By BRIAN CLINE

Special to The Hays Daily News

The Wheatland District's annual Klondike Derby was Jan. 22 to 24 at the Osborne Scout Cabin. This year's snowfall all melted before the event, making it a muddy and challenging trail. The temperatures stayed in the 40s Jan. 23, but due to the clear sky dipped into the teens that night.

Troops in attendance were Troop 101, Hays; Troop 105 and Pack 105, Osborne; Troop 109, Plainville; Troop 118 and Pack 118, Russell; Troop 133, Hays; Troop 160, Hoxie. Troop 98, Beloit; Troop 103, Stockton; and Troop 166-Kirwin/Agra are new guests for this year. This brought attendance to more than 100 youth and adults.

What is a Klondike Derby? Briefly, it is based off of Alaskan history where men raced by means of dogs and sleds across the frozen waters of Alaska in search of gold. Scouting has capitalized on the theme and has a developed the Klondike Derby as an activity for Boy Scouts. It is a race through a series of scouting challenges.

Boys are divided into patrols, and each patrol uses a sled similar to the dog sled used in the Iditarod, which uses scout power to pull instead of dogs. The scouts pull the sleds that are loaded with their personal and patrol equipment. The scouts journey through the woods and fields located behind the scout cabin on the outskirts of Osborne and stop at different activity stations, named after Alaskan towns.

When they arrive at these stations, they are timed and tested on their scouting knowledge, their teamwork and their problem-solving skills. Depending on how well the team works out its problem, it will be awarded a number of "gold nuggets," have its tally card marked and were then off to the next city.

This year's event had eight towns (stations); each town had a mayor who was the person in charge of the task. At Fairbanks, scouts had to build a bridge with only a rope to get supplies across the river. Polar Cove was testing skills at the shotgun range. Glacier Pass was fire building and emergency shelter building. Attu was learning different skills on trapping. Skagway was demonstrating first-aid skills. Kodiak was testing shooting skills at the rifle range. Yukon Peak was the GPS station. Scouts used a GPS to find their way through the forest to the different stations. Scouts had to pack all the supplies needed for each station on their sleds. Caribou Crossing was the ending of the day's events with a sled race. The lack of snow for this event made the race a bit more challenging.

A campfire program followed at the scout cabin that evening. This is where awards and stories of the day's events are presented. First place went to Troop 101 of Hays. Second place went to Troop 105 of Osborne. Third place went to Troop 101 of Hays. The traveling trophy also was awarded to Troop 101. Troop 159, Grainfield, was the winner of the traveling trophy last year.

After the main event, the boys had an opportunity to buy goodies at an auction with the gold they received during the day from their events. A cracker-barrel with lots of homemade Dutch oven cobblers then was provided by each troop after the auction Saturday evening.

Thanks to the city of Osborne for its help and support of the scouting program, and Boy Scout Troop 105 for hosting the event. A special thanks to the Osborne Gun Club, Osborne County EMS, the Fur Harvesters and the FHSU FHSU Geoscience & Geocaching Club for providing leadership to help with the stations. A final thank you to Rich McDaneld of Osborne for providing the awards.

The Klondike Derby is the biggest winter activity in the Wheatland District and has been hosted by Troop 105 of Osborne for more than 12 years.

The Coronado Area Council serves 32 counties divided in five districts in western Kansas. More than 6,000 youth participate in the Scouting and Learning Life programs provided by nearly 2,000 dedicated volunteer leaders. For more information on Scouting, visit www.coronadoscout.org.

Brian Cline is a member of Troop 105.