The International Falls Mall hosted a Jurassic Pack Scout Expo Saturday as area Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts held simultaneous events including a pinewood derby, sailboat races and exhibits and games.
The event brought scouts of all ages and levels from International Falls and Baudette.
Lois Averill, district chair and northern border district scout leader of Cub master 145, said the event helps to teach boys sportsmanship and manners through working as a team.
They also learn woodworking skills from cutting and shaping the boats and cars at home. If they bring a friend who joins scouts they also get a recruiting badge, she added.
Rex Muggli, scout leader of Baudette Pack 62 Webelos, said he was happy to see a lot of new young faces at this year’s competition. He said it is good to see excited kids competing for the first time and that is a good sign for the future of scouting.
He said the competition is a way to help scouts develop their building skills.
“We tell them that its about having fun and not about winning and losing,” he said.
Zach Muggli, 10, of Pack 62, recalled that his first race the car stopped rolling before it completed the run down the track. He said it is fun, though, and is back for his fourth consecutive race.
A 45-foot, four-lane aluminum computerized track automatically releases the cars from the start gate and records the speed and time results at the finish line. The scouts each receive a kit with a pine block and the racing accessories. It is up to them how they design, carve and build the racers.
The sailboat race is a 12-foot, dual-lane water course built from plastic rain gutters. The scouts each built a sailboat from a kit containing a plastic block and paper sail.
The scouts raced the boat by blowing on the sailboat without touching. Some boats moved quickly down the course while other tipped over from design or operator errors.
Andrew Metchnek volunteered to run the computerized race course. He said that after entering contestant names and pack affiliation, the computer arranges the matches automatically.
A school trained chef, he was also a scout and likes to volunteer when needed since moving to the area four years ago.
“Its quiet here,” he said. “I just wish the job situation was better.”
James Vance, a scout assistant, said the competition places winners in levels and with overall winners in speed and time categories, for each pack and troop level. He said the competition is a way to expand scouting into other life experience areas than the outdoors and survival skills and that its fun for the kids.
The Expos had a Jurassic theme and with projects including 3D dinosaurs and wolf pack fossils. Donna Gilgen, an assistant den leader with Pack 145, said the scouts worked hard to create the exhibits.
The Brownies had a crafts and information table on Australia.
Five Falls area Girl Scouts were at the Expo selling tacos as a fundraiser to help offset the costs for a trip to London and Edinburgh, Scotland this summer. The girls will go with 40 other regional scouts, to visit historic Girl Scout sites in London and Alnswick Castle in Scotland, made famous by the Harry Potter films.
Marcia Glover, a Girl Scout leader, said the girls will spend a day with a British family. They will also prepare a high tea for the “Girl Guides”, their British equivalents. She said the girls already have practice serving high tea with Fort Frances scouts.
They also plan to visit an historic theater and take in a play while in London.
