The red-haired witch

As an unofficial representative of the wiccan community, I can reassure you : I am not offended by this comment. Actually, I am happy to see that you consider druids and wiccans as distinct from weird fringe groups. The guy from the original "article", I do find offensive though. He seems to believe that a sacred space in the wilderness (and on public land) is owned by him and his friends and that no one else should have access to it. He even seems to think that hikers walking through a forest are destroying it. Maybe if they're throwing garbage everywhere, carving their initials in trees or picking endengered plants, but not if they ae just walking. So they create a trail... he probably never noticed that wild animals also create trails Hikers (including Geocachers) are generally good for the wilderness : they are the people who appreciate it and push for more laws protecting the environment. Sure, they cause temporary damage to the ground and plants on a small area, but if its helping a much larger area to be preserved, I think its all good. How many people have visited Stonehenge (or the Vatican, or Jerusalem, to include other religions)? Does that mean those places are no longer sacred? Should they be limited to a small elite group? That guy seems to think so. I don't know anything about the author outside from what is in this thread, but I can assure you he is not representative of most wiccans or pagans. And, for the record, I'm not a vegetarian

A small suggestion : roots. I made my staff out of a root (from a dead thuya tree) instead of a branch. Roots appear to be much stronger than branches for the same weight and diameter. They also tend to have interesting shapes (even though you want a rather straight one). I couldn't cure it before using it, since it was an emergency (sprained ankle on top of mountain), but I later let it dry leaning in a dark corner of my room after removing the bark and it only developped very slight cracking at the top end (now reinforced with cord wrapped around).

First, I have to point out that one foot of snow is not deep snow. Deep snow is when you can sink to your waist in it But its true that one foot of snow is enough to hide most containers (except maybe the large size caches, but I've seen very few of those around). I think your first idea (looking for caches hidden higher) is the best. Lots of cache pages in Canada will indicate if the cache is winter friendly. If it is, it usually mean that its hidden in a tree, fence, wall, cliff... basically, not on the ground. Some people do dig for caches, but when you have a 20 feet accuracy on your GPS fix, it makes for a whole lot of snow to shovel As for me, now that there is finally a layer of snow above the layers of ice (I hate freezing rain), I might finally go find some of those famous winter friendly caches...but maybe I should bring an ice pick.

I would not be inclined to go visit this place, but , still, I see no reason to blame the cache approvers. The cache approvers check if the cache follows the guidelines. It does. There is nothing in the guidelines saying "the cache must be in good taste". Actually, bad taste is a very subjective thing, I would not want the cache approvers to systematically judge that. If you must blame someone, blame the person who placed the cache. In defense of this person, I would like to note that the nature of the location seems to be indicated clearly on the cache page, clearly enough for any local cacher to know what it is about, at the very least, and not go there if they did not want to. It would have been much worse if the cache page had said nothing specific about the place other than the coordinates. Then, unsuspecting cachers might have realised where they were only once near the cache.

"Mines" veut tout simplement dire "À moi" (ce que disent disent les mouettes dans "Finding Nemo" ) et indique donc que c'est ta cache. Pour ce qui est des icônes, si tu laisse ton curseur sur une icône quelques secondes, la signification devrait apparaître dans une petite étiquette près du curseur. En anglais bien sûr, mais on peut s`y attendre, c'est un site américain après tout. Bienvenue dans le club sélect des Géocacheurs francophones d'Amérique

I heard there is in England... they use the ferrets to hunt rabbits . It involves putting nets over all the entrances to the rabbit holes except one and sending the ferret in the last entrance, hence scaring the rabbit into the net. If you meant hunting ferrets , then you are out of luck as the only wild species, the black footed ferret (a not-so-close cousin of the domestic ferret), is almost extinct. Go hunt rabbits instead, they're edible at least (I still haven't figured why people hunt things they can't eat). I find it weird how so many US States made ferret ownership illegal by saying it is a wild animal, considering that species doesn't even exist in the wild. They are legal in Quebec (and most of Canada I believe), no special permit required. I used to own two, but they died recently. They are really lovable pets, but sadly have a short life expectancy (about half that of a cat). They do teach you to search for the things they hide, but also for them... you never know where they will go. And I've never found a harness that could stop them from escaping if they wanted too, so bringing them outside was not an option. I'm sure ferrets could be trained to find caches... if you do it, we want to see pictures!

Well, I believe that those caches do need coordinates, or nobody would be able to find which ones are nearby. Plus the coordinates bring you to the needed plaque, historical marker or other lcation you need to go to to find the actual coordinates (which are usually not more than a short drive from the given coordinates) But I agree that those caches should be corrected as unknown. And people should update the size of their containers for caches already in existence. If they have so many that they cannot update the listings, how can they posibly maintain them? I understand that it cannot be done in a week, but they've had a couple of months... I wonder, though, are precise dimensions for each size category given somewhere?

Have dominion over? This sounds suspiciously like something out of a religious text. And religious texts are never good arguments to prove anything in my opinion. Now, if you mean that a rider should be in control of their horse, fine, I agree, but unless you are a trained rodeo rider (maybe) you probabably can't stay on a panicking horse. And no matter how good a rider you are, sometimes you can't stop a horse from panicking over some strange light or sound (or a wasp or a snake... not all accidents are someone's fault... sometimes they are, well, accidents). You're certainly not saying that humans can mind-control animals and stop them from being scared and that those biologists should have somehow forced the endangered birds to go back to their nest and take care of it? Well, I hate to point the obvious, but the environmentally friendly solution is to not release any mylar balloons. If you want to use them as decorations, only do it inside. If your kid wants one, tie it to his wrist so that it doesn't "escape into the wild". I mean, there are difficult environmental problems to solve, such as how to reduce pollution when producing the energy we need. But nobody really "needs" Mylar balloons...

7 years was the design life. A bit like the warranty on something you buy. Basically, after that date, you can't complain to the company if it fails, it did what they said it would do. The satellite they just replaced was still working (but barely) after more than 23 years in orbit!

I agree with Chemfed. Probably practitionners of Santeria or a similar religion. I've known a few Satanists and they didn't do animal sacrifices. I'm not saying that killing chickens is wrong (I do eat chicken, after all), but the people who did that ritual should really have picked up after themselves though. The chicken would probably have been eaten by local animals quickly, but not the clothes. A fair warning by the way : if you are horrifed by the sight of dead chickens, keep away from the grocery store, they usually have fridges full of such things.

Vous pouvez voir le reportage des nouvelles de Radio-Canada sur le geocaching en utilisant ces liens. Avertissement: le reportage peut contenir des "spoilers" de certaines caches de la région de Montréal. page des nouvelles reportage

After a really quick read over lunch time, I can say the only possible impact of this plan on geocaching seems to be the possibility of access fees Other than that, the news are good : more access points trails are planned (and public transportation to the Gamelin access!), more winter hiking trails too, no mentions of cracking down on off-trail hiking. They do say they want to limit competitive and motorized sports in the park, and they also mention a list of activities they want to stop : extreme sports (ie adventure racing), rock climbing on the Eardley escarpment, snowmobile, winter fishing, radio-controlled planes, naturism (except in feeding the mosquitoes, how does that impact the environment? ). Actually, the zone marked as "deep conservation area" has very few caches as it is, since most caches are near the trails, so in the "recreational area". Overall, not much to worry about, unless you cache naked .

Here`s a link to the famous plan. A couple hundred of pages to read, so no, I haven't gone through it yet. the plan

Haven't managed to find the actual plan yet to read it in details, but what I get from the summary is : 1) They want to charge more people to use the park, which might mean more parking fees or access fees for example. 2) The comment about mapping seems to be directed toward the orienteering community. As a member of the Ottawa Orienteering Club, I know that park employees have complained about the fact that "non-official" trails are on our maps. An orienteering map, to be usable, needs to describe accurately the terrain. We can't pretend that those trails don't exist. We didn't create them, but we will draw them if they are there. The fact that we don't use the same part of the park for an event more than once in a season has seemed to satisfy park officials so far, I hope this is not changing. The most important quote in the article seems to be: "If the plan goes through, growth in human activities will be concentrated around the park's edges, leaving the centre pretty much the way it is." Meaning they are not going to make new trails, except maybe on the edge of the park and are trying to stop people from creating more. Therefore, I think they intend to limit the use of motorized equipment in the park and, possibly, some sports like orienteering and adventure racing, that hold events inside park limits with large numbers of people at once. Since geocachers generally use the official trails, with usually a little bit of bushwacking at the end, they don't use those illegal trails and geocaching should not be a problem, unless a cache is so popular that a trail leading to it appears. Or unless they plan to forbid anyone to get off the trails (how could they possibly enforce that?) As for mountain biking, its already forbidden on most trails (expept the roads, the largest trails and Camp Fortune), so they're probably talking about applying the actual rules, not changing them. The mountain bikers seem indeed to be responsible for many of the trails that so annoy park officials. How do I know? Well, many of those trails are dotted with strange constructions made of branches and designed as mountain bike obstacles... Now, the trail might have been a game trail at first (so many deers), but once those obstacles are built, the mountain bikers are asking to be blamed.

Actually, at this time of year, it is, but its also just plain full. This cache was only a couple of meters from a busy trail, and busy in Gatineau Park means hundreds of people a day on weekends. The hiding spot was great, but it was in an open area where is likely someone took a few steps off the path to rest or eat, looked down and saw the cache. It is also possible that the cache was found by a park employee picking up trash (a park employee was cutting grass 20 meters from that spot when I arrived). I know the intention was to make the cache family friendly, but being a bit further away from the path would increase the survival chances of a replacement cache. I agree that this is a very nice area and the cache should be replaced, just not exactly in the same spot.

Checked early this morning (I realised it was closer to home than I thought), but I only have bad news. The cache is gone. The cache page has a picture of the hiding spot, so I knew I was in the right place, but no container, sorry.

Well, I never even thought some places would regulate hunting according to the day of the week (is that for religious reasons?), but hunting is definitely permitted on Sundays in Canada, though the big game hunting season is rather short. Two good ways to stay safe : the security vests, as other people have said, are good (as long as you don't meet color-blind hunters), but even better is going caching in parks where hunting is not allowed... if you have those in the States And don't go caching in a fur coat!

Going camping in Gatineau Park this weekend, I'll see if I can find it...

There is an army surplus store at 121 St-Joseph in Hull, if you're not afraid of crossing the "border" (I know some Ottawa people who are )

I've only been geocaching for a short time, but I've always gone alone, as my husband doesn't seem interested. Being alone in the wilderness has never bothered me, be it for hiking, cross-country skiing or now geocaching. I'm never more than a few hours from civilisation and there is always someone who knows what area the rescue people should be sent if I don't return I feel much safer alone deep in the woods then alone in the city. More weird people in the city. Do you really think that a sexual predator is going to wait 3 days on a little used hiking path in a national park for a woman to go by? Most violent crime happens in very high-density population area. You're very safe when there is no one around. For those who worry about the wildlife, very few wild animals are actively hunting humans (with the notable exception of mosquitoes, black flies and other little buggers). And you have more chances of getting attacked by a dog then by a wolf... So my advice for caching alone would be the opposite of what most people said: go for wilderness caches, avoid urban settings. Take a waypoint at your car, bring your map and compass, a first aid kit, matches, water... That's not being paranoid, that's being prepared