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<\/a><\/p>\nOn the way back to Elk Island Park, we started playing a geocache game organized by the park. Geocaching, in case you’re one of those people who still have a wire going to their phone, is the game of searching for hidden caches by GPS coordinates. Someone hides a small container of some sort, like a Tupperware dish or water bottle, with a small notepad inside, and then publishes the GPS coordinates of the thing. Geocachers try to find the cache using their GPS devices and, if they find it, sign the logbook.<\/p>\n
Sometimes people will leave a small item as well, like a foreign coin, a cool rock, or a plastic toy. Anything really, that will fit in the cache. The next person along will leave a new item and take one that’s already there. Some items move around the world from cache to cache this way. If you leave some contact info, like “email me and let me know where you found this”, and you can follow your tchotchke on its journey.<\/p>\n
The people at Elk Island have created 8 caches in and on the margins of the park, and invite guests to try to find them. There is some sort of code associated with the caches. If you find them all and break the code, you can email them and they will mail you a complimentary token. We had some issues with the approach though.<\/p>\n
All you need to find a geocache are the gps coordinates, and perhaps a one-sentence clue to the cache’s specific location. Rather than just print the coordinates and clues on a flyer, or one of their other brochures, \u00a0Elk Island chose to publish them on geocaching.com. I’m not even going to link that shit up because it’s shit and you shouldn’t waste your time with shit.<\/p>\n
First, the website requires you to make an account before you do anything. Second, the website requires you to pay for a membership upgrade to use the useful features, like searching for geocaches published by Elk Island. Third, the website design\u00a0sucks buffalo. As a software developer, I’m literally offended by the whole site and its bizarre and confusing mix of web technologies. Fourth, if you don’t like the website, you can download their mobile app, which, sixth, seventh and eighth, has all the same problems as the website.<\/p>\n
Ninth, some of Elk Island’s geocaches are visible on geocaching.com with a free account, but not all. You literally can’t complete the game unless you pay $12 for a membership.<\/p>\n
Tenth, one of the geocaches is on an island. That in itself is not terrible; it’s kind of interesting actually. The problem is that it’s only accessible by boat, and the boat rentals are only open on weekends.<\/p>\n
So the summary is that you can’t finish their game unless you pay for a membership with a third party service. You also have to visit the park on the weekend and \u00a0rent, bring your own boat, or swim. All those requirements are not family trip friendly. Those Johnston Kids actually worked pretty hard looking for 5 of the 8 caches, but we threw in the towel in disgust when we realized that we couldn’t actually finish.<\/p>\n
We did get in a couple of good hikes while searching. Hikes is the euphemism we use to describe running, screaming, hand-waving through the mosquito infested woods: “I got it, I got it! Go! Go! Just go! Aagh! #$%^, they’re biting my liver!”<\/p>\n
More thrilling, we saw lots of bison up relatively close. It’s hard to describe how truly majestic and almost ancient these animals appear. They are not creatures, they are the remnant of an immensely powerful spirit. The bison are of this place and you can feel it when you see them move. The government should be making it a priority to restore them in real numbers. A million bison would not be enough, but it would be a promise to the future.<\/p>\n
I traveled with a friend once who called me ‘Storm Boy’, in Japanese, because it rained everywhere we went. I once went to the Mohave Desert in June and witnessed a snowfall. I refrain from dancing often because with great power comes great responsibility. These hips could cause natural calamity. Saskatoon was dry as a bone when we pulled in, and raining buckets as we pulled out of town. Wes, the Saskatoon Campland RV Resort owner, was tearfully thankful for his luscious lawns. The clouds followed us westwards.<\/p>\n
Even so,\u00a0with all the forest fires in western provinces, we haven’t been allowed to have a campfire anywhere west of Manitoba. I threw together curried plantains and vegetables on the propane stove while grumblers\u00a0massed overhead. The life giving rains began as cleaned our dishes. As sidekick to my Storm Boy, Short Pants has adopted the alter ego Kid Lightning, and the XX’s are known as the Hurricane Girls. We are water people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The next greatest thing we found at the West Edmonton Mall that day was a T&T grocery. I don’t know why I was surprised – there’s a large Asian demographic in Edmonton – but it was like finding a piece of home on the road. We stocked up on our favourite snacks. They even had … Continue reading They Call Him GeoCaches With Bison<\/span>