Terry McNamee
Special to the Beaver
Lennox and Addington County’s annual mega geocaching event continues to break its own records, drawing well over 1,000 people at this year’s event for their biggest one yet, held over the weekend.
Austria, Belgium, Indonesia and Germany were just some of the countries people travelled from to take part in the virtual treasure hunt, as well as U.S. States such as North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas as well as every interior Canadian province and a few Maritimers.
Among the guests of honour was Kelli Taylor, who travelled from Geocaching HQ in Seattle, Washington, to answer questions. She was joined by Ontario geocacher Rob Alexander and Joe Tisdale, who founded the L&A Geocachers in 2009. A gathering that included a representative from Seattle was important for geocachers in this area and even from further afield, Tisdale said.
“It’s a rare thing to happen here,” he said. “It’s a chance for geocachers to be able to ask face-to-face questions.”
In addition to the Friday evening event, there were people in the area who were on the hunt for caches.
“This weekend, we have thousands of geocachers. We’re the only (geocaching) mega-event in Canada,” added Tisdale.
But what, you may ask, is geocaching? Basically, Tisdale explained, it like a treasure hunt. People follow GPS (Global Positioning System satellite technology) coordinates to find a hidden container. It could be as small as a few inches to as big as a treasure chest, but the treasure is the container itself. When a gamer finds it, they sign their official geocache name in the logbook inside, return the geocache to its original location, and post the story of and photos of your discovery on-line. All the clues and photos are available online at www.geocaching.com/guide/.
“Geocaching has been going on all over the wold since 2002, so this is Geocaching’s 18th year,” Tisdale said. “Right now, there are three million geocachers worldwide.”
He added that it is family-friendly and pet-friendly.
“Anyone can do it,” he said.
But there is a twist. All geocaches are given a rating which basically indicates if the terrain is easily reached on foot, requires moderate hiking or demands very strenuous activity. Some require scuba diving or rock-climbing abilities of the geocachers in order to find the containers.
Geocaching mascot Signal was popular with visitors such as Allyson Tournay of Caledonia and Liam Callan, age 2, and Owen Callan, who is 3, during a geocache event at the Lennox and Addington Museum on Friday, Aug. 16. Photo by Terry McNamee.
And, of course, a geocacher need a GPS. This can be a handheld device, or a smart phone, or for the easier ones, even the GPS in a vehicle can get a person relatively close. But treasure-hunting skills are still needed to find the cleverly-hidden caches once they arrive at the location.
Lennox and Addington Community Development Officer Rob Plumley also attended Friday’s meeting and told those gathered that everything was ready for Saturday’s hunt.
“We have over a hundred new caches placed for you,” he told them.
Alexander described geocaching as a game like no other. And what keeps him in the game? The people he meets.
“That’s why I’m in it and that’s why I love it,” he said. “Geocaching is a regional game played globally.”
As for Taylor, “I love exploration,” she said. “One of the big appeals is that you get to play outside and climb trees.”