This past weekend wasn’t ideal for being outdoors. Cold weather, wind, and snow conspired to make it a weekend where most people would not be willing to sit outside in a tent.
Lieutenant Dominique Hayden, training officer Captain Colin McInnes, commanding officer of the Yorkton Army Cadets, and roughly 70 kids spent the weekend outdoors at York Lake as part of a training exercise. Kids from the local Yorkton troupe were joined by kids from Melville, Wadena, Humboldt, and one cadet from Naicam. Four of the five corps were artillery corps.
The kids learned how to build shelter, both planned and improvised, how to navigate their surroundings and how to set up camp.
The weather, naturally, was the biggest challenge of the weekend, and Hayden joked that her own tent was frozen. The training exercise emphasized the importance of being able to set up your shelter.
“That’s one of the most important lessons we can teach them, that if you stay dry you can stay warm, getting a shelter up as quickly as possible will get you out of the rain,” said McInnes.
“If you can make it this entire weekend, you can make it the other two training weekends we hold in the year,” said Hayden.
While the challenge of the weekend was camping through the cold and wind, the goal in the end was to have fun and have the kids bond over the weekend. While kids from Yorkton and Melville might know each other well, this was an opportunity to meet corps they otherwise would not see very often, and hopefully make some friends in the process.
“You won’t see them every day, especially the Humboldt and Naicam kids,” Hayden said.
In spite of the weather, they hope the kids have fun and make a lot of memories over the weekend.
“If they leave with a smile, that’s the number one, because you know they will be back,” Hayden said.
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