Woodbadge 2 - Leader Training

Woodbadge 2 - Leader Training
Weekend of Sept 16 and Oct 24, 2014

Jeremy and I took this course with a bunch of other scouters down in Magrath Alberta. .

Most to the training involved learning about safety, forms, issues relating to youth: abuse, bullying, handicaps, risk assessments just to mention a few. So not a lot of pictures for these items. For the ones involving skills we got pictures.

Tem Members

	Jeremy Olsen, Karl Burndorfer - Calgary South Scout Leaders
	My Team (the Mountaineers: Rhett Manden, Derrick Beck, Foster Heninger, Brad Coon)
	So many trainers I didn't have room for them all

Maps and stuff

Map to Training Campground

Photo Library


Derrick working on our "under budget" breakfast. Omelet burrito, great taste, limited cleanup.	Some minor cleanup and the breakfast in the dark was done. These guys start the training day early man.

Rhett and Brad taking it all in after that filling breakfast.	Foster and Derrick discussing the previous nights skit.

The big guns come in to do some fire /axe /saw / cooking training.
Some basic fire tools and supplies	Your basic tinder box. drop in some denim and put the box in a fire to slightly burn the material.	Close up of the box with it's contents on the table.	Stuff that burns from sparks: dried grass rubbed together vigorously to expose the fine fibers, Bull Rush heads work good, just pull apart the head and fluff up the seeds.
Make sure it's dry, cotton balls with a bit of Vaseline rubbed in work well to.	Then get your flint and an knife and scrape the sparks towards your dry fuel.	For flint it's all about the hardness of the metal. He had an old file handle he used.	Drive some sparks into the cotton ball...
and we have ignition.	Try some bull rush fluff...	nicely burning now...
Using magnesium shavings this time. Give a nice hot burn and won't be effected if it got wet.	Get a little pile of shavings going here...	Use the file handle and the opposite edge of the magnesium stick for the sparks...	and snuff it out before the fire alarms go off.
He preferred using flint to make fires from sparks.	There were other hard stones you could use: Chert, Jasper, Quartzite and even Obsidian.
Potassium Permanganate has some interesting fire starting properties as well.	Pour a little antifreeze on it and watch what happens...	Gee, seems to be smoking a bit now...	Whoa, that's cool magic for any scout leader.

The ultimate Challenge for any one who wants to call himself a Boys Scout Leader	A link to show some of the techniques he used:	http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Fire-with-Sticks
Scouter Boyes: So with just a stick and a piece of wood you can make a fire, right?	Well there are a few more tricks to this. 1st the piece of wood needs to be dry, no sap. then cut an angled v-notch in from the edge.	Notice the current angle of his knife. Both sides of the V should go no deeper than this.	This shows the finished notch. He made a few of these about an inch apart as you may go through a few of these before one takes off and lights.
Make a starter hole directly in line with your notch but in from the edge a bit more than the thickness of your stick. It will be rubbings it's way through into your notch, but if your too close to the edge your stick will work out off the edge of the piece of wood.	Just need a small starter hole to keep the stick aligned with your notch.	You will need a bow of sorts with a rope, and a thin piece of wood to act as a plate to catch the hot fibers that get rubbed off. His was a piece of birch bark. His rope was a couple twisted strands of rawhide.	The stick was sharpened to a 45 degree point. He indicated the wood fibers in the stick going the length of the stick would cross through the piece of wood with its fibers at 90 degrees. This was important to get maximum friction and produce the hot wood filings building up inside the notch. You can see he places the wood plate under the notch.
He then stepped on the piece of wood and got his bow ready. Notice the bow was carved to keep the rope secure at the ends. A special knot at the other end allow him to adjust the slack in the rope.	This is his stone socket used to allow the palm of his hand to press down on the top of the stick. Keep your eye out next time you walk along a rocky path or stream for a rock with a concave shape and maybe even a divot inside it.	Got his foot on the piece of wood, bow wrapped around the stick, palm pressing down on stick with socket stone, and the stick placed into the starter hole.	And now we are starting to see smoke.
Here you can see the friction enlarged the hole quite quickly and the rubbings on top are similar to those that drop down the notch onto the plate.	Bad focus pic, but you can see hole starting to expose the v-notch. Bit of light shining through.	Good shot showing the buildup of rubbings inside the notch on top of the wooden plate.	Object is to build up a small pile of hot rubbings on the plate.
If you rub through before you get a hot enough pile, start on the next v-notch and repeat the process.	Make a fresh tip on your stick.	May need to adjust the slack in the rope as well.	Doing this one outside. and everything is set to go.
Getting some heat now.	Video - it's a lot of work...(720mb)	Video - Another one fizzles out. (76mb)	Video - It finally bursts into flames...(700mb). Once you get a good pile of hot rubbings and can see some glow, pull the plate out and gently to blow to build up the heat. then pour them into your nest of dried fuel and continue to blow until the nest starts on fire.
Care of Sharpening of Saws, axes & knives
How to sharpen an axe.	A few sharpening tools...	Personally I prefer an axe over a pocket knife if I'm lost in the woods. It's a hammer, axe, allows for a lot more strength transfer, extends your reach etc.	I could shave with this now...
If you need to skin your dinner these hones will keep an excellent edge on your knifes or even an axe.	Great saw to have but awkward to pack. Storage should be dry. They do make files to sharpen these blades. A short piece of garden hose with a slit make a nice protective shield for the blade.

Cooking stoves
One of the Shipley brothers checking out the fancy light weight equipment.	That stove is way to clean to be a scout camp stove.	The next generation Coleman stove. Still all the same mechanical failure points but smaller. No problem cooking at below -20 though.	Setup the heat shield.
Fill the bottom little dish with raw fuel. Then try lighting the fuel.	That parts burning, now just wait till it heats up the rest of the fuel delivery system.	There you have it, the blue flame.	The new "all in one" disposable. trick is to know if there's enough fuel left for the current hike.
A home made pop-can stove. burns alcohol.	You make a heat shield as well.	Can't even see the flame.	Put the pot right on top and the holes allow the flames to spread over the bottom.

Gourmet cooking with a Dutch Oven
Gourmet hash.	Perfect pot roast done to medium rare.	The awesome Pineapple upside down cake.	and then the "Piece de Resistance", Cinnamon Twists.
Starter kit for cinnamon twists. For a 350 degree oven it's 25 briquettes on the lid and 12 under the pot. I think?	Cinnamon twists. Once the dough rises, pull it out of the Dutch oven. You then lather with sugar, butter and cinnamon, then cut into short strips, twist them and place bake into the Dutch oven to finish baking. These were way amazing.	Hard not coming back for seconds on these babies.	Jeremy provided me with a useful link for developing the skill: DutchovenDude.com . I want to try these at the next campfire.

Closing Ceremony
Some additional awards	Even some of the trainers get awards...	Participants ready for Gillwell beads and scarf.	and you got to wrap it up with a camp song.