DanOCan

Continuing my series where I revisit each of the Geocaching Souvenirs I have earned and reminisce about how I came to earn it…

“Souvenirs are virtual pieces of art that you can discover and display on your profile

page. They are associated with a particular location and may also be bound by time.”

When the Geocaching Souvenir for Saskatchewan was released, it caused a minor controversy in the Canadian geocaching population.  It featured a beautiful river winding its way out of a backdrop of majestic mountains.  Now, Saskatchewan may have some wonderful rivers and majestic vistas, but it certainly does not have any mountains!  The artist had seen a photo of the North Saskatchewan River (taken in Alberta) and assumed that the province would look very similar to the river with which it shares a name.  Oops!  The last thing someone from Saskatchewan wants is to be mistaken for an Albertan. 

So, much like the original artwork for the souvenir, my first attempt at Geocaching in Saskatchewan was also a minor failure, ending with a “Did Not Find” on a cache called “By The Lake“.  That was an evening excursion on June 30, 2005 during our annual Canada Day weekend at Saskatchewan Beach at a cabin owned by my former in-laws.  My log made mention of the mosquitos and how we gave up hunting after 10-15 minutes.  It turns out the cache was missing and was Archived later that year.  The owner of the cache hadn’t logged onto Geocaching.com since May of 2003 and disappeared from the game, after finding one cache and hiding eight.   

So, I wouldn’t earn the Saskatchewan souvenir until later in 2005.  There were no mosquitos to battle because that first Saskatchewan find would come in December, this time on our way to Saskatoon — again for a visit with the former in-laws.

I always enjoy traveling at Christmas, especially to visit family.  I find there is something magical about a road trip around the holidays.  While going to Saskatoon at Christmas wasn’t nearly the tradition that the Canada Day weekend at Sask. Beach was, I certainly welcomed the opportunity.

There isn’t much along the highway between Hanna and Kindersley, and back in 2005 there weren’t nearly as many caches at every roadside turnout so seeing a cache appear on the map was a pleasant surprise.  With all the trips we had made to Saskatoon over the years, this was the first time we ventured away from the fast food joints the lined the highway and actually drive into the town.

The cache was a quick find in a small park.  The only notable thing I remember from the caching experience was the small group of young boys who were playing in a tree fort in the park and were making rude comments towards us — at least we thought they were; they were a bit of a distance away and we couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, just the tone of the words.

It was a quick find and we signed the log and then got back on the road, opting to save the other cache in town for another trip. 

The cache was “Kindersley Surprise” (GCNBQB) and had been hidden earlier that year.  The cache would be found 59 times during its lifetime, the last one coming in February of 2008.  It was eventually archived in July of 2008. 

Since that first Saskatchewan find, I have added another 102 caches to my Saskatchewan Geocaching resume, including five last summer with my amazing fiancée mle520.  I look forward to many years of caching in Saskatchewan with her and making new memories together. 

I found it interesting to note that a new cache “Jurassic Creek” (GC3E829) was hidden in March of 2012 in almost the exact same spot.  Everything that’s old is new again…

Continuing my series where I revisit each of the Geocaching Souvenirs I have earned and reminisce about how I came to earn it…

“Souvenirs
are virtual pieces of art that you can discover and display on your
profile page. They are associated with a particular location and may
also be bound by time.”

I earned the Oregon souvenir on August 12, 2004.  It was just my 15th cache find and was notable for being my first cache outside of my home province of Alberta and my first cache outside my home country of Canada.

We were doing our second Oregon coast vacation with our friends Kevan and Susan.  The first vacation had been the summer before I discovered caching so getting the chance to experience Geocaching outside my home area for the first time was quite exciting for me.

We were camped at Bullard’s Beach State Park near the town of Bandon, OR.  The four of us were out for a walk down towards the lighthouse with Kevan and Susan’s beagle Bolt.

At this point I hadn’t really “come out” to anyone about my caching habit so I let everyone else carry on up the pathway while I made some excuse to lag behind.  I quickly located the appropriate tree and soon found the film canister tucked away in a knothole.  With that, the appropriately named “Bandon #1” (GCHN9Q) was found.

Three interesting things about this cache find.  One I remembered, one I had forgotten, and the other I only realized today.:

I remembered after I caught up with everyone and, of course, had to do some explaining about what I had been doing and — failing to come up with a good cover story — I explained Geocaching to Kevan and Susan.  Rather than thinking I was insane, they thought it sounded very interesting and we would find two more caches along the way that evening.  That was the first time I introduced anyone to caching and was the birth of ab_duramax.

I forgot that I didn’t bring a pen with me that night so I didn’t sign the log when I first found it.  Instead I returned a couple of nights later with Shirley and did the proper sign-in. 

And, up until this moment, I never realized that I logged my caches in the incorrect order that day.  My profile shows Bandon #2 (GCHXEF) as my first Oregon / USA cache.  However, my online log revealed the truth.  Back in those days I didn’t have Internet access while on vacation so I had to rely on recording my Finds in a MS Word document until I could get home and log them.  With the capabilities of handheld GPS units and smartphones to record Field Notes, that sort of error would me much less likely to occur today.

As for the cache itself?  It was originally hidden on February 8, 2004 and lasted until the owner Archived it on January 24, 2008.  There were 248 Finds of the cache over that time frame.  It’s interesting to note that the last Find came on January 25, 2008, the day after the owner archived it.  Since the only reported issue with the cache prior to archival was a wet log I wonder if the owner ever went to retrieve the container or just decided it was too much work.  Maybe that poor film canister is still sitting there in that tree…

Oregon has always been a favorite vacation spot for me so it is no surprise that over the years I found 234 caches in Oregon since that first one, making it my second-most cached in jurisdiction.  Many great memories of caching in Oregon and it all started with a micro in a tree.

Over the next few weeks I plan on revisiting each of the Geocaching Souvenirs I have earned and reminisce about how I came to earn it. 

“Souvenirs are virtual pieces of art that you can discover and display on your
profile page. They are associated with a particular location and may also be
bound by time.”

It only makes sense that the first souvenir I earned was for my home province.  Souvenirs were only created in October of 2010 but were awarded retroactively, so officially I obtained this souvenir on December 21, 2003.  That was the day I found my first Geocache and got started on this hobby.

For me Geocaching was an excuse to buy a GPS.  I had read about Geocaching several months earlier, but simply didn’t have the technology to participate.  While today almost every phone has a GPS receiver, back in 2003 it simply wasn’t the case. 

The first cache I found was GCA8A5 “A Dam Good Cache”.   I remember reaching the parking area and seeing that the cache was still 600m away and thinking “There is no way I can walk THAT far.”  Well — surprise! — not only could I walk that far but I actually found the cache too!  It was an old tackle box hidden behind some sandstone rocks.  Up until the moment I moved the rocks and exposed the container I honestly didn’t know if Geocaching was a real thing or simply some sort of elaborate Internet hoax,.

So much has changed since then.  I am now only married in the legal sense, Geocaching has exploded in terms of the number of participants and caches, and the area where the cache was hidden is no longer accessible to the public. 

As for the cache itself?  Well, it was last found in April of 2009 and was finally Archived on July 9, 2009 after seven people failed to find it.  A sad end to a cache that will always hold a special place in my heart and my caching history.  My first cache and my first Souvenir, and — most important — my first Geocaching memory.