For my caching friends, todays article about Geocaching in the Telegraph Journal. Minus the photo of the Evulc clan. Weekend reading: The geocaching game Chris and Angela Clarke and their kids Milo, 2, Cleese, 4, and Dexter, 6, pose for a photo with geocaching gear on the Dobson Trail in Riverview, in November. Geocaching is catching on all over New Brunswick. Photo: VIKTOR PIVOVAROV/TIMES & TRANSCRIPT There’s a great, big world out there ready to be explored, and geocachers embrace it wholeheartedly. Ken Kelley speaks with some of the province’s participants about what this GPS-driven, personal outdoor adventure is all about “The first container was found near a river after following a narrow trail about 800 metres from the dead end of the road. Once this one was found, the puzzle was solved at the location, which lead us east, another 700 metres into the woods – no trail this time.” Ken Arsenault of Moncton recounts the most difficult geocaching adventure he has ever been on – finding a three-part series of items, or caches, each one leading him and fellow geocacher Mike Klem on a more arduous route through the backwoods near Bathurst. Using GPS-enabled devices, geocachers navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates, and then attempt to find the geocache, or container, hidden at that location. But it’s not always as easy as it sounds. “Each geocache was a puzzle that had to be solved at the geocache site in order to get the co-ordinates that lead you to the next one … The second container was located on a steep hillside in a thick stand of fir trees,” says Arsenault. “This was difficult to find due to the dense trees, lots of branches that could take out an eye, and the container was well camouflaged.” After solving the second puzzle, which Arsenault says was relatively easy, he and Klem entered the co-ordinates into their GPS receiver and found out the final cache was hidden about 500 metres away, straight up the hillside. “To get to the final location, we had to go up about 200 feet of elevation and climb over many dead trees and large boulders. The final location, once we got to within 20 metres, was up on top of a steep rock face and we had to climb up, like a bunch of mountain goats, to find the container. Once there, we stopped to rest for about 30 minutes, took a few pictures, drank some water, had a snack and planned the best way out. The walk back was a little over one kilometre on a direct line through the woods to where we parked the truck. “Most caches are not this difficult or require over two hours to complete, but thankfully there are some like this, and some in a mall parking lot for when you don’t have as much time or energy,” says Arsenault. And the adventures don’t only take place in northern New Brunswick, but all over the world. The international treasure hunt has exploded in popularity over the course of the past 14 years, with an estimated 2.5 million active geocaches and more than six million geocachers. Klem, an avid geocacher in Moncton, says he has seen everything from fake “No Parking” signs and fake tree trumps to bolts magnetically affixed to landmarks hiding what geocachers are ultimately looking for. Ultimately, geocaches come in a number of sizes. The smallest containers (known as “Nanos”) are only the size of the upper most part of your pinky finger. From there, the containers get larger, ranging from 35mm film canisters to large, 18-gallon Rubbermaid containers. “Geocachers use a GPS unit to provide them the co-ordinates they are looking for and ultimately, get brought to within three to five metres of their target,” Klem says. “The average person probably wouldn’t even be aware that there is something hidden in their general vicinity. Unless you are deliberately looking for it, you most likely won’t notice it. But that is all a part of what makes geocaching so special.” Organized geocaching began at the turn of the century. It was in early May 2000, at the direction of then United States president Bill Clinton, that the American government ended the use of Selective Availability – an intentional degradation of public GPS signals for reasons of national security. Twenty-four satellites around the globe were suddenly accessible to anyone with a GPS unit, opening up new possibilities to users. Clinton’s decision to end Selective Availability meant that civil and commercial users of GPS units could often pinpoint the location of an object to within a metre. With this newfound technology at his disposal, computer consultant Dave Ulmer wanted to test the newfound accuracy of his GPS unit by hiding a specific target in the forest. On May 3, 2000, Ulmer placed a black bucket in the woods never Beavercreek, Ore. He left various prize items behind, sharing only the co-ordinates of the location of the “stash” online. And thus, the geocaching phenomenon was born. Closer to home, Klem and Arsenault founded Cache Up NB in 2010. They started the group after identifying that the province lacked a good online community for geocachers in New Brunswick. Today, there are approximately 725 members in the province. “There were some groups in existence at the time, but it just wasn’t working out very well,” Klem says. “I had the idea for the group but wanted to make it as different as a unique and possible for both myself as well as all those who would become members of the community. So far, their decision has met with success. Currently, Cache Up NB is the only Canadian site that can boast a partnership with geocaching, the “official” site for all things geocaching-related. “Our partnership with geocaching is unique as they give us access to their databases and, in turn, allow us to write codes that will interact with their website.” While geocaching may still be a new thing to many New Brunswickers, its popularity is growing across the region. Arsenault says one of the first geocaching competitions that Cache Up NB took part in was an interprovincial affair between the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. “That first contest was simply about which province could hide the most geocaches over a period covering Dec. 1 through March 1 of the following year,” Arsenault says. “New Brunswick won the first two or three years but then Nova Scotia took over.” It was that friendly competition at that specific time of year that inspired Arsenault and Klem to want to conduct a similar event each year. They dubbed the contest Come Out and Play, enticing residents to emerge from their blankets on the couch and venture outside to enjoy winter. This year’s Come Out and Play contest is a spin on the classic board game Scrabble, something that the two hope will encourage further engagement from interested players. In their version of the game, players spell words by finding or placing a series of geocaches. Each geocache has a unique identification code (known as a GC code) which players use to fill their Scrabble boards. “Players have to try to spell words using the GC codes. Just like a regular game of Scrabble, each word is worth so many points,” Arsenault says. Scrabble Cache is undoubtedly one of Cache Up NB’s biggest projects to date. It is a provincewide playing field, encompassing major centres such as Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton, as well as smaller communities including Miramichi, Woodstock, St. Stephen and continuing all the way to the Quebec and Maine borders. A true testament to the popularity of geocaching was on full display on this past season’s Amazing Race Canada. Early this year, producers of the reality show competition contacted Klem and Arsenault for their assistance to set up a geocaching detour at Hopewell Rocks for competitors in the race. From February until May, Klem and Arsenault met with the producers in order to establish how they would be involved. Arsenault says the Amazing Race Canada production team originally wanted to undertake the cache challenge at Cape Enrage, but after he pointed out the limitations of the space for a competition such as this, they moved production to Hopewell Rocks. With the producers’ help, Arsenault and Klem strategically placed the caches in various areas of the park. When the Amazing Race teams arrived and had the choice to take part in the geocaching challenge, each of the four remaining teams opted for the other challenge. Both Klem and Arsenault can laugh at the futility of their efforts now, but still admit that it would have been nice to see at least one team undertake the geocaching challenge. “We definitely weren’t happy campers that day, but when it was all said and done, it was so amazing to have been a part of,” Klem says. “We felt somewhat validated when Jon Montgomery, the host of the show, called us after the fact to say how they wanted to have a geocaching aspect to the show. He told us that on the morning of the race, he and the crew all thought the teams would have chosen the geocaching detour. “But the fact that the Amazing Race Canada came to us to begin with tells me that we are obviously doing something right and have gotten ourselves noticed. That’s a good feeling in itself.”
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 22:10:57 +0000
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