One of our first completed caches

A few weeks ago, we went out with a GPS device (Global Positioning System) and a few magnetic key boxes, hiding them around the city. This marked the start of our participation in a little sport/hobby called geocaching.

What is geocaching? According to Wikipedia:

Geocaching is an outdoor activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called “geocaches” or “caches”) anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container (usually a tupperware or ammo box) containing a logbook. Larger containers can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little value. Geocaching is most often described as a “game of high-tech hide and seek”, sharing many aspects with orienteering, treasure-hunting, and waymarking.

Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica. As of February 8, 2010, there are over 984,900 active geocaches over the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching

Museums have been involved with the geocaching movement for awhile. Popular museum blog Museums 2.0 had a great post on geocaching a year-and-a-half ago. In fact, thanks to the recent introduction GPS-enabled cell phones, this activity is suddenly becoming much more approachable for the general public and geocaching, as well as other location-based activities, are likely to explode in popularity.

A quick search suggests that most Canadian museums have caches hidden close by, whether they know it or not; some, like the nearby Port Moody Station Museum have even been gracious enough to permit them on their property.

These three caches were placed in late January

So what about the caches we hid? (Pictures are on the right; click on the image for a closer look.)

Each our caches has been placed near a historical location in the city, and each includes information about the location. Our first three spots? A strip club with a racy history, a Chinatown alley that was once a bustling center of vice and a location with a creepy past–our own building. A list of our caches is available on the Geocaching website, but you won’t get to see the coordinates unless you sign up to become a geocacher yourself. Already, in just a few weeks, our three caches have been found almost 100 times!

We chose to use magnetic key boxes because they’re easiest to hide in an urban environment, although they have two important drawbacks: they’re not waterproof, and they don’t leave much room for those who find them to leave items for trade. We’ll be re-evaluating our cache containers for the next round of hides.

The initial contents of our first caches

As with any group, we didn’t want to get involved in something without understanding the expectations of the community; Anthony Floyd (Aerodoq on geocaching.com) has provided invaluable assistance in helping us learn what’s good practice and how to be an active participant in that community. We’re also glad we found the BC Geocaching Association.

One of the most important lessons was that commercial messages are strictly not allowed. It might be tempting to explicitly market our museum through our (or others’) geocaches, but this always instead works against you. Our caches only make a brief mention of the museum, just to point out that we placed it. Instead, we see them more as an educational tool: those who already geocache get introduced to places and pieces of history in a way they enjoy, and (hopefully) those who are interested in history will learn about this project and develop their own interest in geocaching. (It really is a fun activity!)

Each of our caches contains history info about its location

Mostly, we’re just excited for the possibilities that our involvement can contribute in a significant way to building a real sense of place. Just in a few weeks of searching for geocaches ourselves, we’ve already discovered gorgeous vistas, hidden treasures and special little places we would have never found without a little encouragement. Hopefully, the caches we’re placing will help encourage people to feel a deeper connection with the past lives of the places they frequent, but rarely think about.

We look forward to “losing” our keys (or much bigger things) soon.

Want to start geocaching, yourself? Visit the Geocaching website to sign up for a free account. Also, if you live in British Columbia, be sure to check out the BC Geocaching Association; they do great work spreading the word about learning opportunities, special events and more. Their memberships are also free.

Next Thursday (June 4) at 6:00 PM, we’ll be hosting a special tour for our twitter friends, digging a little deeper and being a little braver than usual as we show off the newest iteration of our naughty little tour.

There will be an open house from 4:00-6:00 PM at the museum and then we’ll head out on our walk. Everyone is welcome to the open house, but you have to reserve a spot for the walk. (30 spots available for now but I’m going to try and get some of our other guides to come out, then we can take more people.)

To reserve your spot, please comment below with your Twitter ID and whether you’re bringing a guest. (I’ll update this post as additional spots become available, but don’t be shy about adding your name to the list if we’re past 30 already.) We’ll confirm with everyone through email or Twitter early next week.

We look forward to seeing you next week!

Part-Time Employment Opportunity

Sins of the City Walking Tour Guide

Are you an outspoken heritage interpreter who can tell a story (and a joke), handle a heckler or two and engage a group of 30 tourists on the sidewalks of Vancouver?

Our ideal candidate will be able to work independently, have experience giving tours, a quick wit, and an interest in learning and sharing the history of Vancouver’s naughtier side.

Tours run May 9 to September 31, 2009, are two hours long and run several times a week. Workload and hours are flexible—most tours are in the afternoon and on weekends.

Closing Date: April 9, 2009

If you follow this blog, you already know about our Sins of the City walking tours; they’ve been one of the more popular things we’ve launched in the last few years. They’ve now grown enough that we need additional help to deliver them. Please help spread the word about this fun, and unusual, job. The detailed posting can be found here.

Come join our team!

The next day, we received a phone call from someone who said they’d seen the interview on TV and were wondering if we’d like some more information about her father. Turns out, her father was Detective Ricci and she had boxes and boxes of newspaper clippings about her father’s incredible career as a police officer.

Ricci was no ordinary officer; he was a minor celebrity in Vancouver, mentioned in the newspaper once or twice a week for another one of his exploits busting the gambling dens, opium houses and brothels in Chinatown.  (See our previous blog entry Stalwart Defenders of the City’s Morals go Beyond the Call for more information on Ricci and his partner Det. Sinclair).

Over the next few months, we’ll be pouring through those newspaper clippings and other personal information; many of these stories will be added to the Sins of the City tour this summer, for sure! Down the road, you might even see a book published from this.

Hidden Places (Photo: Aki Mimoto)

Frequently, at the end of the Sins of the City tour, I’ll ask participants about their favourite part of the tour. The top answers are usually pretty predictable:

• opium dens
• the old brothel district
• Blood Alley
• the ping pong ball
• the tunnels under Chinatown

Bricks (Photo: Aki Mimoto)

Each one has a special place in my heart (especially the ping pong ball!) but it’s the tunnels under Chinatown that seem to engage the most people. Everyone’s heard the stories about the extensive secret network of tunnels that run from the water all the way to the heart of Chinatown. Used for smuggling people, booze, drugs and other contraband between the opium dends, gambling houses and mysterious warehouses, these sound like amazing places that any urban explorer would be thrilled to poke around. (Maybe someone should start a guided tour and sell tickets! Hmmm….)

Secret Spaces (Photo: Aki Mimoto)

Hundred-year-old newspaper headlines like “Getaway is Under the Ground” or “Police Explore Chinese Tunnels” (both of which are discussed on the tour) reinforce the excitement, as do stories of the police taking a pick-axe to the sidewalk at #10 E. Pender to gain access to the opium den underground. And then there are those purple glass tiles in the sidewalks…

So what IS underground in Chinatown? Telling too much would ruin the tour, of course, but we photo-documented one of our recent adventures and you’ll see the pictures to the right. My good friend Aki Mimoto (http://www.disconti.nu/) took these pictures. There are other photos, as well, but I’m saving those for next year’s tour.

Underneath (Photo: Aki Mimoto)

(For those who came on the tour this year, remember to take a look at the satellite view in Google Maps to see that hidden treasure in Chinatown I told you about…)

Through the winter, we’re going to take many more pictures of some of the cool places hidden in Chinatown and Gastown and we might post some of them on this blog, or on his website.

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/mysterious-chinese-tunnels.html

I’ll post soon about the “truth” behind our own tunnels…