. This year JLT was held at Harnischfeger Park on 1-22-2010 - 1-24-2010. We did team building activities for most of the day and took a few breaks for meals and a few service projects.

We played a team building game called "Human Overhand". It's where their are two groups and each group is holding rope up to the last person of the line. Then without letting go of the rope they tie the two "ropes" (the line of boys) together in a square knot.

We also played a team building game called "Container Race". You play by splitting the boys into two teams and put the teams into two different lines and have each boy grab a container and put two measuring cups at the end of each line. Then have the boy at the begining of the line scoop up some water from a bucket and gives the water to the next boy and then it repeats until it reaches the measuring cup. Then at the end of five minutes whoever has the most water wins!

Remember boys our next outing is Eagle Cave on Febuary 12-14. See you there!