CARVER — Rochester’s first all girl Boy Scout troop competed against 43 other troops on Saturday Jan. 18, and while the official results are not yet in, by most accounts they did swimmingly. 

Troop 31G formed just two months ago, and have been working on Boy Scout merit badges, and various new skills. They took a brief break from doing that to build a sledge needed for the 11-hour Klondike Derby competition and learn the skills needed to complete 13 different tasks at Camp Cachalot in Myles Standish park. Troop members earned gold nuggets based on how they did in tasks, and after competition these nuggets will be added for a final score. 

The troop has five 16 year old members, and one ten year old recent recruit, so it was placed in the senior division by average age. This made some of the tasks harder. For example, the girls were asked to start a fire using a bow drill instead of with a flint and steel. 

Other tasks involved shooting rifles, making food, making a shelter in 5 minutes, making a sling out of sticks, ropes and a blanket and using it to carry a scout, rifle shooting and hatchet throwing. The group’s sledge weighed 73 pounds when empty and 90 to 95 pounds when full. 

“It’s like a dog sled,”  said Grub Master Audrey Blanchard. “But pulled by us — humans!,” added Lucy Zhang. 

The weather, was appropriately wintery this weekend, with most of the troop donning up to three layers and stocking up on hand-warmers to stay warm. 

The girls also had to cook a meal as part of the event. Blanchard served as grub master, and since scouts should be thrifty, collected only $5 from each of her fellow scouts to buy ingredients. The result was a steak stir fry that was so good that one of the judges ate the whole bowl instead of just a bite, and commented that “the stir-fry was excellent.” 

“Definitely a really fun thing. It helped our troop to bond,” said Zhang, the troop’s oldest member, who served as Senior Patrol Leader for the Klondike. 

Blanchard and Zhang were quick to praise the group’s youngest member, Addison Thompson, for the tenacity that the ten year old showed in the face of the cold. 

“For a two month old troop to do that well, that’s saying something,” said Blanchard. “I am so proud of the troop.” 

“I can’t say how proud I am, and how far they’ve come,” said Mike Blanchard, Audrey’s father, and the scoutmaster for the new troop. “They only had a few weeks to practice, and they have done phenomenally.” 

Mike Blanchard formerly served as scoutmaster for the boys group, Troop 31. 

“It’s definitely different being scoutmaster for girls. Not better or worse, but just different,” he said. 

The group will know its results in about a month. In the meantime, they will go back to working toward Eagle Scout badges. It’s a race against the clock, as Mike Blanchard explains that most Boy Scouts have from age 10 to 18 to complete the badges, while most of his girls have only two years.