8th Anniversary Of Geocaching In Canada

The 8th Anniversary of Geocaching in Canada was held yesterday, June 28th, 2008, at the Graves Island Provincial Park and a great time was had by all! The day was in celebration of Canada’s first Geocache which was hidden by local Geocacher “eastriver” on June 28th, 2000, less than two months after the world’s first Geocache was hidden by David Ulmer in Oregon, USA on May 3rd, 2000.

The cache is located just off Highway 103 in Nova Scotia about a 30 minute drive from Halifax. It was originally named GC41 but was relisted as GCBBA when Geocaches were taken out of the Geocaching.com site admin account. Apparently a typing error also occurred at that time and the date was changed to June 18th, 2000. The date has since been corrected to reflect the original cache placement date of June 28th, 2000.

On June 24th, 2006 a Geostone giving the details and co-ordinates of GCBBA was unveiled at the Graves Island park which is only a few kilometers from the cache site. The Geostone was built and designed by Geocacher Wallace_River. Plans are now in the works for another plaque to be placed at the actual site of GCBBA.

This was the third year for this annual event and the number of Geocachers attending has steadily grown with this years event drawing 148 Geocachers! For a number of Cachers it was a weekend event which began earlier in the week with camping on site. There was a pancake breakfast on the morning of the event and a potluck supper after the event which by all indication was not to be missed.

There were lots of activities to keep you busy throughout the day. There are several Geocaches in the immediate area including Canada’s First Cache and an EarthCache. There were also several event Geocaching games for both young and old such as:

Center Point, where you were given 3 waypoints that formed a triangle. Your task was to find the point that was directly in the center of the triangle and mark it with a popsicle stick. The person with the stick closest to the point was the winner.

Geocache Tag, which was a cross between tag and hot potato. There was a log book being passed around where you had to sign and write the time that you received it. Then you had only 15 minutes to pass it on to someone else. If you couldn’t find someone within 15 minutes you had to bring it back to the registration desk where they would get it back on it’s way. The winner was decided by a pre-determined time.

Projection Connection, where you were given a starting point and 4 projections. Beginning at the starting point you were to follow each of the projections and then at the end mark a waypoint and submit it. The person with the correct coordinate wins.

Traveler Guess, where you guessed how many Travel Bugs and Geocoins that were dropped off for the event.

Poker Hand, where, when you found the cache you picked a pack of 5 cards and brought it back to the coordinator who kept track of the winning poker hands. The winner, of course, was the one with the best hand.

There were also five demo caches set up where when you found them you signed the log and took a ticket. When you returned to the registration desk you signed and dropped off the tickets which were drawn for prizes at the end of the day.

There were lots of prizes, from t-shirts to gift cards and from swag to cache kits. These were donated by various companies and Geocachers. There were also a couple of silent auctions for a Geocaching jacket and a walking stick.

In addition to 21 Travel Bugs being dropped off at the event discoverable travel bugs abounded. They included several walking sticks, Zingo’s tattoo and The Tree, which according to legend was ‘liberated’ from a hotel lobby and set free to roam the world one event at a time!

Lunchtime was a busy time when everyone stopped for a barbeque of hamburgers and hot dogs. A popular part of lunch was the serving of the Anniversary cake!

Here are some photos of the event:

Here is the registration tent also known as Control Central:

A gathering of Geocachers:

More Geocachers:

Lunch time lineup:

The kitchen and cooks:

The prize table:

The anniversary cake with pics from last year:

Anticipation:

The Tree:

A road sign showing that we were having fun:

After a fun-filled day we all gathered together and the game scores were tallied and the prizes were awarded (there were a lot of them!). The day ended around 4pm with a group photo.

This was our first time attending this event and we will obviously be attending more. We had so much fun Geocaching, playing the games and meeting friends, old and new.

We would like to thank the coordinators for all the hard work that they did in putting on such a great event and all the volunteers that helped to make it happen, as well as the members of the Atlantic Canada Geocaching Association and their families and friends for making this event such a big success!

Keep on cachin’!