August 8th, 2011
We have just returned from an amazing few days at the Best of the Bad Mega Event (WestCan1) held in Three Hills, AB. Chris and I have now assisted with (in some capacity) and/or attended 9 Mega Events in 3 countries and they each had key strengths. This event ranks as one of the best ever as far as variety of satellite events, ‘day of’ event schedule, finite detail pre-planning and coordinated execution.
The community participation in Three Hills and surrounding communities was second to none. We were greeted with heartfelt enthusiasm as if our visit was a long awaited event. The tremendous variety of caches hidden as theme trails to help visitors explore the best of the Badlands were outstanding in their creativity, seldom visited locations and historical spots.
The Hutterite Colony Tour Event was certainly a highlight for many attendees as was the East Coulee School Museum- Atlas Mine Event and the Floating Through the Badlands Event. A creative satellite at Best of the BAD was the Geocaching Has Gone to the Dogs Event. All the GeoDogs and their owners were welcomed by the organizers and Three Hills community. Apart from one friendly dog with an over-active libido they all seemed quite happy to socialize and mingle with others. It sure makes it easier to travel to events when the Tieka the Canine Landshark and all the rest of the geodogs in our caching community are welcomed. There were so many choices of events on Friday – we chose the Hutterite Colony over the Provincial Park because we had visited and hiked the trails last fall. We didn’t make it to Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park Event, but heard great things about the geology, ecosystem and fossil themed event that the park hosted.
In the evening after the Best of the BAD Mega Event, Tethys C and C-side Girl hosted a BAD Night Geocoin Event. There were amazing raffle prizes, coin displays that were outstanding and trading galore. Although we’d been up since 6am we still managed to attend and had a great time!
Our volunteer role…
Being asked to take part in the GeoTrust for this event was an incredible honour. This group was made up of some amazing Alberta and Saskatchewan cachers who knew how to work hard as a team to get the job done and also take time to have fun along the way. We’ve known a few of them personally for years and others we are happy to gradually add to our circle of friends over the past year. I know we will make a point of connecting with many of them again in the future if it looks like our paths could cross.
Communication…
The team was led by Kevin Edwards, a visionary who became a geocacher to bring this event to his community. Kevin was an amazing leader and we were truly blessed to have him at the helm, keeping us all on track, meeting deadlines and making sure that nobody worked harder than he did. Thanks Kevin! Being from the west coast of BC did have some logistics issues, but Skype and email kept us in touch, along with the GeoTrust specific discussion forums and an initial F2F meeting last fall.
What did we bring home… other than a great list of new friends for vacation dial-a-hint!? For the Island Spirit 2012 Mega Event (WestCan2) we have new twists on great ideas for theme satellite events, cache trails, additional event promotion skills, an established social media network, ‘day-of’ execution skills and most of all…a great network of talented folk to mentor us.
Once again our visit to the Badlands left us wanting to return for more.
Tags: alberta, badlands, Best of the Bad, design, event, geocache, geocachers, geocaching, Geocoin, geocoins, geodog, hutterite, island spirit, mega, provincial park, satellite, three hills
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August 2nd, 2011
Today I’d like to open a can of golf balls (we ran out of worms) and delve into the topic of golf balls as geocache trade items.
While driving through Montana we read a nearby cache log where the last finder logged out a trackable and left a golf ball. Now we all know you don’t have to trade for trackables and that’s fuel for another post, but really…a golf ball? I’m trying to picture this cacher packing their caching bag to head out…spare pencils, log sheets, batteries, CITO bags, trackables and their golf balls for swag. Is that really how it goes? Not being a golfer has me at a disadvantage…maybe the cachers who golf are thrilled to find a golf ball in a cache and I welcome your comments! We consider them CITO items more than anything and usually ‘trade’ them out and leave stuff that we’d prefer to find in a cache. Its definitely an each to his own kind of swag item!
I have a memorable ‘why a golf ball in a cache?’ story to share! Chris and I were heading to the Whistler, BC area for some caching and 4×4′ing. As we were loading our GPS with some backcountry caches, we noticed one cache that had never been found! The description told of how the hider had hidden the cache in the middle of winter about 2-3km up a cross country ski trail at the base of a large DEAD tree. Not being afraid of a good hike we added this cache to our list and set off in pursuit of a FTF in the Whistler back country!
Our Backroads Mapbook showed this cross country ski trail to be a decommissioned logging road so we figured we could possibly drive part-way, but we prepared for a good hike with some elevation gain. As it turned out we managed to drive our Jeep to within 800m of the cache before a massive gully cut our off-road adventure short. Upon disembarking the Jeep we spotted some nice big piles of bear scat, so added a bear bell to our pack and set off talking! After traversing the gully we continued on up the road, dodging more piles of scat and keeping our eyes peeled for the large dead tree. At GZ we still hadn’t spied the dead tree and this was quite a puzzlement but right in front of us was a large deciduous in full leaf. At this point we realized that the intrepid cache hider had mistaken a leafless deciduous tree for a dead tree and so off went Chris into the 8′ scrubby growth around the base of the large live tree to find the cache. Moments later up shot his hand with our prized potential FTF! We’re we still going to be first? Would there be a prize? I bet you can see where this story is going! Yup, we were first! Upon opening the cache we discovered a wet rusty logbook, a mushy pencil, a button-pin (the cause of the rust) and a golf ball too big for the cache. Because of the size of the golf ball, the cache container sat unsealed under the tree through the spring thaw/melt and unfortunately nature and the laws of decomposition took their toll. We poured out the moisture, replaced the log and pencil and CITO’d the offending golf ball and the poor rusty button. We left a Landsharkz pin so the 2TF wouldn’t hike in for naught!
Chris at the base of the DEAD tree!
We had a good laugh and headed back down to the Jeep, dodging about a dozen piles of bear scat. We proceeded to head on to some more seldom found back country caches and a wonderful
BC Forests Rec Site that we’d already picked out from our
Backroads Mapbook…that we had all to ourselves!
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June 16th, 2011
Once again someone has asked on Groundspeak’s Geocoin forums for a recommendation of a good coin designer/producer and an experienced coin collector Droo summed it up pretty nicely in this quote “Unfortunately such discussions invariably turn into advertising and promotion fests so they are discouraged.” Eartha, a forum moderator, quickly concurred and locked up the discussion.
Truth be told, there are a lot of great coin design and production companies around. Some will only create your design and aren’t sure how to make it into a coin, some just manage production so you need to bring ‘ready art’, and others do both. We are of the latter persuasion, making sure that the design will work in metal so you don’t get a design that can’t be produced the way you anticipate.
When necessary, we ‘help the factory to achieve their full potential’. We’ve had some firsts, from creative mid-level art under translucent paint to swirled paint colours to pearlescent paint effect. We love to play with the boundaries of coin design!
A good way to source a coin designer/producer is to ask people to show you their coins at events or look online and see what coins you are attracted to. You’ll often find that one company’s designs are a style that you prefer.
Determine if price is the main factor, because you’ll get a wide range of prices, just like anything else you buy (cars, clothes, pots n’ pans), so you need to decide where your priorities lie. Do you want to deal with a professional creative designer or are you ok with your sister designing your coin, then shopping around to find the least expensive coin producer? This sometimes works out just fine, but if you go this route, keep in mind that you’ll get what you ask for, not necessarily what will look best or most outstanding. If you want ‘cutting edge’ you’ll need a company that isn’t afraid to take your idea and show you what they’d do with it, if it was their coin!
Good luck and most of all, enjoy the coin creation journey!
Tags: creative, design, designer, geocache, geocaching, Geocoin, geocoins, military coin
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June 12th, 2011
We attended the launch of the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve of Canada Centennial Geocaching Program on Friday June 10th in Sidney BC. Approximately 30 local geocachers were in attendance to hear the official announcement from Robyn Sealy, Park Interpreter, and to get advance notice of the caches that were about to be released to the public in honour of their Centennial Celebration in 2011. At the moment, all caches in Gulf Islands National Park Reserve are being hidden by the Parks Canada staff for our enjoyment.
GINPR Geocaching Program
Parks Canada has created two Geocaching Loops; one is The Gulf Islands Survivor Challenge and the other is The Gulf Islands National Park Reserve Top Ten.
There are passports to record your geocache visits available for download here a well as through the geocaching.com geocache listings:
Survivor Challenge Passport
Top Ten Challenge Passport
The Survivor Challenge cache located in McDonald Campground in Sidney, was found by many of the geocachers attending the event. The remaining Survivor Challenge caches are located in Prior Centennial Campground on Pender Island, Winter Cove on Saturna Island and along the loop trail on Sidney Island.
The Top Ten Challenge caches, for the more adventurous types, are located on Sidney, Saturna and Pender Islands.
Once you have completed your passport, bring it to the Ocean Discovery Centre in Sidney, BC to receive a commemorative trackable geocoin designed and produced especially for BC Parks by Landsharkz.ca! If you aren’t able to get to the Discovery Centre, you can also redeem your passport by mail and your coin will be mailed to you. Limit 1 coin per family as they are rather rare!
GINPR GEOCOIN - DESIGN AND PRODUCTION BY LANDSHARKZ.CA
You will find geocaching programs at many other National Parks across Canada – from Grasslands to Fundy and points in between, they’re all getting in on the fun! Have a great summer geocaching in our National Parks! CHRIS AND HELEN
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Tags: centennial, geocache, geocachers, geocaching, Geocoin, GINPR, Gulf Islands, Gulf Islands National Park, Landsharkz, Launch, Passport, Pender, Prior, Saturna, Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre, Sidney, Survivor
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March 7th, 2011
The newest Canada Micro Geocoins have arrived and we’ll have them on the site VERY soon. Last year was the 100th anniversary of Canada’s Navy and so it seemed fitting that we feature our Navy on the 2010 Canada Micro. This year its BC PARKS turn to celebrate their 100th Anniversary (woot, woot!) so we’re featuring our BC PARKS and specifically their mascot Jerry the Moose! One side announces “Celebrate Canada’s Parks” along with some recognizable park sign icons. On the other side is Beaver Dude hiking with Jerry the Moose and it is stamped with “BC Parks 100 Years”. HAVE A GREAT CENTENNIAL BC PARKS!
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