Things have been busy at the Wilderness Skills Area this week! We’re gearing up for the WSA Olympics to end the session, so we’ve been exploring, learning, and practicing in each of our skill areas.

Nature kids this week have been playing in our new Emriver Stream Table, creating rivers, building dams, watching erosion happen, and flooding towns on the table. One group tried to put all of the little cows on top of a mountain they made, but they soon learned that even a giant mountain is no match for the erosive powers of flowing water. When they weren’t playing in the stream table, they were peaking inside the bluebird houses, catching bugs to feed to our bullfrog, or swimming in Mud Lake.

Campers have had some luck catching fish on Amy Belle Lake this week, though the spear-fisherpeople have found that the fish are pretty fast swimmers. Our advanced fishermen and women went out in boats to try their luck at Turtle Bay, but I think they caught more lily pads than fish. Whether they are catching fish or not, they always enjoy at least being out on the water and smelling like worms for the rest of the day.

Wilderness Survival started out the week with a class for Teacher Assistants. These kids had taken Survival before and were ready to share what they knew with the day campers who were coming to the skill for the first time. They did an amazing job teaching knife safety and fire building! We’d welcome them on to our WSA staff any day! Campers also got to sign up for “Big Throw Sticks” and “Shortie Stalking” and worked on their hunting skills. The Big Throw Sticks kids learned to lash together their own sticks before going out on a hunt for small critters. No critters were caught, but they at least got to preactice their tracking and stalking skills. Kids in Shortie Stalking were already had some advantages- they’re all short and able to sneak up on things without being seen! They practiced sneaking through the woods in search of animals…before launching water balloons at their targets (Minikani staff)!

We’ve had lots of talented kids in WSA this week, so there should be some very exciting competition during the Olympics!

Alyson Green