This Month's Tree Mail - a Must-Read!

Please take a few moments to download and read the August Tree Mail.
It is full of inspiring stories about the southern Alberta floods, and how Junior Forest Wardens were there to help!
This says a lot about the kind of organisation we belong to!

Cody's Speech

The following is a speech composed by Warden Cody Tallmadge for his 4H club. We think you may enjoy it...

KEEP OUR FORESTS GREEN !!!

Good evening judges, leaders, guests and fellow 4-H members.

Hi my name is Cody. I am here to talk about Junior Forest Wardens.

"Keep our forest green" is our motto for our Junior Forest Warden club.

I am a first year member of the Junior Forest Warden club in Meadow Lake. My age group is called the Trailblazers.

Our club has an annual winter camp.

This year it was on February 22 to the 25^th.

My mom and I went to a camp called Camp Oshkidee on the shores of Jeanette Lake.

Our first night we slept in a log cabin lodge.

The room only had one bunk bed in it !!

Our second night there, we slept in a quinzee.

A quinzee is like an igloo.

It is not made out of ice blocks, but is made from a HUGE pile of snow.

The snow pile was 7 feet high by 10 feet wide and 14 feet long.

The snow had to be piled the day before.

We shovelled and shovelled and shovelled and so on………4 hours later…….our snow pile was finished with the helping hands of Neil, Mathew and other wardens and leaders.

The snow was very sugary, not sticky, so it had to set up and harden over night.

The next day we had to dig out the cave to sleep in.

The walls had to be about 1 foot thick for good insulation.

It took all afternoon to scoop out all that snow.

It was cool in there that night, but it was alright

We had good warm blankets

I went snowshoeing at night and played snow shoe baseball.

We had lots of good food in the main lodge.

I helped cook the chili for supper on the first night.

I also earned my bronze badge on our camping weekend.

I had lots of fun !!

If you enjoy the outdoors, camping, archery or fishing, you should join our local Junior Forest Warden Club.

Thank you for listening

JFW News for Woodlanders!!!

Lots of things happening, this month, next month, next fall and all the way to next summer!

Last Weekend the Annual AGM was well attended by ML Woodlanders.  Our ‘brag board’ was admired by many, and lots of questions were asked, like “How did you do that?”  Thanks to everyone who contributed to that project.  

The AGM was memorable, and we have three new faces on the AJFWA executive:  Roger Madaire, President; Jackie Hromyk, Vice President; Leigh-Anne Butler, Secretary.  Lisa Patrick stays on as Treasurer, Dawn Friesen as Membership Director.  Al Wardale is taking up his role as Past President with gusto, and Terry Garrett continues as Chief Warden.

There were many good sessions, and a moving tribute to former Chief Warden Ernst Klaszus, with many of his family in attendance.

The most exciting news:  There will be a National Camp in July 2014, and the location will be in the Meadow Lake Provincial Park!

Mom’s Pantry Orders will be in this Friday.  Please arrange to pick up your orders from Marsh’s between 5PM & 9PM Friday.  513 2nd Ave W, 236-2166

Saturday May 4th is our intended Sprucewood Derby.  Many of you have bought car kits, and hopefully most are nearing completion.  If you need assistance, please let Tony or Neil know very very soon!  Watch your email for further details.

Planning Meeting.  Monday evening, 7:00 PM  On the agenda:  May Family Camp, June Canoe Trip, Fall Meet preparations, and the remainder of this season’s events.

May 14 & 28 Tuesday Evenings - will be excellent, please attend, we have a lot to do in a very short time!

May 24-26 Spring Camp at Greig Lake - Our last camp of the season, and already it is looking like a great program is taking shape.  Please plan to attend, even if you have to pull rabbits out of hats to be there.

Our new President, Roger Madaire and his family are hoping to attend!

On the program, among other activities, are birdhouse building, the all-new-soon-to-be-famous Tree-A-Thon, and touring the proposed National Camp site.

May 29th & 30th (Wednesday evening, Thursday afternoon) The Prairie Shelterbelt Program has asked us to take care of this year’s tree delivery.  The tree truck arrives in Meadow Lake on Wednesday, May 29th  at 6:00pm.  We unload & sort the orders that evening.   Thursday from 12-6pm people arrive to collect their orders, and we collect their money.  The shipping cost will be $731.85, the revenue will be $1370.00 and the profit for the Junior Forest Wardens will be $638.15!

We will need about a dozen people Wednesday evening, and shifts of three Thursday afternoon.  

This may very well be PFRA’s last-ever tree shipment, and we are fortunate to be able to get in on it!.

Canoe Camping Trip June 7-8-9 on the Mustus Lakes.  This is a 2-day or 3-day event (your choice) and what could be better - easy paddling, beautiful location, great companions, likely good fishing and definitely good food!

Tuesday June 11 - Club Windup & Annual General Meeting.  This is an important meeting, our last formal get-together of the year.  Along with a potluck supper and some fun activities, we will make some crucial decisions and get our ducks in a row for next year.  Among the priorities:

- Club leaders and executive (must have all positions filled)

- representatives on regional and national board

- other club roles, tasks, projects

- New or revised policies

- Initial planning for the coming year

We have really appreciated having energetic, dependendable and creative leadership teams for each age group this year.  Please show your support by attending this meeting!  

June 14-16 Family Camp and Ernst Trail Dedication at Long Lake Camp.  Westlock Whitetails JFW are hosting a camp at one of our favourite camp facilities, near Athabasca.  The highlight is a formal tree planting and a re-dedication of the Ernst Klaszus Memorial Hiking Trail.  Highly recommended!

June 14-16 Nature Saskatchewan Spring Meet at Grasslands National Park.  This twice-yearly event focuses on conservation and nature education.  All JFW members are welcome and encouraged to attend.  See http://www.naturesask.ca/get-involved/spring-meet for more details.

Other events, camps and learning opportunities are ongoing throughout the summer.  Be sure to watch Tree Mail and www.jfwa.ca for updates and information.

Tri-Region Invitational Family Camp, Labour Day Weekend.  We hope that at least five Meadow Lake families will travel to this first-ever event, to have some serious fun with the Bobcats and Snow Geese JFW clubs.  Some other ‘notable persons’ are likely to be there as well!  

Registration and Club Start-up, September 2013.  Time to start thinking now about what we want to do as a club, how we want to present our club to the public, and how to attract new member families.

Nature Saskatchewan Fall Meet Sept 20-22.  This is our best-ever opportunity to spread awareness about Junior Forest Wardens across Saskatchewan, while we play host and show off our beautiful corner of the province.  We can have a lot of fun with this!  The AJFWA is very supportive as well, and will provide any assistance possible

Fall Camp 2013 - Camp Oshkidee in November?   Several people had the same great idea - why wait until March to get everyone out to a weekend camp at this great facility?   A November family camp will be a great club-building, get-to-know-each-other event, and we will have a blast!

And finally, the BIG BIG News:   National Camp 2014, July 13-19, Meadow Lake Provincial Park!!!

Mark your calendars now!  Book your holidays!  You remember all those other events that we said are too good to miss?  Well, they were, but this one is approximately 99 times as good! 

Some fine young Wardens carrying our flags at the Remembrance Day service.

Good job, William, Liam and Matthew!

A new season begins.. yippee!

Junior Forest Wardens is about to begin... and already there are lots of great events on the plan!

Come see us at the Community Registration Night Tuesday Sept 11th at Gateway school.
Talk to members, sign up, buy a t-shirt, get excited!

Have a look at this new video that explains what we're all about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANP9UpdO3ZY

Our first meeting will be Tuesday evening, Sept 18th, 6PM at our outdoor meeting area, 6th St E & 8th Ave (by the Community Garden)

See you there!

Junior Forest Wardens wind up another great year

The Meadow Lake “Woodlanders” Junior Forest Wardens annual windup meeting was held June 13^th at Pagan Lake. Club executive, leaders and key events are all in place for September and we are looking forward to another year of hands-on outdoor learning. Here are some highlights of the year just ended:

June 2011 saw about 650 JFW members from BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland gather at Hinton for a week-long National Camp. This event is held every 3 or 4 years and features a huge variety of instructional sessions on anything you can imagine to do with wilderness skills, leadership, ecology, forestry, wildlife, traditional crafts, music, canoing, team challenges... the list goes on! The next one will be in 2014, possibly in Saskatchewan if a suitable sitecan be found.

September featured a family camp at Matheson Lake in the Meadow Lake Provincial Park, which included hikes, canoing and of course lots of good food. Several new families joined our club this year.

October featured a series of club meetings focused on Disaster Preparedness. Given the last summer's events in Slave Lake and other places, there was keen interest in learning how to be better prepared for all sorts of possible events. Every year in October, JFW volunteers meet for a weekend of leader development. This year's event was held at the Long Lake JFW camp near Athabasca.

November and December were difficult weather-wise, but we managed a nature hike at the St Cyr ski trails, practiced shelter-building and had a Christmas skating & hayride party.

January and February 2012 included cross-country ski lessons, our 'Sprucewood Derby' and some hands-on projects like building tin-can pressure stoves and repairing Coleman lamps and stoves. Adventurous wardens got to go on a weekend bush camp and learn winter survival skills. Conservation Officer Dan Robinson came for an afternoon to challenge everyone's fire-lighting abilities.

March saw one of the highlights of the year, our annual winter camp which was held this year at Camp Oshkidee on Jeanette Lake. There wasn't much winter, though! All thoughts of skiing and snowshoing were set aside and we had tons of fun with orienteering, skills challenges and team-building games. Ken Ness from Saskatchewan Environment gave a fantastic presentation on the work of conservation officers and wildland fire investigators.

May's big event was our annual “Spring Fling” family camp which was held once again at Matheson Lake. We were joined by JFW members from Airdrie and Onoway. The weekend program included photography lessons, sailing lessons, a forest-fire regeneration hike, a huge potluck supper and entertaining evening campfire program and other events.

June gets busy with soccer and other demands on everyone's time, but we did manage to get in lots of JFW time too. We finished up the shelter at our in-town club site, which is where we hold many of our evening meetings in the fall and spring. Our wind-up meeting began with a work bee: last summer’s storms did considerable damage to our interpretive trail at Pagan Lake, with tree trunks laying across the walkway, and information signs lost in the debris or destroyed altogether. Several hours with chainsaws, pruning sheers and axes made the path accessible again. Hopefully, over the next few months we'll get new signs made and installed. We also installed numerous nesting boxes and finished the evening with campfire supper and annual general meeting.

Junior Forest Wardens is an exciting and educational opportunity for young people and their families to have fun, develop skills, and get educated in the many and diverse aspects of our natural environment. For more information about our club or one in your area please visit www.jfwa.ca. Interested in starting your own local club in Saskatchewan? Contact info@woodlandersjfw.org!