Students compete in Amazing Race

Dennis Franklin Cromarty First Nation High School’s Amazing Race was a success even though it was postponed for about a week due to rain.
“It was awesome; it was fun,” said Keewaywin’s Kayla Kakepetum. “It was a good experience running around the city.”
Kakepetum said her team ran into one glitch during the Amazing Race, a bridge closed for repair.
“The Cameron Street bridge was down,” Kakepetum said. “We had to go all the way around it.”
Kakepetum’s team also took part in the Up the Creek Without a Paddle canoe race across the swimming pool at the Canada Games Complex.
“They had to use styrofoam paddles,” Kakepetum said. “They couldn’t use their hands.”
Fort Severn’s Kyla Lachinette said the canoe race was no problem for her due to her experience this summer on a nine-day canoe trip.
“We had to use the styrofoam paddles, but it still helped us,” Lachinette said. “We did pretty good too — they said we were the fastest group.”
The A Team finished first among the six teams taking part in the Amazing Race, while the Cupcakes finished second and No Name Tristan finished third.
The six teams raced each other via the Thunder Bay transit system to six different social service, health, leisure and education locations around the city.
“I think they got a good orientation to all of Thunder Bay,” said Annie Culligan, a counsellor at DFC. “They walked through a few doors they probably hadn’t walked through before, so that kind of breaks the ice if they ever need to or want to use those services.”
Culligan stressed the importance of the students being introduced to Confederation College and Lakehead University during the Amazing Race.
“That was an amazing activity that the coordinator set up for us over there,” Culligan said about the Lakehead University location. “She thinks it is really important for high school students to feel comfortable in a university environment. She looks for many opportunities to expose them to that environment so they feel comfortable and welcome there. It is the same deal at the college as well.”
Sandy Lake’s Destiny Meekis helped his team with his knowledge of the Thunder Bay transit system.
“I got my team going everywhere,” Meekis said. “First we went to the Boys and Girls Club — we had to do some jousting where we had to fight two people and knock them off. That was pretty fun.”
Meekis said the highlight of the Amazing Race was a foot race against another team from the bus stop to DFC.
“There were two teams on that bus so we had to race to the conference room,” Meekis said. “That was pretty fun. We got second place though.”
The Incredibles employed an unusual tarp reversal move to win the last stage of the Amazing Race.
“Everyone got in a line, we all grabbed one end of the tarp and we all hopped over trying to flip it,” said Brandon Wright, a teacher at DFC. “It wasn’t the neatest or even the recommended technique, but it was one that got us to actually flip over the tarp in probably 30 seconds time — faster than any other team. So it wasn’t pretty, but it worked.”