Are you looking for Girl Guide cookies?

 

Like many of us, I have scores of memories pertaining to Girl Guide cookies. I happily trooped around my neighbourhood as a youngster (often with my elementary school best friend and fellow Girl Guide, Karen, and my little sister in tow) selling box after box, case after case of Classic Vanilla and Chocolate cookies, as well as those wonderfully scrumptious Thin Mint cookies (which were often easier, I found, to sell in multiples).

Girl Guide cookies are delightfully fun to eat, while also being highly important to the GGC (the funds they generate go a very long way in helping the organization). However, sometimes they can be tricky to track down (even during cookie campaign time), especially if you don't live in the immediate vicinity of a Guiding unit. For example, I've lived at the same address for the better part of three years and never in all that time, have I had a single Spark, Brownie, Guide, Pathfinder, or Ranger come merrily knocking on my door with their case of cookies.

Yet, what some folks may not know is that many Guide units (and/or District offices) often have a supply of cookies available for part or all of the year (or know another unit that still has some in stock). If you're not a member (or have a child who is) of the GGC though, it can sometimes be tough to find unit in the phone book or by word of mouth.

Happily for all those who are looking for Guide cookies, there's a great form on the Girl Guides of Newfoundland and Labrador's website that you can fill out and then be put in touch with the nearest GGC unit in your area.

So the next time a craving for a wonderfully crisp vanilla sandwich cookie or delectably sweet Thin Mint biscuit strikes you in between cookie campaigns, you can get in contact with the just the right person to help satisfy your need, while your purchase helps the GGC at the same time (definitely a great - and very yummy - win-win situation all around!).

A brief history of Canadian Girl Guide cookies

The official GGC website recently put up a delightful page that provides a short overview of the history of Girl Guide cookies in Canada, stretching all the way back to the first batch which was whipped up by a Guider from Regina, Saskatchewan in 1927.

Amongst the fun facts are tidbits (or should I say “bites”) of information such as that following the second World War in 1946, the official GGC cookie varieties were maple cream, vanilla crème, and shortbread; and that 1992 Roberta Bondar, Canada’s world renowned female astronaut, brought GG cookies with her into space!

The page also features a marvelous little gallery of GGC cookie box imagery from the 1960s right up to day, which is sure to bring back fond memories for anyone who has ever sold or been involved with the selling (or eating) of Girl Guide cookies over the years. Below this article are three examples of the marvelous types of art and design that have been featured on GGC cookie boxes through the course of their eighty year history, as documented in the GGC's article.

Be sure to check out this lovely cookie story page, and print off copies of these interesting cookie facts to share with your girls or for your own files.

Cheerful, beautiful and bursting with exuberance, this lovely retro cookie package from 1962 is pretty enough to frame!
Packed full of interesting images and subdued hues, the art from this package hailing from 1978 resembles that of many of the Guiding handbooks of the time.

By the 90s cookie packages has shifted away from drawings, instead featuring photographs and lively colours, as seen on this box of chocolate and vanilla cream cookies from 1996.