Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services
Skills Canada organized the contest which pitted 21 teams from several Yellowknife schools from Grades 7-12 to construct boats made of cardboard, racing them from end of the Ruth Inch swimming pool to the other.
 Norman Well's Mackenzie Mountain Madness team gave it their all in the first annual Skills Canada Cardboard Boat Race, coming in at respectable sixth place finish. Their boat, however, did not fare as well. Pictured here are team members: Misty McCoy, Justin Dery, Rebecca Purkiss and Tyson Ehrenrerch. - Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photo |
Without oars or motors, the teams had to swim the boats across. Another part of the contest was to determine how much weight -- as in bodies -- the boats could carry. When word got out to Norman Wells that there was a cardboard boat race brewing in Yellowknife for Oct. 12, interested parties were quickly mobilizing to make sure their town didn't go unrepresented.
"RWED called us two weeks ago," says math and science teacher at Mackenzie Mountain School Rodney Clarke.
"They said they just heard about the boat competition, and if we put a team together, they'd fly us out."
Clarke picked the best and the brightest among his Grades 7 and 8 eight science students, to quickly put together a boat entirely made out of cardboard.
"Kids here had the advantage of going to Wal-Mart (to get supplies)," says Clarke. "And we couldn't bring our measuring sticks on the plane."
The team decided a to go with a "punt" design -- common on the east coast -- for their boat. Clarke says they wanted to make the boat with as few joints as possibly, but sleek enough to cut through the water quickly.
The race went well except for one minor glitch.
"We're expecting to do pretty well, except we had some balancing problems," laments team member Justin Dery. "We were 10 meters from the wall when we tipped," adds Misty McCoy.
While fording the pool, the team had the misfortune of flipping the boat -- soaking it entirely -- and as result were disqualified from entering the weight portion of the race.
Nonetheless the Norman Wells team managed come in sixth. For the unlikely underdogs, it should only give them confidence for next year. "If we get picked again, we'll do it," says Rebecca Purkiss.
