OLDS — It’s estimated that roughly 1,200 people were in Olds this past weekend as the Southern Alberta Geocaching Association (SAGA) celebrated the 25th anniversary of the activity with the Wild Rose Homecoming Geocaching event in town.
That event was Aug. 11 - 17 held throughout the town and area, headquartered in the Cow Palace and kicked off with a pancake breakfast open to the community.
On the last day, participants took part in a cleanup of trash in the Deer Ridge tree reserve near Winter Lake.
SAGA president Dave Marshall explained geocaching during an interview with the Albertan.
“It’s kind of like a treasure hunt game,” he said. “Basically, what people do is they go hide containers and get coordinates with it. You can use a GPS. Nowadays you can use it in a cell phone.
“You get the coordinates and you go to where the coordinates are. (The “treasures”) could be as small as a thumbnail or as large as a car really, but most of them are smaller.
“Stuff can be hung in trees or put on poles or wherever. And then what you do is usually there’s a log (book), and you can sign the log (to prove) you found it, go back onto geocaching.com and say, ‘I found it,’ and you write a little story about what you did.”
Marshall said nearly 600 geocaching enthusiasts from as far away as South Africa, Norway, Italy, the U.S. and across Canada took part.
He figures when their family and friends are factored in, more than 1,200 people were in the community, staying in hotels and eating at local restaurants.
Related events occurred throughout the week leading up to the geocaching event in Olds included a jam packed pub trivia event at Track’s Pub, a beer tasting event and tour at the Olds College brewery, a meet and greet at the Didsbury Museum and an event at the Gopher Museum in Torrington.
As part of the 25th anniversary celebrations, organizers placed 100 geocaches from the Olds-Didsbury Airport north to the town.
Marshall said planning for the weekend began about two years ago.
He said there have been similar events across Western Canada, with the first one held in Three Hills and others as far away as Dauphin Man.
“We thought we'd pick a small town and Olds came up, because it’s close to Calgary, close to Red Deer, reasonably close to Edmonton,” he said.
The geocachers had special names for themselves.
Linda Granda 4 four of High Prairie was one.
She was spotted trying to figure out one of the caches in the Cow Palace on the Saturday.
It looked like a birdhouse.
Linda struggled with it for a long time until an onlooker hinted she should turn it upside down, which she did, then she was able to open the door and find the geocache inside.
“Without help I can’t get anything because I’m not too smart,” she said with a laugh.
Leanne Murray of Innisfail had set that geocache in place, along with a couple of others, including a wooden green, rectangular one she made herself.
“In this one, there’s two tubes that run through and you have to figure out which tube has the code in it to unlock the lock,” she said.
Murray has been involved in geocaching for the past six years and loves making geocaches.
“I just like tinkering and frustrating people,” she said with a laugh.
Hughie McLeod of Penticton, a volunteer for the event, praised a geocache set up at the Didsbury Museum.
"You go into a little shed that’s locked and you have to find a little geocache like this, but they’re all black in there and there’s a time limit,” he said. “It’s a fun one and it makes it real eerie because it’s dark.”
McLeod noted there were geocaches of all sizes, not only throughout the community, but even on display in the Cow Palace.
“There’s a geocache that’s like a piece of bubblegum that’s stuck to your shoe,” he said.
Town of Olds Mayor Judy Dahl and deputy mayor Dan Daley gave greetings during opening ceremony for the event.
Both thanked attendees and organizers for giving Olds a great economic shot in the arm by coming to the community.
“These are a not only a spark to our community, having you all here busy seeing what we have to offer and so forth, but also in the means of economic development, the restaurants that you support, the hotels that you support, and all the other businesses that have spin-offs from that as well,” Daley said.
“We acknowledge all the volunteers who are behind the scenes here to help you create this experience,” Dahl said.
