Last March our JFW weekend outing was an overnight at our local JFW cabin.  It is out on a chunk of leased land, part of a county park.  The kids always enjoy going out to this area whether they only come for the day or brave the night in the rustic cabin. The hike in is about 1km, up and down hills, through the forest.  I'm always hoping that there will still be snow on the ground when we go out there in early spring, as I would rather deal with icy conditions than slippery, messy mud on the trail. It feels isolated as there are no modern facilities besides the Christmas lights strung up in the cabin for light, that run off a solar panel. The property consists of the cabin, with a wood burning stove, a cookhouse with a second wood burning stove, a firepit area, an equipment shed, a dock and several outhouses.  There are also areas for overnight shelter building and an area where we can set up tents. The previous time we came out for the weekend we filled the day with litt

For our February Forest Wardens weekend activity we had the kids do some outdoor cooking.  We had each of the kids pick what they wanted to cook over their hobo stoves they had made at club night. My kids chose spaghetti, a dehydrated backpacking stew and bacon. Our group met at Jackie Parker park.  It was very windy so we had to find a spot that had some shelter.  The park has a Pavillion with washrooms and an area to change into skates for their outdoor rink and ice way.  We set up next to the building so it would block some of the wind and if anyone got cold they could go inside and warm up. We had 9 kids and 8 parents brave the cold.  One of the dads brought an old gas camp heater to show the kids. One of the moms brought a cardboard box oven.  She baked cookies for everyone in it.  A cardboard box oven is made by taking a cardboard box, lining it with tinfoil and placing it over a tray of briquettes.  One briquette is equal to 35°C, so you put enough to create the

For Family Day in February we went back to the Silver Skate Festival in Hawrelak Park in the afternoon to check out the daytime activities. It took a while to find parking as there were already a lot of people in attendance.  We walked through the snow garden and saw the finished snow sculptures. We made s'mores and took a picture to get an Alberta milk cow print buff. Next I took Emma through the snow fort to go down the ice slide.  I was wearing my winter moccasins and the leather slowed us down.  We barely made it to the bottom.  I told Emma she should try going again later by herself. We made our way over to the heritage village.  We made some Bannock,  watched the blacksmith and then popped into a canvas tent to warm up and try some Labrador tea. Then Emma and Andrew tried on some snowshoes and tromped over to another fire where we saw some traditional drumming and a circle dance. After returning the snowshoes we ducked into a teepee to warm up again and were

For our February Junior Forest Wardens club night we made hobo stoves and firestarters in preparation of doing an outdoor cooking weekend outing with the kids. We took large cans from tomatoes or large coffee cans and used a can punch to put holes around the top and bottom edge of the can.  You just had to make sure that at least one hole was big enough to feed sticks though.  These types of stoves are twig burners and can heat things quickly due to the large burning surface area provided by the twigs.  Twig burners are mainly used as cooking fires. For the firestarters we made two different kinds.  We made egg carton ones that were filled with any combination of wood shavings, dryer lint and shredded paper.  Then the filled egg cartons were soaked in melted wax.  The second kind we made were chunks of wax wrapped in brown paper, like a candy. The kids had fun making their own designs for their stoves and putting together their firestarters. For our upcoming Saturday

This year my family decided to check out the Silver Skate Festival in Hawrelak Park.  On Feb 9th, in -30° weather we all bundled up and headed out after supper. The main daytime activities had ended at 5pm, but we were going with the intent to see the fire sculpture. When we arrived at the park it was quite dark and the signs for the entrance to the parking lot were not lit up in anyway, quite small and hard to see in the dark.  We ended up having to drive around the entire park as we missed the entrance and it's only one way traffic.  Once we finally parked we had to cross the park to find the tent we were looking for. They had a tent where you could make a lantern to carry in their procession to the fire sculpture.  We made it just in time to each make a lantern.   They were nice simple lanterns made out of a watch battery, led light, bamboo stick, tape and some packing foam wrap. When we were finished our lanterns, we headed over to the storytelling tent just in time t