Geocache Fever Spreads

by Karina Hunter

From April 16^th to 25^th, the Dubreuilville ATV Club’s held their 1^st ever, Geocache Challenge, though they were offering some cool prizes – choice of either a 1000Kwatt Generator or registration into their Annual Father’s Day Fish Derby for adults and a rod/reel/tackle combo for kids, they had not anticipated the great response which they received.  39 adults and 18 children, many who were not previously members of the ATV Club, most of which had never participated in a geocache before, explored the forests surrounding Dubreuilville, GPS in hand, searching for 5 caches that had been planted by club president, Danny Vallieres.  During the two weeks the Geocache Challenge ran, was 20 new members registered the Dubreuilville ATV Club making it one of their most successful registration days this year.

 Upon registration, geocachers received the coordinates for their first cache, they then set out, GPS in hand (the club loaned GPS’s to participants who requested them), some via ATV others using a combination of hiking and driving their regular vehicles.  Upon finding the first cache, a small tin box with pencil and paper inside, the adventurers would add their name to the list of successful participants and take the coordinates for the next cache, this process would be repeated until having successfully found all five cache boxes.

Some participants completed the succession of caches in the first few days of the challenge; others required nearly the entire two weeks, only one team from nearby Wawa, ON, did not complete the cache. Sunday, April 25^th, ATV Club President, Danny Vallieres, collected the caches, a drew winners
at random from among successful participants, these were Berthier Chabot who chose Father’s Day Fish Derby registration as his prize and 3 year old Benoit Nantel in the 15 and under category. 

 All participants reported having thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and many have since registered on Geocaching websites, joining the international movement whose popularity seems to be sweeping Northern Ontario. If you would like to learn more about Geocaching and how you can participate in ongoing global challenges, visit www.geocaching.com, to view photos, including those submitted by participants of the varied terrain they faced in the Dubreuilville Geocache Challenge, visit www.OntarioNewsNorth.com/?p=11159.

Below, sisters Emilyne & Liliane Levesque on their Geocaching adventures, to see more photos from the planting of the caches, to participants throughout the week and prizes at the wind-up, visit the following links:

www.OntarioNewsNorth.com/?p=11159 (registration/results/wind-up participation)

www.OntarioNewsNorth.com/?p=10641 (planting caches)