Earth Day cleanup volunteer, Michelle Olson, found more than the usual garbage while clearing up the river path near Riverside Drive East, on Thursday, April 22.
Among the cans, bottles and fast food containers, she found an item she thought was a “geocache,” a small waterproof box containing various items and a log book, hidden as part of a worldwide game dedicated to global position system (GPS) users, called “geocaching.”
Olson brought her find to the barbecue Encana put on for the volunteers who took part in the Earth Day cleanup held at Heartwood Inn & Spa.
“I knew it had to be something to do with geocaching, I am aware of the concept,” Olson told The Mail, “I thought it was kind of neat, so I brought it back to the Heartwood as something of interest.”
As the contents were examined, an instruction sheet explained that this box was indeed a geocache.
Geocaching containers are hidden by game players and their GPS locations put on a dedicated website for other players to find.
When the container is found, players leave a comment on the log book in the geocache, can swap an item from the box and leave a comment on the website.
Most importantly, finders must leave the geocache at the same location for other players to find.
The particular geocache found was started in August 2002 and is part of a seven part multi-cache that require game players to visit six locations in the Badlands, with a final cache to find.
The geocaching website, found at geocaching.com, logs this item has been found some 195 times since the game started and the last find before Earth Day was on April 19, 2010.
The box has now been placed back in its hidden location, with one item added by Patrice Wolf, owner of the Heartwood Inn & Spa.
